Cisco Continuing Education Program
The Cisco Continuing Education Program offers Associate, Specialist, Professional and Expert level Cisco certification holders flexible options to recertify by completing a variety of pre-approved eligible activities.
Use the Continuing Education portal to view a catalog of eligible activities/trainings and submit claims for Continuing Education (CE) credits. You must be actively certified, and your Cisco.com ID(s) must be associated with your certification profile (CSCO ID/number) to log in.
- If you complete CE activities under various email addresses (for example; work vs. personal), ensure each is registered on Cisco.com, and open a support ticket to have your additional Cisco.com ID(s) added to your profile in the Certification Tracking System.
- FAQ: Continuing Education & Cisco.com accounts
My Dashboard
- On the CE dashboard, you can find important announcements
- See your certification summary in the Certification table
- View your CE claim history in the My Item(s) table
Item Catalog
On this page, view the items that are eligible for CE credits and their corresponding credit value. Filter option available.
Item Types:
- Instructor-led Training (ILT)—in-person or virtual (vILT) training delivered by an external authorized Learning Partner. Also includes Derivative Works courses.
- Cisco U. Learning Path—Eligible learning paths completed through Cisco U.
- Cisco Direct Delivery—digital/self-paced e-learning completed from Cisco Digital Learning (CDL), or specialized instructor-led workshops delivered by groups within Cisco. Also used for CCSI deliveries through the CIMS portal, If you are not a CCSI, do not select titles labeled “[CCSI]”.
- Activity—Primarily used for item authoring by SMEs working directly with EPM. May also be used for special offerings that do not fall into any other item type.
- Cisco Live Training— Eligible technical sessions listed on CE program public site, consistent across events. Cisco.com account used to register for Cisco Live, must be associated with certification profile (CSCO) to earn credits.
- Derivative Works—Custom ILT courses using partial Cisco content, developed by authorized learning partners, approved as a DW, and eligible for CE credits (this item type is being phased out and DW courses are being added as ILT items).
- Automation Bootcamp—Intensive hands-on immersive training experience in various Cisco automation technologies.
Important to note:
- Through efforts to improve candidate experience, the Item Catalog is constantly being updated and refined. Some Item Type icons may not appear, and item categories may change. These elements do not impact your ability to claim credits.
- If a training is eligible for CE credits, it is eligible regardless of delivery modality. There may be a delay in an item being listed or removed in our catalog for a specific training, version, or delivery option. We appreciate your patience
Complete Eligible Activities
- When registering for a course, ensure it is an authorized delivery.
- CE credits will not be granted for gray-market deliveries because Cisco cannot validate completion or attest to the accuracy of content being delivered.
- Good resources for finding authorized deliveries include:
You’ll now earn CE credits when you pass a certification exam. CE credits for passing exams will combine with credits earned from completing trainings and apply towards your recertification automatically. Excess/unused credits will roll-over to next recertification cycle.
Credits earned by exam type:
- Associate-level exams: 30 credits
- Professional-level concentration exams: 40 credits
- Technology Core exams: 80 credits
- Expert-level written or lab exams: 120 credits
- delivery option. We appreciate your patience
View submitted claims on your dashboard
Automated CE credits timeline:
- Credits for digital/online e-learning, or Cisco U. Learning Path, should be awarded instantly upon completion, but may take up to 48 hours. If you do not receive your credits within 48 hours of completion, please manually submit a claim.
- Credits for Instructor-led training are awarded as soon as your Learning Partner marks your completion in the appropriate system. We’ve asked our Learning Partners to indicate course completion within 2 business days of the end of the class. If you do not receive your credits within 2 business days of completion, please manually submit a claim.
- CE credits for eligible Cisco Live technical sessions will be automatically awarded within 2 business days following the conclusion of the event. Credits for Capture-the-flag activities completed at a Cisco Live event will be awarded at the end of each day of the conference.
Manually submitted claim approval times:
- While most Continuing Education claims are validated within seven days of submission, it can take up to 30 days for a claim to be validated.
- Please only open a support case if your claim has been pending for more than 30 days. Credits for valid claims will retroactively apply towards your recertification based on completion date, not submission or approval date.
Claim statuses:
- In Progress—occasionally automated claims may fall into this status for a variety of reasons. Please wait upto a week for the claim to show ‘Earned’. If the claim is still “in progress” after a week, please open a support case.
- Earned—claim has been validated and credits are applied towards your recertification progress based on the activity completion date. Credits are valid for 3 years.
- Pending—claim is pending validation by provider.
- Denied—claim could not be validated. There are several reasons why a claim may be denied; from inadequate completion, unexpected behavior, mismatched credentials, or CE policy enforcement.
Hover over the icon for details or contact your provider for an explanation.