Cirrus Webinar Recap: Stress-Test Your Exams: No More Drama on Exam Day

Exam days will always carry some tension, but problems don’t have to derail your sitting The network wobble The candidate who can’t log in The accommodation request that arrives on exam day When you’ve stress-tested your process beforehand, these become manageable moments instead of full-blown crises

This webinar was designed for anyone involved in delivering online exams who want practical ways to reduce exam-day headaches You’ll find preparation steps, tested response protocols and real examples from teams running high-stakes exams at scale, all from three key perspectives: the technical side, the service desk and the organisational view.

1. Technology & Reliability: Building for what can go wrong

Speaker Jeroen Habets (CTO at Cirrus) opened with the simple truth: reliability is not a day-of promise, but the result of systematic decisions made ahead of time. He framed this in terms of an ISO-inspired PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) loop: plan improvements, do the work, check results, act on learnings.

Key actionable steps from his segment:

• Run your PDCA loop now: pick one improvement you control (for example, simplify the list of supported browsers) and measure the effect. Make the loop habitual rather than one-off.
• Write the first 10 minutes of your “what ifs”: For your top 3 risk scenarios (e.g., a centre network drop, a slow-loading section, a growing proctor queue), document the first responder, a confirming check, the first safe action, and where you’ll post your status update. Make the plan short, usable.
• Coordinate capacity signals with your provider: Share your exam calendar and expected volumes, especially during high-stakes windows. Confirm whether auto-scaling is sufficient or manual planning is needed. This converts unknown spikes into predictable load.
• Rehearse an incident tabletop: Gather your core team for a 30-minute walkthrough of a scenario, from incident report to resolution. Practice posting a short status update with time estimate; note delays and assign owners to fix them ahead of time.

The overall message: technology fails will happen. The difference is between them being surprises versus rehearsed eventualities.

2. Service Desk & Support: A proactive model

Next, the webinar featured Aiden Molavi, who described how Cirrus organises its Service Desk to be the first and fastest meaningful point of contact. By combining Customer Success (setup, onboarding) and Support (live issues) into a single team per account, the context and history stay intact — which shortens diagnosis and resolution time.

Practical levers shared for exam-day calm:

• Candidate Preview: Use a link that shows the candidate’s exact experience — rendering, timers, media, text-to-speech tools. Share no-login links so colleagues or SMEs can test without accounts.
• Last-minute edits but locked for psychometrics: With Cirrus, clients can edit items up to 20 minutes before start, after which the assessment is locked to protect data integrity.
• Realistic mock exams: Staff first, then candidate-mocks that mirror timing and tools. These uncover issues early and reduce stress both for candidates and invigilators.

The takeaway: service-desk readiness and candidate previews aren’t optional extras—they are foundational to a calm delivery.

3. Operational Playbook: Organising people and communications

Finally, the webinar turned to organisational best-practice, presented by Chartered Accountants Ireland’s (CAI) team — Audrey Carter & Nikki Kurtz. Their exam-delivery framework is built months ahead, with student experience front of mind from the first week of the cycle.

Key elements of their playbook:

• Single e-assessment hub: A microsite containing all instructions, dates, rules, practice papers and an updated FAQ. Every email references this hub.
  T-4 weeks onboarding: Live trial of student login, ID-check, camera check, device-check. A clear help path is opened for anyone device/network-incompatible.
• Realistic mocks & support route: Staff mock first, then student mock. Teach students exactly where to go if something breaks. Capture frequent questions and embed them in FAQs and quick-cards.
• Graduated communication timeline: Emails spaced as window approaches—first deferrals/accommodations, then rules/regulations, then the individual time-slot one week before. Less is more; too much detail or too many messages = ignored messages.
• Business continuity plan (BCP) and review: Maintain a tested BCP for access disruptions (e.g., alternate link via email, SMS broadcast, in-exam messaging). Track tasks and owners via project management tool; debrief after each window to capture lessons-learned. Example: during a recent CAI outage, their plan was activated and website access was restored in under 10 minutes, meaning all candidates still sat successfully.

Their bottom line: many of the “unthinkable” scenarios are not just imaginable—they are probable. Bake in the rehearsed response so students and staff don’t feel lost when something happens.

4. Final Nuggets

The speakers each ended with a simple guiding phrase:

• Tech (Habets): “Prepare and communicate.”
• Service Desk (Molavi): “Test, test, test.”
• Operations (Kurtz): “Keep communication tight across stakeholders.”
• Student Support (Carter): “Give students step-by-step resources and a human contact line.”

5. Why this matters

Online and hybrid assessments have grown rapidly — but they bring increased complexity: multiple locations, devices, browsers, candidate circumstances, network environments, and oversight modes. Without rigorous preparation, one point of failure can cascade. But when each link in the chain is stress-tested, you can transform exam day from “hope we don’t get a problem” to “we’ll deal if one occurs”.

From technology to service-desk, from candidate readiness to first-class communications, the webinar emphasised that the exam-delivery ecosystem must be treated as an integrated system, not a series of stand-alone tasks.

6. What you can do tomorrow

• Pick one process you can improve (e.g., browser-support list, one practice mock).
• Draft your “first 10 minutes” for top 3 risk scenarios and circulate to key staff.
• Share your exam-calendar with your delivery partner or vendor and confirm capacity/support.
• Send a simplified, focused email to upcoming candidates linking to a central hub—fewer words, clear next step.
• Run a quick tabletop simulation of an issue (device failure/network drop) and assign roles/responses.
• After your next sitting, hold a short debrief: what worked, what didn’t, what will you change next time.

That’s a wrap on our webinar recap, practical steps you can put to work this term. Watch the recording here.

Stay tuned for our Exam Day Playbook e-book: deeper guidance, ready-to-use templates and step-by-step checklists to help your next sitting run without a hitch.

Find out more here