Keeping track of employee training

Banderson · December 27, 2017, 9:32pm

So I volunteered myself today to try to get a training database of sorts into E-10. (probably a mistake on my part).

Anyways, I’m sure that someone has asked the question, and/or done this before. Or maybe something already exists that I don’t know about. Basically we would need the training topics that each employee requires, with a completion and a sign off date. Some things would be initial only, others would be recurring at various intervals, so those intervals would need a place to reside as well.

We would need a relatively easy way to get the topics required into the database. Initially I was think Extended fields on a single UD table, but that’s too hard to maintain to get an extended field in for each topic. Also these topics may need to be created on the fly for standup meetings.

My next thought is to venture into the parent child UD tables. I haven’t done this before, so it will take some learning on my part to get this set up, but would this be something that makes sense? The parent would be each employees record with the child being the available topics? I don’t really know how they work yet, so I’ll be doing some reading.

If anyone has done this and is willing to share a basic structure of how they did it, that would be much appreciated.

Banderson · December 27, 2017, 9:35pm

This looks like what I am asking for. Is this a paid module? Or do I just need to get a security opened up?

markdamen · December 27, 2017, 9:47pm

I was going to say look at the training course maintenance. What you described is all there. I can’t see on our license anything that refers to it by name, but we do have access to it. Perhaps it’s part of QualityAssurance – it’s only the base module we have, not Enhanced Quality or the external linked one.

Regards
Mark

litzer67 · December 27, 2017, 9:48pm

It is part of the Quality Assurance module

Banderson · December 27, 2017, 9:56pm

It’s weird that I don’t have the menu items listed. I can make a custom menu item and pull up the program though, so I guess I’ll have to do that. That doesn’t make any sense…

Banderson · December 27, 2017, 10:40pm

I suppose I should read the warnings. You need the EQA license installed. We don’t have it.

Banderson · December 28, 2017, 7:59pm

For anyone using the training did you notice that training that has an expiration date of longer than 12 years makes the year for the calculated expiration date go back to the early 1900’s?

Banderson · December 28, 2017, 8:27pm

Next question, I will probably need some some sort of role or category for employees to determine which training courses are required for them. I’m thinking about adding the categories into the the course table as a bit column for each category. (for example, forklift training would be applicable for material handlers, assemblers, welders, etc. Welding certification would only be required for welders.) I’m also looking at the role codes in the employee tables, and I’m wondering if this is something that could be used, or would I better off adding the UD extensions to the employee tables to assign each employees role(s) so we can easily see who needs to do what? The role code looks like it reaches out to a lot of modules so I am a little hesitant to use those fields for fear of unintended consequences. Also, I’m trying to add a role code to my own employee record in pilot, and that option is not available, so maybe it just doesn’t work, or we haven’t purchased something.

Any thoughts?

jkane · March 6, 2018, 12:25am

Hope you figured some of this out. If not, I am testing it for my site and the Role Code is the way to go. If you have a course ID be the same as the role IDs, then you can use BPMs to do some automatic assigning or removal of certifications. That way, if something lapses, someone does not need to be checking it. You can just set up a process to do it.

Banderson · March 6, 2018, 2:21pm

I ended up adding categories on the employee record with check boxes. The hard part about a single role category is that there are people that are cross trained, so the combination of what they have/need is different for each employee. So I just added the categories as check boxes and then whichever categories apply to them can be checked, and they can belong to a bunch of different categories. Then the classes have the same corresponding categories that they would apply to, since some classes are appropriate for more than one category. Then I just look for where the check boxes match to make a requirement on the class.

Now I’m just waiting for HR and Operations to actually populate the database with classes… They said they wanted it, but getting to use it is another problem altogether.

mcfreedombaby · March 9, 2018, 2:14pm

I have just done a tonne of work on this module so will share some obvious gaps.
We require to track training and also require to show training refresher required dates. We have different categories of training, different roles will have different training courses required and employees may in the course of their time may do different roles, so we need to see what training they have had in previous roles and require in their current role.

We previously only really had excel based training matrices and completely adhoc scheduling. Choice we had was buy a training package, or use the Epicor training module that we bought at E10 upgrade- without really thinking it through. We decided to use E10, recognising it had gaps, needed tweaked.

A few things we came across you may want to consider

i) There is next to no training reports. If anything like us you will need reports/dashboard trackers showing training scheduled, training due, training overdue. If trying to get folks to use the training module you may want to have these ready. Replicating our training matrices was a bit tricky as I am not an SQL/SSRS guru, but we have developed a pretty powerful multi-axis, multi –filter matrix.

ii) We added a ud field for course category to the course table. We added a field to the screen with a pull down list of course categories. This allows us to group and filter courses based on category.

iii) By default all training courses require a refresher. We have courses/certs that require to be refreshed on a regular basis. The refresher date on the course is great for this, however we have employees who change role and may no longer require a specific course/cert to be refreshed and default functionality does not accommodate this. To exclude form the reports, on the employee course table/screen we have added a refresher required filed. By default this is checked, but if an employee no longer requires the training we uncheck.

iv) Similarly all courses require a refresher, but we have training that is one time only, for example induction training for a new start. We have added a ud field to the course screen that means we can flag a course as not requiring a refresher, this will override the refresher required filed in iii) above. This allows us to exclude these courses.

v) We used the employee role field to manage employees doing different roles. We set the default as current but also list all other roles the person has done/been trained on – useful if you have a manning issue and are looking for those outwith a department/current role who have had the required training. Also means you can in case of an audit/issue establish if the person who worked on something was trained.

The training module is basic, but will meet the needs for basic training/competency tracking with some minor tweaks.