Hi Everyone,
I am writing this to share a highly disappointing and frustrating experience regarding my recent attempt to take a SolarWinds Certified Professional (SCP) exam. I want to highlight not only the technical flaws within the PSI proctoring ecosystem but also a worrying lack of support from the SolarWinds Certification Team itself.
As candidates and students, we don't choose online proctored exams out of preference; we are forced into this medium because there is no offline, in-person testing center alternative available. Unfortunately, when the system fails, you are entirely on your own.
My exam was scheduled for April 17 at 9:30 PM IST. I logged in early at 9:00 PM IST, waited in the queue, and spent 20 minutes successfully completing every environment and ID check with my proctor. Right at 9:31 PM IST, a completely different proctor suddenly joined the session and demanded I repeat the entire 20-minute verification process from scratch. Facing time constraints and confusion, I tried calling PSI technical support, but the call disconnected within two minutes. Because I was trying to resolve this over the call, proctor ask me to end the session.
When I requested a reschedule, PSI initially told the SolarWinds Certification Team that "there is no record" of me ever trying to contact support.
Fortunately, I kept my call details. I sent over direct screenshots of my phone records showing the exact outbound numbers, timestamps, and call durations. The moment I provided this hard evidence, PSI completely changed their direction. Instead of admitting a gap in their tracking, they pivoted and claimed that because the call dropped before I could provide identifying info, it couldn't be tracked as a support ticket.
What has disappointed me most as a member of this community is the role of the SolarWinds Certification Team. Throughout this multi-week dispute, they did not advocate for me, cross-question PSI, or review the case critically.
Instead, they acted purely like a postman. They received my emails, forwarded them to PSI, took PSI's word as absolute law, and pasted their responses back to me. Even when I explicitly pointed out that PSI's claims were factually incorrect and backed it up with proof, the Certification Team refused to challenge PSI's logic. At this stage, I received an email today confirming that my request for a free retake has been officially denied.
