Altora programs are essentially a checklist of induction tasks for end-users to complete. End-users are assigned to single or multiple program(s) through user self-selection or by assignment, created by Administrators.
The benefit of using Programs is it saves you time and the ability to assign groups of tasks to different User roles. Records move with people regardless of where they are located in the system.
What do programs consist of?
Programs comprise of four types of tasks as detailed below. Tasks are tracked for validity and compliance.
- Courses - training of safety or induction courses;
- Documents - a collection of trade licences and insurances;
- e-Forms - filling in of medical or emergency forms; and
- Acknowledgements - reading acknowledgements of company policies, SWMS, SOP's, etc. including electronic signature to acknowledge reading of documents.
Tip
Another way to understanding programs is to consider each as a separate 'checklist' for different user types. Each 'checklist' is a set of tasks assigned to a user to complete.
Typically, programs go by a form of role, site, project, or user group. For the purpose of keeping registration straight forward - programs can be customised by title, description, and a graphic.
Why are programs needed?
Programs are most useful when dealing with multiple user roles that have different induction or compliance requirements from each other. They allow administrators setting up Altora to define these roles clearly so that when users sign in online, they can easily understand which programs are available and to select the one that's most appropriate.
This self-selection to programs makes running inductions online that much more straight forward for the user - especially when users are responsible for assigning themselves to programs, hence allocating the correct set of tasks required to complete their induction. This avoids confusion and incorrect tasks assignment but inadvertently has saved you time in clerical support and administrative tasks.
How to set up your programs
First and foremost, a look over your existing induction process will be a good start.
Questions to ask yourself:
- is your induction required for a single site and/or a single role only?
- or, does your induction requirement cover multiple sites and/or roles?
There are two types of Programs that can be created in Altora: Programs and Guided Programs.
Programs: normal Programs have no enforced sequence, meaning the tasks you assign to it can be completed in any order by the inductee. This is useful for those who have some tasks which may not be applicable to everyone in the Program.
Guided Programs: Guided Programs have an enforced sequence, meaning the tasks must be completed in a predetermined order. To unlock the next task, the task before must be completed first. This is useful so that inductees are not skipping ahead and not completing those important tasks you need them to complete.
Singular
For singular use, where all your workers' induction requirements are exactly the same from one to another - you can simply create a 'general' program to auto-assign those tasks to every worker - this is the most basic setup.
If your needs change in the future, you can easily expand on your existing configuration to accommodate multiple sites or roles.
Multiple
In situations where inductions are broken up between various tasks, roles, and/or sites, then seeing it from a training matrix will give you an overhead view of this structure.
A training matrix is used to generate an easy-to-read grid that maps out all company-wide induction requirements for various work roles. If you have this, understanding the minimal requirements for specific roles is easy. Mapping this out will quickly determine the programs needed.
Time to setup
Once the above is determined, you can go ahead and create those roles as programs. While you create these programs, make sure you assign relevant tasks to each and check if you've covered all bases.
By this point, you may or have already thought about reports and how those reports are sliced or diced to include specific users based on a pre-defined classification. These classifications could be based on location, project type, or contractor level - as part of the core details you collect from users upon registration, Altora allows you to create 'custom fields' which is used to separate specific types of users from others inside reports.
Thinking ahead...
Being mindful of the types of reports you need initially will help you break down the most suitable structure for setting up programs and more.
Altora allows you to drill deep into your records to view user roles by location also. So even if, for instance, workers in one location need site-specific induction training but workers in other locations don't, Altora can handle this type of setup.
Thinking about the end reports you need to extract from Altora is important during the initial setup, as it will give you the ability to subset user records for multi-departmental views.