2020 Upgrade of CPHQ Tutor

After months of review and planning, the upgrade of the CPHQ Tutor website, incorporating both content updates and design changes, is finally underway.

Due to its scale and complexity (CPHQ Tutor’s database is massive!), we expect this process to take several weeks to complete. During the transition period, pages of the site will take either the previous (pre-upgrade) design or the new (post-upgrade) one. Over time, users of the site will see increasingly more pages with new or updated content and with the new design. Though not the best option from an aesthetic point of view, we chose this approach because it avoids any interruption in the service – zero downtime – which is, of course, critically important for our members.

Some links may be broken while we revise the content and design, but we have included measures in our project execution to minimize the risk of this occurring.

The entire upgrade was planned such that it avoids disruption to the CPHQ Tutor service. Therefore, members, i.e. paid subscribers, will not be negatively impacted – they should be able to access the protected content as they always have. If our members experience any changes, they will be either enhancements (in content, design, usability, etc.) or additions to existing features.

In case you were wondering, the content of the CPHQ Tutor website is already updated to meet the current CPHQ exam content outline. The NAHQ/HQCC last updated the CPHQ exam content outline in January 2018, i.e. nearly three years ago. (In case you’d like to check this fact for yourself, take a look at Page 25 of the 2020 CPHQ Candidate Examination Handbook.) Some marketers might like you to think there is a 2020 version of the CPHQ exam content outline – don’t be fooled, it’s only marketese targeting the less informed. Like the Emperor’s new clothes, a 2020 version of the CPHQ exam content outline does not exist!

While I am not prepared to disclose at this stage all the improvements we have planned (we do have some surprises in store!), I can tell you what has been done in the last 36 hours (i.e. October 5–6, 2020):

• “Contact” page. In the past few months, perhaps due to the uptick in traffic, we saw significantly more spam messages coming through the email form on our “Contact” page. The new/current form, implemented yesterday, fixed that problem. In addition, we took measures to bolster the security of inbound and outbound emails. Effective October 6, 2020 (the original date on which this post was published), all emails to CPHQ Tutor will also have a response time of less than 24 hours, which is an improvement over the already industry-leading “within-1-business-day” standard we set more than 10 years ago.
• microblog. As mentioned above, our microblog is a channel for us to provide frequent, but brief, updates. We believe this will be particularly useful in keeping users/visitors informed during the present site transformation. (This microblog is no longer active.)

In the coming few days, we will consolidate, review, and update all the non-protected posts/articles relating to CPHQ certification that I’ve written, including those on other sites, and publish them on this Blog. Some posts may temporarily disappear from view while being reviewed and revised.