Training Records

Certification

Introduction

The idea behind training records is to provide a means of managing, monitoring and pro-actively advising about employee certification, accreditation and skills. Being able to view the current skill level and certification status of an employee from their labour records and be aware of upcoming renewal requirements and organising candidates onto training courses which are maintained in Agility on a basic level.

The module is also designed to provide guidance when selecting labour resources for particular tasks.

It also provides additional help when selecting employees for particular tasks;

• If certain equipment types or groups require certain certification
• If certain craft types require a level of certification
• If certain sites, locations or sub-locations require particular certification to work there
• If certain standard jobs require certain certification

Initially association has only been made between equipment items and skill collections.

Certification Categories

These are used for organisation and filtering purposes. Each certificate definition must belong to a category. Although it is a good idea to define the categories before adding certificates they can be added in line on the certificate maintenance form.

Each certificate Category is made up from a code and description.

[[Image:]]

Typical examples of categories would be; Electrical, Induction, Chemical, Health & Safety etc.

Certificates

Certificates are the core element to training records and must exist in the system prior to training courses being defined or labour training records being created.

Each definition stores;

Certificate Details

Certificate Code

The code name of the Certificate

Certificate Category

A category, which is used for organisation, filtering and reporting. This is not the same as a ‘skill collection’ which is defined later in this document.

Warning period (Days)

This is the number of days warning prior to certificate expiry that warning indication should be used in scans, views and reporting.

Use Warning Days Checkbox

[[Image:]]

If the ‘use warning days’ checkbox is ticked the ‘warning period (days)’ field is enabled and expects a value greater than 0. If the ‘use warning days’ checkbox is ticked and either a null or a zero value is in the ‘warning period days’ field then the form will remove the tick from use ‘warning days’ on save. If the ‘use warning days’ checkbox is not checked then the ‘warning period days’ field is disabled. On save of the record if the ‘use warning days’ check box is not ticked the ‘warning period days’ value will be automatically set to 0.

Validity Period (Days)

This is effectively the duration of the certification. This value can be specified in days or as never expires. It is subsequently used to determine warning and expiry dates

The certificate can also never expire if this check box is ticked, the validity period (days) will default to zero when the never expires box has been ticked and saved. The validity period (days) disables when the never expires box is ticked and will default to zero only when the record is saved.

Never Expires Checkbox

[[Image:]]

If the ‘never expires’ checkbox is not ticked the ‘validity period (days)’ field is enabled and expects a value greater than 0. If the ‘never expires’ checkbox is ticked and either a null or a zero value is in the ‘validity period days’ field then the form will add the tick from ‘never expires’ on save. Additionally if the ‘never expires’ checked box is ticked it will automatically uncheck the ‘use warning days’ checkbox. It is not possible to tick the ‘use warning days’ check box if the ‘never expires’ checkbox is ticked. On save of the record if the ‘never expires’ check box is ticked the ‘validity period days’ value will be automatically set to 0.

Information

Standard

The ISO or BS standard i.e. BS 7671

Short Name

A short name or industry standard identifying code like ‘IEE 17^th Ed.’ Or ‘MSTSC SQL Admin’

Full Name

The full name of the Certificate

[[Image:]]

Available Courses

Each certificate definition also has an ‘Available Courses’ button that will display any forthcoming course that has been defined in Agility for the currently defined certification.

Obsolete

If the item is now obsolete, this should also contain a link to the definition that supersedes it, if available.

Attachments

Against each definition multiple files can be attached, using the standard agility controls, here any associated certificate or course documentation, blank certificates, course details etc. can be stored. This is not where any copies of the individual employee certificates are held. Those are held on the labour training record.

Certificates can be viewed in the system from a scan form or from a tree view that is organised by category.

Scan Form

[[Image:]]

Skills Collection

A certificate can be added to a labour training record either individually or as a ‘Skill Collection’. A skill collection is a group of certificates from any category that together form a known quantity or level. A certification definition can exist in more than one skill collection. When a skill collection is added to a labour training record then all certificates in the selected skill collection are added to the labour training record.

So in an example scenario when a new labour resource has been recruited as a grade 2 technician;

Firstly adding to the new recruits labour training record the ‘New Starter’ skill collection which comprises ‘Company Induction Course’ from the ‘Company Category’ and the ‘Basic Fire Training’ from the ‘Health & Safety at Work’ category.

[[Image:]]

The ‘Grade 2’ skill collection is also added to the labour resources Labour training record, which comprises ‘Grade 1 Technical Course’, ‘Grade 2 Technical Course’ from the ‘Electrical’ category and the ‘Advanced Fire Training’ from the ‘Health & Safety at Work’ category.

[[Image:]]

[[Image:]]

Skill collection are defined and maintained by the user. A skill collection definition stores;

Certificates

Is used to add all certificate definitions that are members of this skill collection

Labour (Read Only)

This is a display only grid and is not designed for adding labour resources to skill collections.

