A quick update to my previous post, because I just received the following note from our customer regarding their audit:

"After I contacted PMI support they stated it could take upwards of 5 business days for review on their side. Fortunately, I've just found out that they have accepted your certificate and provided me with my 30.5 PDU for PMP renewal."

So there you go... PDU audits are random, and PMI does their best to process these audits as fast as they can.

Hi Balaji,

I wanted to include a recent conversation that I had with another PMP who used The PM PrepCast for PDU to earn 60 PDUs for recertification.

At this time, they only submitted the first 30 PDUs to PMI and then they got selected for a PMI PDU audit. So they reached out to me, because they were worried that our PDU course was somehow the reason why they got selected for an audit (it isn't because audits are random).

Here is what I wrote back:

"The fact that PMI has selected you for an audit has really nothing to do with your PDU claim or with our product. This was a random selection, because of a change in how PMI conducts its audits. Here is what we know: Until about a year ago, PMI practically never performed any audits on PDUs at all. So you could go ahead and claim all your 60 PDUs in one single claim and it would be approved, no questions asked. But sometime in 2021 or 2022 PMI decided to perform more random audits. And since then, it is simply "the luck of the draw" whether your PDU claim would be audited or not. (At this time, I am not sure, if PMI also does "PDU claim profiling" where they will automatically audit you if your PDU claim matches certain criteria... we're still learning about this.)

Overall, I can tell you that we have had over 270 customers this year who purchased one of our 9 PDU courses, and - if I remember correctly - you are only the second customer who reached out to us this year to let us know that you got audited.

So while it is unfortunate for you that you got chosen, there is nothing to worry about. This is a random audit, and you should have no problems passing it, to have your PDU claim approved. From the other student, I know that it went very smoothly - they provided the PDU certificate to PMI and that pretty much did the trick."

So much for my response to the customer, but let me close with a few recommendations and good practices for earning, tracking and claiming your PDU courses, so that you are prepared in case of an audit:

• Keep Your PDU Certificates: Always save a copy of your PDU certificates because you have to send a copy to PMI during an audit.
• Track Your Progress: Maintain a spreadsheet with course title, date completed, and a short summary of what you gained from it.
• Submit on Time: Don't wait until the last minute to claim your PDUs. Try to submit them well in advance of your expiry date.
• Follow PMI Guidelines: Make sure that the PDUs you are claiming align with PMI's Talent Triangle and the requirements for your specific certification.
• Be Honest: Only claim PDUs for activities that you have actually completed and that contribute to your professional development.
• Stay Organized: Keep all your PDU related documents in one place, both digitally and in a physical folder.
• Understand Audit Process: Familiarize yourself with PMI's audit process, so you know what to expect in case you get selected for an audit.

During a PMI audit, you will be required to provide various documentation as proof of your completed activities and earned PDUs. The required documentation includes:

• Courses, Podcasts, Webinars, Conferences, Training, etc.: Evidence supporting your reported learning, including notes from and dates of activities conducted.
• Work as a Practitioner PDU Category: Proof of employment (job description).
• Creating Content (i.e. Writing an Article or Book): Copies of publications, sample educational materials, or course agendas.
• Giving a Presentation: Copies of the presentation.
• Mentoring Another Project Manager: Evidence supporting your coaching or mentoring arrangement, including notes from and dates of discussions and activities.
• Volunteering for Project Management Organizations (like PMI): Evidence supporting your coaching or mentoring arrangement, including notes from and dates of discussions and activities. (And no... that's not an error on my part... this is the actual text that PMI has in the current version of the CCR handbook. They probably meant to write something like "Evidence that you volunteered", but someone just copy/pasted the text from the mentoring section.)

One thing I would add to what Coy mentioned, is that even though PMI sent me a note saying they would take 5-7 business days to review my submission, they ended up taking around 10 business days. It took so long, that in fact I ended up writing to PMI to ensure the submission was in the queue for revision. The person from PMI who looked into it for me let me know that the submission is in the queue, but that they had a long queue which is why it was taking longer than usual. In any case, that should not affect you, but I just wanted to lay that out there.

Hello Balaji,

I agree with what Harry and Daniel have said, most of these are best answered by an auditor from PMI.

1. If I were an auditor and could select which submissions to review, I would select those that I felt were more prone to possible errors. In essence, those with larger PDU claims submitted nearer the individual's deadline for submittal. In my opinion, these types of submittals may have been done hastily, which doesn't mean that they are incorrect, only that they are more prone to having errors.
2. As long as you have submitted your PDUs prior to your deadline, and everything is legitimate, there shouldn't be any problem with the audit extending beyond your deadline. I just looked on the PMI website and found that if audited, you have 90 days to submit the completed audit package and PMI will take 5-7 business days to review it.
3. Based on what I just read on the PMI website, if audited, I presume that the audit package they send out would have the details on what they require from you.

I would be interested in hearing the outcome of this. I wish you all the best.

Respectfully,
Coy

Hello Balaji,

To add to what Harry had mentioned, I was audited when trying to submit 30 PDUs as well, and the entire process took about 2 weeks. PMI just asked me to submit documentation proving that I had completed the PDUs, which I had in the form of a certificate. I was then able to upload it to the PDU submission as an attachment, and then PMI took 2 weeks to get back to me and officially register the PDUs I had submitted originally. Hopefully you will be able to fulfill your PDU requirements for recertification and not lose your PMP credential. In the future, the best advice I could give you is to try to fulfill the PDU requirements well in advance of your expiry date so you don't get into a similar situation. Looking forward to hear back from your experience with all this. Please keep us posted as I am curious to know if you do get audited for submitting a large number of PDUs. All the best.

Regards,

Good morning, Balaji:

Most of your questions are those that only PMI can answer. With respect to your second question, I suspect there is a "grace period" with respect to an audit should it occur. That is, if you have all of your information in by the date, then your worksheet is selected for an audit, your credential will not expire during that time.

With respect to your first question (Possibility of an audit). The probability is not non-zero. I suspect that PMI has a metric for audit selection in accordance with their professional status. What that metric is will be a closely guarded secret within PMI's Professional Development section so people do not game the system. I do know from my other professional certification organization, that audits are randomly selected at about a 10% or so rate, with an exception for worksheets that appear to have irregularities associated with them.

With respect to your third question, (what will be expected). You will need receipts for everything. For example, if you traveled to a professional meeting you will need proof of travel (airline receipt, hotel receipt, meeting registration, etc.) or if you took a course, receipt that you paid for the course and/or a certificate of completion. For "free PDUs" it has been suggested that you have some kind of spreadsheet with the course title, time, and a short summary of what you got out if it.

I hope that helps. I might recommend that, in the future, that you don't wait until the last minute to get PDUs in. It's been my experience that something will always get in the way of completing the last few requirements!

Harry