Visualise your Certifications with the Exam Timeline Project

Throughout our tech careers, certifications often become milestones.

We might earn them out of genuine interest, because our employer asks us to, or as part of a bigger career goal. Whatever the reason, it’s always satisfying, and quite motivating to be able to track our progress and see how far we’ve come.

Recently, my colleague Guy Gregory has been working on something that makes this visualisation possible. Using GitHub Copilot, GitHub, and GitHub Actions, he’s built a project that I think is worth sharing.

So let’s talk about it. 

What is the Exam Timeline Project?

The Exam Timeline project started as Guy’s experiment to upskill on some GitHub components. With the help of GitHub Copilot to turn his ideas into working code, the result is a smart, automated tool for tracking certifications.

It works by pulling information from your Microsoft Learn transcript and Credly badges, then turning that data into a clean, interactive timeline you can explore.

You can deploy the project to an Azure Static Web App, which means it’s available online at any time. Behind the scenes, it automatically fetches your latest data every day, keeps the visuals updated, and even includes a built-in AI feature that recommends your next exam based on what you’ve already achieved.

You can also deploy this using free tiers within GitHub and Azure, so it’s a great wee project to try out. 

How it works - from data to interactive timeline

The project is all about taking your certification history and visualising it, it does that through a mix of scripts, automation and then there is a sprinkling of AI on top. 

The first step is to gather the data, the two main data sources are your Microsoft Learn transcript and also your Credly badges. 

• Microsoft Learn transcript – details of all your Microsoft exams and certifications.
• Credly badges – badges from Microsoft and other certification providers you’ve earned.

Python scripts are used to fetch the information and stored in simple CSV files ready for the next stage. 

The section section is about building the timeline.  The CSV files are visualised within a web page, that you can interact with. 

The third stage is keeping it up to date. On a daily schedule GitHub Actions:

• Fetch your latest transcript and badge data
• Update the CSV files
• Rebuild the timeline
• Deploy the changes automatically to your Azure Static Web App

The last step in the process is the feature that is an AI-powered exam recommender. You can choose to use GitHub’s or Azure’s AI models to look at the certifications you have already earned and suggest the next certification you should try. It’s not just picking at random, it uses your history to guide you towards relevant and valuable certifications.

Why you should give it a go

Whether you’ve been collecting certifications for a while or you are just starting out, visualising it is a great way to track your progress for your own motivation or share with the tech community. The Exam Timeline Project that Guy has created is:

• Simple to set up – You don’t need to be a full-time developer to get it running.
• Always up to date – The automation means you set it up once and it looks after itself.
• Motivating – Seeing your progress on a timeline makes the hard work feel more tangible.
• Forward-looking – The AI recommendations can help you plan your next career step.

And because it can be deployed entirely on free tiers in GitHub and Azure, the only thing it costs you is a bit of time to set up.

How to Get Started

Guy has written a step-by-step guide in the Exam Timeline GitHub repository. In short, you:

1. Fork the repo.
2. Add your Microsoft Learn transcript ID and Credly username as secrets in GitHub.
3. Deploy it to an Azure Static Web App (free tier).
4. Watch your timeline come to life.

If you give the project a go, post a link to your timeline in the comments below!