This grid displays details of all labour resources that currently hold a valid copy of all the member certificates of this skill collection.

Certificate validity is defined as a labour certificate record existing of the required certificate definition where the attained or valid from date is before the current date and the certificate expiry date is before 23:59 on the current date or the certificate is defined as never expires.

Equipment Items

It is possible to associate one or more equipment items from the agility equipment register with a skill collection. The idea of this is to help job schedulers control and ensure that only labour resources holding the required skill collection(s) can work on the associated equipment, sub location, location or site.

[[Image:]]

The behaviour of this function is defined thus;

On creation, changing or scheduling a work orders;

If;

Any of the labour resources on the work order do not have all of the valid skills collections* associated to the equipment item of the work order

Or, if the equipment item is part of a structure;

Any of the labour resources on the work order do not have all of the valid skills collections* associated to the parents of the equipment item of the work order

A warning will be displayed stating that ‘Not all employees hold valid certification to work on this item or location.’ then prompting the user if they wish to proceed to commit the transaction. At this stage the assignation of uncertified employees is not prohibited.

[[Image:]]

*Valid Skill Collections

A valid skill collection is defined as one where all certificates in the skills collection have been attained (the attained date is equal to or before ‘now’) by the employee and none of the certificates in the collection for the employee have expired (the expiry date is after ‘now’ or the certificate is defined as never expires).

Adding a skills collection

[[Image:]]

Training Record

This element is the full training record for any given employee containing current and historic information about certificates currently or previously attained, training requirements and courses booked, passed or failed.

A labour training record can exist for each employee in the agility system. It comprises a list of certification that has been added either as individual certification definitions from the skills repository or as a group of certification definitions in the form of a skills collection.

The training record is made up from 4 main elements;

Certificates (organised by Certification Categories)

Skills Collections

Labour Training Record

Training Courses

Association Diagram;

[[Image:]]

Reference

Course reference, certificate/issue number connected to the Labour resource

Certificate

The certificates full name, the short name for the certificate will populate below the text box. This field can also be drilled into which will show the details of the certificate, highlighted in red below:

[[Image:]]

Labour

The name of the labour resource who has/will attain the certificate, this field can also be drilled into, highlighted in red below, which will show the details of the Labour recourse

[[Image:]]

[[Image:]]

Type

Certificate type, e.g. if the certificate that was attained related to healthcare the Type field would specify which type of healthcare, i.e. surgery, dentistry, etc…

Course Date

The date which the course starts

Course Duration (Days)

The duration of the course in days

Attained Date

The date the candidate attended the course

Expiry Date

The expiry date of the certificate, this will also highlight if the certificate is valid, if a course is required, course failed, or if the candidate filed to attend.

[[Image:]]

[[Image:]]

Certificates

The certificate can be attached here and can be printed

Creating Training Records

Labour training records can be created in one of 2 ways;

• [#_Legacy_Training_Record Legacy route]
  • This is where the labour resource currently holds the certification
• [#_New_Training_Requirement New Requirement Route]
  • This is where a new training requirement is created for the labour resource

Once the training record has been added based upon new requirement or expiry the labour resource can then be booked on a course, the course processed, results entered and certificate records updated.

New Training Requirement

This is where the labour resource needs to attain accreditation not currently held. This could be because they are a new employee or their role has changed within the organisation or H&S regulations have changed and they no need to conform to new accreditation to work on specific equipment types.

From the labour resource record either a new certificate(s) are added either individually or as a skill collection. When you add a skill collection all member certificates of that skill collection are added as individual labour certificates.

[[Image:]]

Add New will allow one individual pre-defined certificate to be added.

Add Skill Collection will allow one or more skill collections to be added.

Adding a skills collection

[[Image:]]

Adding an individual certificate

[[Image:]]

You will note that when adding an individual certificate as a new requirement the course details and certificate attained and expiry dates are blank. These will be automatically updated when the labour resource is booked on a training course and the certificate has been obtained.

The required labour training records will then be created at a status of course required.

[[Image:]]

Example of a skill collection containing 2 member certificates

added as a new training requirement

Certificates can be viewed in the system from a scan form that is organised by category.

[[Image:]]

Status Column

This provides a RAG colour coded cell indicated current labour certificate status ‘at a glance’. There are multiple conditions separately controlling the text value and the colour. These are defined within 2 metadata fields attached to the emCertificate table.

emCertificate.ExpiredDate Determines the text value

emCertficate.RAGDetermines the colour value

Legacy Training Record

This is where the labour resource already holds accreditation either valid or expired and it needs to be recorded.

The accreditation or certificate must be defined in Agility prior to adding the legacy record.

The individual certificate, or if applicable, skill collection is added from the labour resource record. It is only advisable to add a skill collection if all member certificates of the skill collection need to be added as legacy records.

