Good news! CIPS has implemented a manual workaround to overcome the technical difficulties that have been experienced on their IT platform. In short, this means you can continue to book your exams with confidence and we will work with CIPS on their manual workaround to get your exams booked in time for the November exams.
As many of our CIPS learners know, CIPS is currently implementing an upgrade to its IT platform. The project has been on-going for a few months and will result in a much improved customer experience for all CIPS learners, including better booking systems, improved assessment tracking systems and better online learning resources.
Unfortunately the upgrade hasn’t gone to plan during the summer and the project has been delayed. This has resulted in problems being experienced for those sitting the September exams, and also for anyone trying to book exams for the forthcoming November exams.
We believe this is only a short-term problem. So here’s what you need to do…
If you already study CIPS qualifications with us:
Relax, just use our online exam booking system in the normal way and we will book your exams with CIPS for you.
Please note: due to a last minute policy change, CIPS requires you to be registered with ourselves (“Cordie - New Forest”) in order for us to be permitted to book your exams. You can do this by checking your study centre status in your online “MyCIPS” account and selecting our study centre name. Alternatively, we can add you to the system ourselves with your permission and the necessary personal information. Unfortunately, this does mean that if you are registered on MyCIPS as a ‘self-study’ student then we are not permitted to make any exam bookings for you.
If you are are studying on the Commercial Apprenticeship with Cordie:
Again, relax, we have this covered for you! Please continue to liaise with your Apprenticeship Programme Coordinator and they will ensure your exams are booked for you in good time.
Please note: this does mean you and your Employer need to have all of the necessary administration and IDAMS account information up-to-date - but don’t worry about this, we will have been in touch with you already to support you through this.
If you are a ‘self-study’ student:
As mentioned above, Cordie is able to book exams on your behalf for all CIPS learners that are registered with us as your study centre. This is shown as such on your “MyCIPS” account.
However, if you are registered as a self-study learner then you must book your exams directly with CIPS yourself. We are unable to book your exams for you. We do appreciate there have some extensive technical difficulties over recent weeks, but we have been repeatedly reassured by CIPS that they are working on these.
To register with us as your study centre and to have Cordie book your exams on your behalf, you will need to drop your ‘self-study’ status. At present, we are only offering to book exams for our customers who study directly with us and not to the ‘world at large’ (perhaps for obvious reasons). We hope you will understand this, but we want to provide a seamless priority service for our paying customers and this therefore is the only way of successfully achieving this at this time.
We are confident that the technical difficulties with the CIPS IT platform is only a short-lived problem and that all will be resolved in good time for the onset of the March 2023 exams. However if you have any worries or concerns, do please reach out either directly to CIPS or to ourselves (using the contact form below) and we will advise you how to get your exams booked. We will also keep you updated via our social media pages on LinkedIn and Twitter.