Compliance Training – Team Management Process (Part 4)

Overview

In my last blog about Team Management (TM), I covered the following about the Items tab of a Team Management Group (TMG) record:

• Using the TMG and TMG Item grids to look for Valid records and launch Reference Links.
• TMG Item fields.
• How to associate Teams to an Item.
• How the new Team Administrative Control option works for TM.

To continue this series on the VTA TM feature used to help organizations assign compliance training, let’s look at the Periods tab of a TMG record.

Period records are used to design:

• The date range that the TMG is available in VTA Learner, including setting a “review by” date.
• Email reminders for supervisors.
• The student groups that will participate in the TM process.

TMG Period Fields

Name

Each Period record must be given a Name to describe it, such as “Ongoing Review”, “2015”, “Open”, etc.

This value will not be seen in VTA Learner, but it will be seen on the TMG Current Period Status Report (look for details on the TMG reports in a future blog).

It is a required field that can be up to 60 characters.

Start/End Dates

Each Period must have a set Start Date, but an End Date is optional.

Having a current/open Period for a TMG allows the following:

What should you do? Consider these scenarios:

• No End Date – Having no End Date allows you to have a TMG open forever. You can set it and forget it.
• Set End Date – You might instead want to create a Period for each year, every 2 years, every 3 years, etc. This, along with a 1st Approval Due Within value (see more about that below), allows you to force all supervisors to review everyone during a mass initiative where you can promote TM assessments at the same time across the enterprise.

Review Frequency

This is how often, within the Period date range, that the supervisor is required to submit an approved assessment.

You can select from the following options:

• Never (Although they don’t have to complete one on a frequency, the supervisor must still submit one approved assessment for the Period.)
• Quarterly
• Semi-Annually
• Annually
• Every 2, 3, 4 or 5 years

1st Approval Due Within (Days)

This is the number of days from the date that the student is assigned as a TMG participant for the Period that the supervisor has to get their 1st review approved before it is considered “overdue”.

You can enter a number from 0 up to 9999.

If left at 0, then the supervisor is required to immediately submit an approved review. There is no “grace period”.

Examples Using 90 Days

• Existing Student – If a student exists when the Period is created with a Start Date of 1/1/2015 (and the 1st Approval Due Within is set to 90 days), the review must be approved by 4/1/2015.

• New Student – If a student does not get assigned as a participant until 3/10/2015 (and the 1st Approval Due Within is set to 90 days), the review must be approved by 6/8/2015.

Examples Using 0 Days

• Existing Student – If a student exists when the Period is created with a Start Date of 1/1/2015 (and the 1st Approval Due Within is set to 0 days), the review is due by 1/1/2015 (i.e., immediately).

• New Student – If a student does not get assigned as a participant until 3/10/2015 (and the 1st Approval Due Within is set to 0 days), the review must be approved by 3/10/2015 (i.e., immediately).

Send Reminder

You can turn on email reminder notifications to supervisors to let them know that they have pending approvals to submit.

The Send Reminder option controls how far in advance of the approval “due date” that a reminder notification should go out to the supervisor.

You can select from the following options:

• Never (No reminder emails will be sent.)
• 1, 2, 3, or 6 Months Prior
• 1 Year Prior
• 1 Week Prior

Frequency

If you have reminder email notifications to supervisors turned on, the Frequency option controls how often a notification should be emailed once they start.

You can select from the following options:

• Never (They will still get the initial email notification.)
• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Quarterly
• Annually

Keep Email Copy in VTA

This is a control that allows you to save a copy of the email note sent to the supervisor on the Mailbox tab of the supervisor’s Student record.

Why turn this on?

1. It gives a quick view of notices sent to them regarding TMG reminder notifications. You can see when it was sent and the students and TMGs for which the supervisor was reminded.
2. You can use the Forward option to prove to their supervisor that a note was sent (it’s nice proof that VTA did what it was supposed to do).

Assignments Grid

At the bottom of a TMG Period record is an Assignments grid (highlighted in orange below). This is where you assign the students to the TMG Period.

Just click Add, select from the standard Group Types, including Custom Categories, and make your selections.

Period Examples

Below are three Period setup examples. They each have their own pros and cons. It always depends on your process and what works for you.

Summary

Once you have the Team Management Group Period record completed (or at least the required fields), you are ready to officially Publish a TMG and make it available in VTA Learner.

Next time, I will review the Team Management Group reports.

Marc Letendre

eLearning professional with over 20 years experience positively impacting corporate productivity through skillful management of staff development programs and implementation of RISC LMS solutions. Marc attained an M.S. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Springfield College in 2005 and is reputable for working with groups to identify issues and create tools, processes or training solutions to achieve and exceed measurable objectives.