Reinstate a Session

Reinstating hands a completed session back to the candidate as a resumed attempt — not a fresh one. Everything they answered is preserved; they continue from where you decide, with the time you decide. It's the remedy for candidates who lost connection, suffered a power cut, were wrongly terminated, were kicked out of a lockdown exam for exceeding its violation or resume limits — or who simply need to go through the exam again.

Opening the Reinstate Dialog

• Test Sessions tab — open the row's 3-dot menu and choose Reinstate, or select several sessions to reinstate them in bulk.
• Session report — click Reinstate in the report's left menu.
• Exam Monitor — reinstate a single candidate, or several at once with Auto reinstate.

Reinstate is available for completed sessions, and for sessions you already reinstated that the candidate hasn't resumed yet (see Correcting a Reinstatement). A session that's still in progress must be ended first.

What the Dialog Shows

The dialog lists the exam's structure: the test on top, then one card per section with its pages. Introduction (content) pages appear as plain rows. Each row can show:

• Lock — an open or closed padlock on sections and pages. See Locking Sections and Pages.
• Starting flag — on pages, marks or sets where the candidate resumes. See Choosing Where the Candidate Resumes.
• Navigation — an icon showing whether the test or section allows going forward and backward, only backward, or neither.
• Recording attempts — on pages with audio or video questions that limit recordings. See Recording Attempts.
• Info — the interaction data for that test, section or page: visits, submissions, questions answered, the original time limit, and the time actually spent.
• Set time limit — the time the candidate gets for that test, section or page after reinstating.

When the dialog opens, it's already filled in for continuing where the candidate left off: the starting point is the last page they reached, time limits are set to the time they had left, and sections or pages whose time ran out are locked. Recording attempts are not given back until you choose to. You can change anything before confirming.

Quick Setup

Quick Setup, at the bottom left, fills in the whole form for one of two common situations. It only fills in the form — nothing happens until you click Reinstate, and you can still adjust anything afterwards. A check mark shows which setup was applied last.

Tip: if the exam has time limits on its pages and the candidate finished it, the time of almost every page has run out — so Continue where they left off locks almost everything. To have the candidate redo the exam, use Start over from the beginning.

Choosing Where the Candidate Resumes

• Only question pages the candidate has already visited can be chosen as the starting page. They show an outlined flag — click it to start there.
• A filled flag marks the current starting point. The page or section that contains it can't be locked.
• If the candidate hasn't reached any question page yet, no page can be chosen; the dialog says so, and the filled flag sits on the introduction page where they'll resume.
• The candidate re-enters at the starting point. From there, they can move to other unlocked pages as the exam's navigation allows.

Locking Sections and Pages

• A locked section or page is disabled after reinstating — the candidate can't navigate to it at all.
• An unlocked one can be visited, and its answers changed, once the session resumes.
• Locking or unlocking a section does the same to all of its pages.
• Before confirming, make sure every page you want the candidate to work on is unlocked.

Time Limits

Each row — test, section and page — has a Set time limit option with a value in minutes. The candidate gets that much time at that level once the session resumes; leave it unchecked for no limit at that level. A candidate who lost 10 minutes can get exactly those 10 minutes back — no more. The Info icon on each row shows the original limit and the time actually spent, to help you decide.

Recording Attempts (Audio & Video)

Audio and video questions can limit how many times the candidate may record. Reinstating reopens the page, but attempts already used stay used — a candidate who ran out can open the question and watch their earlier recordings, but can't record a new one. That's why the dialog lets you give used attempts back.

Every unlocked page with such questions shows an icon that tells you its state at a glance:

Click the icon to see each question with the number of attempts it has left. If an earlier reinstatement already raised a question's limit, that's noted under it. Turn on Give back used attempts to give them back for every question on the page — each row then shows how many attempts will be left after reinstating.

• How much is given back: each question's limit becomes the attempts already used plus its original limit, so the candidate gets the original number of attempts again. A question limited to 1 recording that was used becomes 2, leaving 1 new attempt.
• No double counting: giving back again later doesn't add more than the original number, and a limit is never lowered.
• Nothing to give back: if no attempt has been used, or they were already given back and not used again, the switch is disabled and the menu says so.
• Locked pages are skipped, since the candidate can't reach them.
• Earlier recordings are kept and stay visible to reviewers.
• Both Quick Setup options turn this on wherever it would add attempts.

Violation & Resume Budgets

For a lockdown-enabled step, the Lockdown Limits menu shows the candidate's violation count and duration, and their resume count, against the configured limits. Each budget has its own carry over switch — independent of the other, so you can carry over violation history while still resetting the resume count, or vice versa.

• Carry over on — the count travels forward into the resumed session. A candidate reinstated this way after already hitting their limit is let back in, but with no tolerance left: the very next violation (or resume attempt, for the resume budget) ends the session again immediately, unless you also raise the limit for them.
• Carry over off (reset) — the count starts again at 0, same as a brand-new session.
• Limit — you can change the limit itself for this one candidate. While carrying over, it can never be set below what they've already used.

Reinstating is always an admin override: a session that was automatically ended for exceeding its violation or resume limit can still be reinstated — the limits only govern whether the candidate can keep going on their own, not whether an admin can bring them back.

Confirming

Click Reinstate at the bottom right and confirm. The button stays disabled until the starting point is valid — on an unlocked page in an unlocked section — and, for lockdown steps, until no limit is below what's already been used.

What the Candidate Sees

The session's status becomes Resetup — waiting for the candidate. They sign in with the same credentials as before, re-enter at the starting point with the time you granted, and the session continues as Started. Their earlier answers and recordings are all still in place; locked pages are unavailable to them.

Correcting a Reinstatement

Made a mistake? You can reinstate the session again as long as the candidate hasn't resumed it yet (its status is still Resetup). The dialog opens with the setup you chose last time — starting point, locks and time limits — so you only fix what's wrong.

• Once the candidate has resumed, the session must be ended before it can be reinstated again.
• Recording attempts that were given back can't be taken back by a correction — limits are never lowered.
• Each reinstatement is recorded in the session's history.

Reinstating Many Candidates at Once

Select several sessions in the Test Sessions tab, or use Auto reinstate in the Exam Monitor — the fastest recovery from a venue-wide outage. Each session is set up the way Continue where they left off does it: each candidate's own remaining time, resuming at the last page they reached. You choose once, for the whole batch:

• Give back used recording attempts — on by default; applies to every unlocked page.
• Carry over violation history and Carry over resume count — for lockdown-enabled steps; off (reset) by default.

• Bulk reinstate has no per-candidate changes. For those, use the dialog on a single session.
• Sessions that can't be reinstated — still in progress, or whose resume page has no time left — are skipped and reported; reinstate those one by one.

Reinstate restores the same attempt, with earlier answers in place — even when you start over from the beginning. If you want a clean fresh start instead — new attempt, no earlier answers — ignore the broken session's result and let the candidate use another attempt (or raise their attempt limit).

Reinstate vs retake