This is an overview of most (but likely not all) queries we receive once certificates have been sent out and how to respond to them.
KEY:
Canned Response
Solution article (unless it’s hyperlinked)
- Requests for certificate tracking number:
2025 Certificate tracking info.xlsx contains all the tracking info – to respond to these requests, simply find the school, copy the tracking URL and use the canned response “Australia Post Tracking Number” (this is in the Certificates and Medals folder).
- Coordinators reporting that certificates for students are missing:
Most of the time, these students are eligible for Gold / Platinum awards.
There IS a solution article – Students are missing from the Challenge Completion certificate report – which encourages them to run the SRR count report.
However, if the coordinator seems panicked, or if they are new to the PRC, they might not read this fully – and will sometimes respond again not knowing what to do.
There’s an alternative response (that will also require more work from you) that you can give to coordinators who you feel need a little extra assistance.
Send them the Canned response called Providing SRR count for missing students.
When I do this, I sort the spreadsheet like this:
Then highlight any students with an SRR count of 4 in Yellow, and any with 7 in Grey:
If the students who are missing from their certificate report AREN’T eligible for a Gold or Platinum, the student’s reading record hasn’t been completed.
You’ll then need to direct them to apply for post-challenge validation: https://artsunit.nsw.edu.au/program/nsw-premiers-reading-challenge/nsw-premiers-reading-challenge-post-challenge-validation
- Schools/parents asking why a specific student didn’t get an award this year, or reach a milestone award: Check the student’s reading record and use the canned response “Student reading record not listed for previous challenge” – this includes the link to the application.
IMPORANT TO NOTE: Sometimes a student misses out because their account has been incorrectly merged or they have duplicate accounts. These take a bit of investigation to resolve.
Public students: This will be caused by a change in the student’s DoE ID (either because they changed names or a typo occurred during registration, and their DoE ID has been regenerated to fix it). Merge the accounts, check for milestone award eligibility, and submit a ticket to ITD to delete the old duplicate account.
Nongov students: This can be caused by:
- Coordinator accidentally a new student into an old student account when uploading OR
- By the PRC automated merge.
Coordinator errors will always be at the same school – usually an older student account is “updated” into a new student account during the upload process – so the DoE ID and student names will be different. Canned response: Modify “Student with incorrect details on their account” (this is an example of a response that you can edit so you can follow the logic)
PRC merge errors will be at different schools – often merging a new student back to their OLD school, or sometimes an incorrect merge performed manually. Canned response: Incorrect merge, account disappeared
- Emailing certificates to independent / homeschool students
This is a long, tedious process – but is a great way to break up Freshdesk (I personally like to attack these with a podcast or audiobook playing) NOTE: It’s less work if you can send these through Outlook (make sure you’re sending as PRC, not yourself) so you don’t have to fill in the ticket fields for every outbound email.
Canned responses (that you can then copy over to Outlook and keep in your clipboard):
“Sending out homeschool certificate”
“Sending out independent certificate”
‘Forwarding certificates to schools with independent students”
All are located in the certificates and medals folder.
There are 3 categories of emails you’ll be sending out:
Homeschool certs (easy!!)
Independent student certs to parents (multi-step!)
Forwarding copies of certificates to schools (crossover for this!)
I have collated all of these into one spreadsheet located in the GENERAL folder on teams (direct link: 
Independent and homeschool certs to send.xlsx)
There will be an overlap in these spreadsheets due to our imperfect system; the first 2 spreadsheets are pulled from our certificate request form we send out to Homeschool & Independent students when they request we validate their reading records. Of course, not everyone fills these in, and not everyone requests validation, so there are gaps!
This is where the 3rd tab of the spreadsheet comes in: This is a report of all the schools active SRRs but not coordinator listed, which will also capture homeschools. I have set up an XLookup to try and flag any homeschools that have already been captured in the first tab, but this may not work if the parent has entered the school with different spelling / spacing. Note: We use Young homeschool as our base school for Year 11-12 SSP students – check any at this school carefully as they may not be valid students / might need to be pushed to their proper school.
When working through the Schools without coordinator list, focus first on the schools with the largest number of certificates. The canned response noted below gently encourages these schools to consider running the PRC themselves (looking at you, St Margaret Marys and St Catherine of Sienna…)
When working through the independent students, if you notice more than the students listed at a particular school, make sure you send ALL certs to the coordinator email then cross reference it on the Schools without Coordinator tab. It’s possible that some independent students will be listed at a school WITH a coordinator. It’s best to be safe than sorry and send this anyway, as the coordinator may have left or decided not to facilitate the PRC this year. Just make sure you tweak the canned response a little – essentially say a parent/carer has registered their child as an independent student, even though we can see X staff member/s have coordinator access. If this staff member is coordinating the challenge, please let us know – they will also be able to download the certificates. Apologies if this is the case – we just don’t want student/s to miss out on receiving their award.
- Students receiving milestone awards when they aren’t eligible:
There are always a large number of Year 2 and Year 5 students who will have received a Gold/Platinum, and coordinators will be confused / concerned at not being able to print a certificate for them.
To resolve these:
- Look at the students’ reading record to identify what schools their participation was from (this will help you pick up incorrect merges)
- Look up the student on ERN (this will need to be done by Karen or Ashleigh) and view their enrolment history. You’ll usually be able to tell if they have repeated a year (in which case, they are eligible for the Gold/Platinum) OR if they were enrolled then withdrawn before completing the year (in this scenario, delete the oldest year’s challenge history, which will allow the coordinator to download a certificate)
- Post-Challenge validation applications
Read about the process in this support article: https://prcsupport.freshdesk.com/a/solutions/articles/6000073497
When you see a post-challenge validation application, respond with Solution “Post challenge validation process overview – step two: https://prcsupport.freshdesk.com/a/solutions/articles/6000086004 - Make sure you CC in the coordinator and copy the application ID from the webform
NOTE: If the application is for multiple students, you’ll need a password to download the file linked in the email:
Username: PRC
Password: R&ND*dtdW4ig
When you see a reading record submitted as part of this process, respond with canned responses:
“Post challenge validation completed multiple students” or
“Post challenge validation completed single student”
Don’t forget to add any eligible students to the EOC Certificate request spreadsheet!
- Certificate reprint requests: These can be due to packing error (missing certs/medals), damage during printing or delivery (SBM responsibility) or because the student name is incorrect.
For damaged certs: “Certificates arrived damaged or misprinted”. Save yourself time by copying the students’ names and grades from the 
2025 Quick reference award sheet.xlsx and pasting these into the reprint spreadsheet
For packing errors: Double check against the 
2025 Quick reference award sheet.xlsx that the student actually appeared on our list. If they did, send the canned response “packing error – certificates missing”
It is possible for our system to not pick up a student’s eligibility – especially for Year 10 medal recipients. If this is the case, use “System didn't pick up eligibility”