You can specify whether your Skills Base instance is a production or test environment. Setting the environment type to "Test" does two things (only):

  • Displays a banner at the top of each page stating "TEST ENVIRONMENT - NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE". This is designed as a visual deterrent for people who may otherwise accidentally enter production data into the instance in cases where you are not using the instance in a production capacity. This is especially useful when you have multiple Skills Base instances (eg: A "production" instance and a "test" instance).
  • Disables self-assessment reminder notifications and emails. Administrators will still receive administrative emails such as license expiry reminders.


Note regarding self-assessment reminders

If you change the environment type from "Test" to "Production" the system will schedule to send up to 30 days worth of backlog in self-assessment reminder emails, unless you had disabled these via the "Email reminder" option in Admin -> Settings which is only available when the environment type is set to "Production". If you did not disable email reminders and you do not wish for them to be sent, disable the "Email reminder" option immediately after changing the environment type to "Production".