Cambridge University Press & Assessment Automates Exam Material Delivery to Test Centres With Files.com

Cambridge University Press & Assessment is the publishing and assessment arm of the University of Cambridge. Its press, founded in 1534, is the oldest in the world. Its assessment business runs Cambridge English, IELTS, and the IGCSE, AS and A Level qualifications, delivering more than 12 million exam results a year through thousands of authorised test centres in 130 countries.

Every one of those exams begins with files. A centre cannot run a test day without its question papers, answer sheets, and audio files, and none of that material can be released before candidates sit down. At its core, the business places confidential files between Cambridge and thousands of centres worldwide, on a calendar that does not move.

Placement on a Calendar That Does Not Move

Placement of exam materials was a manual step on a fixed calendar. Operations staff put each file where its centre needed to find it. Cambridge wanted that step to run identically every time, and to run on demand when a centre needed materials outside the schedule.

The structure of the business set the bar. Exam dates are fixed. The centre network spans 130 countries and every timezone. The content is confidential until the moment the exam begins. And when a centre needs materials on the day itself, the resupply has to happen in hours, not days. Placement had to be as dependable on an emergency morning as on a scheduled release.

That meant automating the placement end to end. The workflow had to copy each file to the right centre location the same way every time, make sure the centre has access, run on demand for an emergency resupply, and clean up confidential content once it has been delivered.

Cambridge's application support team built that on Files.com, using the platform's REST API, webhooks, and Automations.

Placement by Code, Cleanup by the Platform

When materials go out, including emergency supply to a centre on test day, automation built on the Files.com REST API copies the files across, places each one in the location that centre draws from, and opens the centre's access. No person places a file by hand, so every centre's materials arrive by the same path on every run.

Webhooks notify downstream steps the moment a file lands, so the next stage of the process starts without anyone watching a folder. Files.com Automations then handle the follow-on work: once a file has been copied to its destination, an Automation deletes the source copy, so confidential exam content does not sit anywhere it no longer needs to be. Operations staff extend the same pattern with Python SDK scripts that automate their own routine uploads.

With the Workflows in Production

Now that the automation runs the placement, Cambridge has replaced manual handling of exam materials with a workflow that behaves the same way on every run.

• Cleanup is a platform action, not a task. Delivered files are deleted automatically, so confidential content does not linger past its purpose.
• The automation carries real volume, with daily API traffic to Files.com running to tens of thousands of calls.

A Deadline That Cannot Move, Met by a Workflow That Runs on Demand

Today, when a test centre anywhere in the world needs an emergency resupply on the morning of an exam, the response is an automation run on Files.com. Operations staff start the workflow, the files land where the centre draws from, access opens, and the source copies are cleaned up behind them.