Installation

Requirements

Before installing Next Exams, confirm your environment meets the following.

Notes:

• The PHP 8.1 floor comes from the libraries bundled with the component, not from a preference. Sites on PHP 8.0 or earlier are not supported.
• Joomla 4.4 is the oldest supported release, not 4.0. The mailer service Next Exams sends notifications through, and the filesystem classes it uploads images with, were both introduced in Joomla 4.4. The installer checks this and stops rather than leaving you a package that installs cleanly and then fails at the first email. Note also that Joomla 4.4 itself reached end of life in October 2025 — it is supported here for sites that have not yet migrated, but Joomla 5 or 6 is the better home for a new install.
• PostgreSQL is not supported. Next Exams ships a MySQL schema only, so a Joomla site running on PostgreSQL cannot install it.
• mbstring, dom and iconv are needed by the bundled PDF renderer. They are enabled by default on virtually every host, and are only exercised when a certificate is actually produced.
• gd is optional. With it, certificate QR codes are embedded as small PNG images; without it they fall back to SVG, which is larger and renders less reliably in some PDF viewers.
• openssl is only needed if you use LTI 1.3. The component generates its own RSA key pair on first use, and ships a minimal OpenSSL configuration file for hosts whose PHP has no default configuration path.

Download

Download the latest package (pkg_nextexams_v6.0.0.zip) from your account at nextsoftware.dev. It is a standard Joomla installation package bundling the component, fourteen plugins, five site modules, language files and media assets in a single ZIP.

If you have a download key, keep it to hand — you will need it for one-click updates from the Joomla Update Manager, covered under Updates and download key below.

Install

1. Log in to the Joomla Administrator.
2. Go to System → Install → Extensions.
3. On the Upload Package File tab, either drag pkg_nextexams_v6.0.0.zip onto the upload area, or click Browse for file and select it.
4. Joomla unpacks and installs the package and displays a success message.

The package installs twenty extensions in one pass and enables all fourteen plugins for you — there is no manual enable step for any of them. No further configuration is required before you start using it.

Tip: if your host imposes a low PHP upload_max_filesize or post_max_size, use the Install from URL or Install from Folder tab instead and point Joomla at a direct download URL or a locally-extracted copy.

Open Next Exams

After installation, Next Exams is immediately active.

1. In the Administrator, go to Components → Next Exams.
2. The application opens on the Dashboard. The submenu also links straight to Subjects, Questions, Exams and Attempts.
3. Everything is configured inside the application. There is deliberately no Joomla Options button — the component has no config.xml, and all settings live in the application's own Settings page.

Next Exams also runs on the front end. Create a menu item of type NextExams - Management App to give authors and administrators the identical application without a trip to the Joomla administrator. See Site modules and menu items.

Set up the examinee-facing pages

Installing the package does not create any front-end pages. Examinees need at least one menu item before they can reach an exam.

1. Go to Menus → [your menu] → Add New Menu Item.
2. Set Menu Item Type to one of the Next Exams types — NextExams - Exams for a public listing, or NextExams - Single Exam to point at one specific exam.
3. Save.

Five menu item types are available in total. For the full list and their options, see Site modules and menu items.

Set up scheduled tasks

Four features send mail or retry work in the background: notification retries, webhook retries, certificate expiry reminders and scheduled analytics reports. Each is a Joomla Scheduled Task you create yourself.

None of them are required for normal use — immediate sending works without any task. But without them, a failed email is never retried and expiry reminders never go out at all. See Scheduled tasks for the four routines and how to create them.

Upgrading

The package uses method="upgrade", so you install a new version directly over the old one without uninstalling first. Your data, settings and templates are preserved.

1. Download the new version.
2. Install it the same way as a fresh install, through System → Install → Extensions.
3. Joomla applies any database migrations automatically and updates the schema version.

Warning: do not uninstall Next Exams in order to upgrade it. Uninstalling removes the component's database tables, and with them every question, exam, attempt and certificate.

Updates and download key

Next Exams reports new versions through Joomla's own update system.

1. Go to System → Update → Extensions and click Check for Updates.
2. If your licence requires a download key, go to System → Update → Update Sites, click Next Exams Updates, and enter the key in the Download Key field.
3. Return to Extensions and install the update.

If updates are found but downloads fail, the download key is almost always the cause. See Troubleshooting.

Uninstalling

1. Go to System → Manage → Extensions.
2. Search for NextExams Package.
3. Select the checkbox next to the package and click Uninstall.

Two things to know before you do:

• The package sets blockChildUninstall, so the component, plugins and modules cannot be uninstalled individually. Removing the package removes all twenty extensions together. This is deliberate — it prevents a half-removed installation where, say, the session plugin is gone but the component still expects it.
• Uninstalling drops the component's database tables. Every question, exam, attempt, certificate and setting is deleted. Export anything you want to keep first — see Import and export for questions, and the attempts CSV export for results.

Post-install checks

A quick pass to confirm everything landed:

1. Components → Next Exams opens on a dashboard rather than an error.
2. System → Manage → Plugins, search nextexams — fourteen plugins, all enabled.
3. System → Manage → Extensions, search nextexams — one component, fourteen plugins, five modules.
4. Components → Next Exams → App Manager lists twenty-six apps, all active.
5. If you intend to issue certificates, open a certificate template and use its preview — that exercises the PDF renderer and will surface a missing mbstring, dom or iconv straight away.