When the record is added, additional information is added, like the attained date and certificate issue number. When the attained date is added the expiry date is automatically calculated from the validity period on the selected certificate definition.

In the example shown below the status has immediately changed to course required with amber fill.

[[Image:]]

This is because although the certificate is valid it expires within the warning days period specified on the certificate definition.

Once legacy records have been added they can be monitored and maintained in the same manner as new requirements.

Training Courses

A simple list of training courses for items in the certification repository can be defined in the system. A training course is associated with a certificate definition in the certification repository. One or more training courses, with the same or different course dates, can be associated to the same certificate. Employees (course candidates) can be added to or removed from a training course prior to the start date and without exceeding the number of places available. Once the course start date has been reached the candidate list cannot be changed.

Each training course definition stores;

Certification

This is the certification the course is for and is taken from the certification repository record

Course Name

The name of the course which may be the same or different from the certification name

Course Start Date

The date which the course starts

Course Duration (Days)

The duration of the course in days

Certification Valid From

The date which the certificate is valid from

Course Leader

This value is only enabled if the internal flag is checked and allows an Agility employee to be selected as the person who will be giving the course.

Number of places

The total number of places on the course

Available places; Calculated, Number of Places – Number of Candidates

Internal / External; A flag used to indicate if the course is being run internally or using an external provider. If ‘internal’ is checked then the external fields are disabled on the detail form

External Course Details;

Training Provider

This is selected from existing Agility suppliers. Only 'Service Suppliers' can be picked as external providers for the training course. Obsolete suppliers will not be displayed within the selection list

Location

The address of the location where the course is being run, this can be taken from the supplier address or can be manually entered for instances where the course venue is not the same as the supplier address

Purchase Order

An optional link to be able to view an Agility purchase order which may have been raised for this external course, the look up list should be filtered on the selected provider (supplier)

Labour resources (candidates) are added to the course using an inline scan form contained within the training course detail form. The category in the employee scan form is employee category.

Once the course has been completed the course results and any issued certificate numbers can be entered. (Certificate numbers function is only available in version 6.1.1 or higher)

[[Image:]]

Booking on a Course

When a training requirement has been established this is indicated by the status displaying;

Course Required

Failed

Failed To Attend

The first step is to locate a course defined within Agility. This is done from the training courses scan form which can be launched either from the menu or for convenience by clicking the available courses button on the certificate definition. The certificate definition can be accessed by using the hyperlink on the certification column of the labour training record.

[[Image:]]

Providing there are available places on the course the candidate (labour resource) can be added to the course.

Adding the labour resource to a course will then update the labour training record. The way in which it is updated depends on the current ‘state’ of the labour training record.

If it is a new requirement, there is no course already linked to the training record then the course details will be linked and the status will be updated to course booked.

Example shown below;

New requirement record before course booking;

[[Image:]]

New requirement record after being booked on a course;

[[Image:]]

If the course is being booked for an existing accreditation that has an expiry date then a new labour training record will be created this is to maintain the training history.

Existing (legacy) record before course booking

[[Image:]]

Existing (legacy) record after being booked on a course

[[Image:]]

If the candidate failed the course, or failed to attend the course then when a course is booked again a new labour training record is created for the new course so that the history is maintained.

Example where a candidate has failed to attend a course and a new booking has been made

[[Image:]]

Updating Course Results

When the course has been run the results can be updated from the course detail form for each candidate.

[[Image:]]

The available options are passed, failed and absent. These automatically set the ‘passed’ checkbox. When the course results have been updated the associated labour training record will be updated.

As an example if we examine the training record for Peter, we can see that he is booked on the induction course.

[[Image:]]

If when then mark Peter as having passed the course.

[[Image:]]

The labour record is automatically updated to show that the certification is now valid with an attained an expiry date. The attained date is taken from the ‘Certification Valid From’ date on the course definition and the expiry date is calculated form the ‘Attained Date’ plus the ‘Validity Period in Days’ value as defined on the certification.

[[Image:]]

Scan & Tree Views

The system provides various scan forms and structured tree views with different options and methods of organising the certificate data.

Certificates Tree

Tree View[[Image:]]

To view the certificate category details double click the category, as shown by the red arrow above, and this will bring up the detail form.

The details of any certificate in the structure in a tree view can also be viewed by using the ‘details’ button located on the form. Highlight the certificate category using a single left click then click the details button this will open the selected certificate category detail form.

[[Image:]]

Labour by Craft

The labour by craft view used as a look up when selecting labour resources has 2 new additional nodes. These organise labour resources by the valid (not expired) certification or skill collections currently held.

[[Image:]]

Certificates validation and PPM module

When Job is generated automatically according to PPM definition then certificates validation will never stop job creation. If labour resource did not fulfil certificate requirements for job at the time of PPM generation, then no Optimum resource is assigned to this job, and appropriate warning is added to PPM log.