How to Manage Recurring Training in Assure
Assure allows you to automate recurring training for your people that needs to be refreshed at regular intervals. By setting your training courses to ‘Recurring’, the renew dates are automatically populated once an employee has completed a course.
Please note: this can currently only be automated for courses managed through Training Needs Analysis (TNA).
This articles covers:
- How does it work - overview
- Setting a training course to recurring
- Amending the course frequency in a TNA template for certain roles
- Overriding the required by date of a course for an individual in their TNA
- Common user pathways
HOW DOES IT WORK - OVERVIEW
Watch this short video on how to set up recurring training
SETTING A TRAINING COURSE TO RECURRING IN TNA COURSE/COMPONENT
You can choose within a course record what type of training the course is. A course can be either ‘One Off’, for training a person only needs to complete once, or ‘Recurring’, for those courses that require to be completed in a defined frequency. The default is set to Recurring when creating new courses.
Go to People > Course (note that you may have renamed this) and select ‘Recurring’
If ‘Recurring’ is selected, you will be shown further options to tailor the recurrence to the course needs. You will be able to select the frequency term such as Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly and the interval for the number of terms e.g., Yearly every 1 year.
You can then select how you would like your course frequency to apply which will auto populate the required by date of future occurrences, by selecting either ‘Completion Date’ or ‘Required By’ Date.
If ‘Completion Date’ is selected, on completion of a course in a person’s TNA, the next occurrence will auto populate with a required by date e.g., Completion Date (1st Jan 2022) + Course Frequency (Every 1 Year) = next course populated with the Required By date (1st Jan 2023).
If ‘Required By’ date is selected for the frequency to apply to, it will auto populate the next course as above but the frequency will be added to the required by date of the most recent completed course e.g., The completed course required by date was 31st March 2022 + frequency of every 1 year = next course populated with the Required By date of 31st March 2023.
How to Insert/Update training type and frequency using Data Import
See this Knowledge Base on how to Bulk Import Your Data Into Assure Modules
When inserting and/or updating courses, if ‘Type of Training’ is Recurring all frequency fields must be included and have a value.
If updating a course to be One off there should be no values in the frequency or frequency applied to cells.
A null value for ‘Type of Training’ will default to One Off.
See below as an example.
AMENDING THE COURSE FREQUENCY IN TNA TEMPLATE FOR CERTAIN ROLES
Employees who work in certain roles or areas within their environment may be exposed to greater risks than their colleagues, therefore within a TNA template you can choose to override a course’s default frequency to suit specific roles.
For example:
Operators require Asbestos Awareness training every 6 months rather than the frequency set in the TNA Course/Component record which is every 12 months. Within the TNA template for ‘Operators’ a user can select the menu on the row of the Asbestos Awareness course, click ‘Edit’ and set the frequency for every 6 months. Before saving, you can select “Update people linked to this TNA Template’ then save, this will update that frequency (and any other changes made in the TNA template) for all people who are linked to the ‘Operator’ TNA template. Courses with an overridden frequency in a TNA template will display an * to indicate an override.
To change the frequency of a course in a TNA template go to People > TNA Template (note: in your instance you may have renamed this). Select the more menu of the course you wish to amend, click ‘Edit’ and amend the frequency.
This is currently only possible once the TNA Template is linked to at least one individual. Select ‘Update existing’ to apply the amended frequency to all individuals linked to this TNA template. As a result their training records will be updated.
OVERRIDING AN INDIVIDUALS REQUIRED BY DATE IN THEIR TNA
In a person’s TNA you will be able to see (but not amend) the frequency of the course. You can amend the next required by date. If amending the required by date in a person’s TNA, the course frequencies will continue to apply and may adjust to any manual amendments.
For example:
If the First Aid course frequency is set to be applied to the required by date of the course, on the course’s next auto population it will apply to the new manually amended required by date.
If a required by date is not set using this capability courses will populate a required by date of today’s date + frequency in their TNA.
COMMON USER PATHWAYS - EXAMPLES
Changing a course from Recurring to One-Off:
Amending the frequency of a course from 12 month to 2 years:
Changing the frequency from being applied to completion date to required-by date:
Update course frequency in TNA template for a role:
Adding a new recurring course without setting a required by date:
Adding a new recurring course with setting a required by date:
Required by date is changed in a TNA :