Customised Training use aXcelerate’s student management system to effectively track, monitor and report on all of their training and student data from the one central location. Having one single database where they can access all necessary information from, has saved considerable time for Customised Training’s administrative staff and allowed them to focus more on strategies to further support Customised Training’s students.
Background Information
Customised Training was first launched in 2003, with the aim to over-service their students and employees with quality training and support in both Childcare and Business. During the last fourteen years, the organisation has experienced steady growth, expanded their ‘Scope of Registration’ and increased the number of qualifications offered. However, despite these changes, their dedication to their students, employees and the greater community has never wavered.
Customised Training is based in the outer western suburbs of Melbourne and has a special focus on providing training in the community services, health and welfare sector to both the local area and individuals based in rural Victoria. Customised Training’s qualifications now include mental health, early childhood education and care, disability support, aged care and leadership for the community sector. These qualifications are offered in classroom settings, in workplaces, by traditional distance education and more recently, eLearning. Having a multitude of delivery options available has helped Customised Training become more accessible to students, and has positively contributed to the organisation processing 9050 accredited enrolments since 2003.
Another contributing factor to Customised Training’s growing enrolments is the dedication and expertise that the organisation possesses in regards to the community services sector. Customised Training is passionate about community services and has a dedicated team of trainers who are professionals in their field. To ensure students are getting the most out of their training, Customised Training also offers a number of online forums and encourages students to see one of the organisation’s course advisors before enrolling in a course, so that the student can identify their desired goals and outcomes. All of these supporting services, in addition to the varied training delivery options available, help Customised Training to ensure they are delivering training that is current, relevant and suited to the varying needs of their students.
In addition to their accredited courses, Customised Training also offers a range of non-accredited professional development workshops and runs a network known as the ConnecT Community Services Network (CCSN) which is designed for leaders and managers within the community sector. The CCSN holds monthly get-togethers in which attendees can come together, listen to professional development speakers, meet with other like-minded peers and discuss topics that are of current relevance to their workplace.
Because Customised Training have been gradually expanding both their ‘Scope of Registration’ and training resources, managing and keeping track of students, courses and reporting requirements had become difficult. Multiple software systems were being used to gather all staff’s necessary data and these systems weren’t available to all staff at all times. Consequently, entering this data became extremely time-consuming. Customised Training decided they needed a student management system that could effectively track, monitor and report on all of their training and student data from the one central location. They also wanted a system that all staff – especially trainers – could access from any location. Customised Training turned to aXcelerate to provide a student management solution.
Solutions
Implementing a brand new student management system can be a daunting process, especially when you have 10 years worth of data to migrate across! For Customised Training, the most difficult part of changing to aXcelerate’s student management system was migrating all of the data they had stored within their multiple systems as well as ensuring their team were able to adjust to the new workflows, while staying on top of their day-to-day tasks. Thankfully, aXcelerate has a team of trainers and developers who helped guide Customised Training through their onboarding process.
Now fully implemented, Customised Training find the biggest benefit from using aXcelerate is all the necessary data that can be located within the one system. Prior to using a formal student management system, Customised Training was using an intranet for storing documents, a finance system that duplicated student documents, separate email marketing programs and staff who were creating their own excel databases. Within aXcelerate, all of this information can be found within different areas of the system. This information can also be accessed by all staff from any location, due to the student management system being cloud-based. This has been a significant time-saver for the team’s administrative staff as it is no longer a mission to search through multiple systems for particular data.
Because Customised Training’s administrative team no longer have to spend as much time locating student data, it means they have more time to develop processes to support their students. It also allows them to invest more time into their compliance activities and ensure they are up to date.
An example of this is the organisation’s utilisation of the aXcelerate Workflow. Customised Training has begun using the workflow automation feature, to set up tasks that trigger automatic forms of communication (emails/letters/notifications) to be sent to students. These forms of communication include timely email encouragement and reminders during each student’s enrolment. This has significantly improved Customised Training’s onboarding process with students.
The team have also been utilising aXcelerate’s ‘Report Builder’ tool by running reports that identify trends in student’s progress/performance and using this data for both marketing and quality improvement purposes.
Recently, Customised Training has also aimed to simplify all of their policy and procedure documentation. By having a resource library where documents can easily be stored in aXcelerate, Customised Training has been able to upload all of their updated policy documentation in a location which can easily be accessed by all staff and ensure the organisation is operating consistently and cohesively across the board.
Looking to the future
As Customised Training continue their partnership with aXcelerate, a big focus will be on enhancing their recent WordPress integration with the student management system. Two big goals will be to integrate the student online applications and payments shown on Customised Training’s website, with their aXcelerate system. Customised Training is also looking to develop ways to automate their marketing processes within their student management system. The aXcelerate team are excited to continue working on these integrations in order to ensure Customised Training are managing their training activities as effectively as possible. This will allow Customised Training to continue spending less time on administrative tasks and more time on acting out their mission statement; providing training that is current, relevant and produces outcomes to help people in their careers.
To find out more about Customised Training and the courses they offer, visit their website
To find out more about aXcelerate and any of the features discussed above, click here
