Certification Assistant Training Resources

Exostar’s Managed Access Gateway (MAG) is a consolidated portal for registration, authentication, and account management across applications hosted by Exostar, those hosted by managed applications, and applications managed by external entities. This may include applications hosted by Exostar partners or third-party commercial applications.

Exostar’s Certification Assistant runs on the MAG platform for secure access control, and all users are required to obtain a MAG account in order to access the Certification Assistant application.

Account creation generally takes 1-2 business days. If you do not receive account creation verification within this timeframe, please contact Exostar’s Customer Support.

Yes, Exostar’s Certification Assistant requires all users to obtain 2FA in order to access the Certification Assistant application. At a minimum, you must obtain a Phone-Based OTP without Proofing credential. You can visit the Certification Assistant Get Started article for more information.

There is no official DoD-approved software for CMMC or NIST SP 800-171 self-assessments. Certification Assistant is aligned to the frameworks and helps you prepare the documentation and evidence assessors expect to see, including SSPs, POA&Ms, and SPRS scores.

Hover over the disabled button to display a message explaining you do not have permission to create an assessment and identifies your CA Owner Admin as the person to contact for a role change or access to an existing assessment.

There is no additional cost to add users to Certification Assistant. However, additional users must obtain a MAG account, as well as an acceptable 2FA credential.

In order to add new users to Certification Assistant, MAG Organization Administrators can navigate to the Administration tab, Add New User sub-tab, and input the new user’s information. Select Certification Assistant under Application Access and the new user receives an email invitation to activate their user account. 

Please note, Exostar’s Training Team offers bi-monthly MAG Administrator Trainings. Please see the MAG Webinars page for registration information.

Certification Assistant is designed for self-starters. It provides structured guidance, explanations, and templates to help you complete your assessment and generate required documents. Many users complete the process themselves or with light support from their IT provider. 

Yes. Certification Assistant supports MSPs and MSSPs managing compliance across multiple clients. You work across client accounts from a single login, and access to any one client’s assessment is granted individually, so your visibility stays limited to the assessments you have actually been authorized on.

The platform provides clear, detailed guidance for each control, including plain-language explanations, reference materials, and example implementations. You can also invite a partner, such as your IT provider or a consultant, to collaborate directly on the assessment.

Yes. While Certification Assistant is not an auditor, it helps you complete your self-assessment, identify gaps, and generate documentation that aligns with what third-party assessors typically expect to review during a formal CMMC audit. 

Compliance is not a one-time event, it is an ongoing obligation. The DoD expects you to maintain up-to-date documentation and routinely reassess your environment. Your subscription is annual, and you receive a notification when it’s time to renew, with instructions for how to do so. 

No. Exostar hosts Certification Assistant directly. It is available as an application on your organization’s MAG (Managed Access Gateway) account, and you do not need a separate ComplyUp login or account. All historic data and assessments have been successfully migrated to Exostar Certification Assistant. 

Yes. You can invite a partner from a different organization, for example an IT provider or consultant, to collaborate on a specific assessment. You control what they can do: view only, view and edit, or full administrative access including template imports. Access is granted per assessment, so a partner only sees the assessment you specifically authorize them on. 

Certification Assistant and PolicyPro are separate applications, so you cannot use PolicyPro credentials to access Certification Assistant.

For more information regarding Certification Assistant and self-help options, please visit the Certification Assistant landing page to navigate to on-screen content or open the Certification Assistant User Guide above. If you are unable to locate answers to your questions via self-help, please visit the Exostar Customer Support page for support options.