Introducing Captis – Our Digital Assistant
If you’ve been on one of our First Aid courses recently, you might have been made aware by your trainer of the fact that they’ve been using a new app based system for registering you onto the course and for assessing you during the course.
In fact you will have provided a signature on the trainer’s device, much as you would when accepting a parcel from a courier.
The app that your trainer was using is Captis, and if you haven’t experienced a one of our trainers using it recently, you will do on your next course with us!
What is Captis?
Captis is software designed specifically by us and our partners at SkillSeeder.com created to satisfy our needs as a growing training business. It is most obviously a trainer’s assistant, that via an app on the trainer’s device, allows for an entire course to be managed digitally. It eliminates the need for the trainer to print, carry, scan, send the usual paperwork involved with course administration and assessment. It also allows for course materials to be delivered from the same app if desired, or sent to another device for connection to a display for example.
However, the really clever part of Captis is actually behind the scenes. Our office based team are able to create and manage course templates containing course materials and course forms required. They are able to assign events using that template to a trainer, including information about a venue or any special considerations for example. The trainer accesses this all within the app.
Should we need to adjust a form, or course materials for any reason, we make that change once within the app, and that change is carried across to all instances where that change occurs, automatically. So ensuring that the entire team is using the latest version of a particular course material, has never been so easy. No more print runs at set times, or laborious pre-course preparation.
Following a course, the trainer simply ‘completes’ the course within the app, and the office team take it from there, giving us the ability to complete our Quality Assurance checks and process course ‘paperwork’ much more quickly. No more scanning, posting, shredding, etc
We have always prided ourselves on making life as easy and efficient as possible for our trainer team, but we reckon that Captis is saving each trainer between 60-90 mins admin time for every course they run.
Why is Captis so Important to us?
Environmental Impact
A big part of our drive to reduce our environmental impact has been to reduce, wherever possible, our use of paper, printers, printing ink, couriers, etc. Captis removes almost all the remaining paper that we were still using from our system. Of course our trainers still hold a back up set of paperwork for emergencies, but it is rarely touched.
Of course the efficiency savings also help reduce our time spent at computers doing simple data tasks, meaning that the time we do spend at computers (which consume a fair bit of energy) can be spent on more productive tasks.
IQA
Our Quality Assurance systems and processes have always been extremely robust, but Captis has enabled them to be taken a step further. There are now no chances of human error in the paperwork, or of a candidate forgetting to sign the register, because Captis alerts the trainer to any issues like these.
As mentioned above, updates and changes to course materials, or course organisation need only be done once, and everyone is automatically updated.
From the office, our Senior Team are able to watch course assessments being carried out in real time from the within the app, and know when each candidate registered or completed a particular module or assessment.
Efficiency
All of this efficiency is better for us as a company, it will help us continue to grow, safe in the knowledge that our course management and delivery systems have never been stronger and more easily scaleable. It is better for the environment too, as mentioned above. The more we grow, the bigger that improvement becomes.
And it is better for you, our client. It allows us to deliver a faster, more efficient, and more robust service than ever before, at no additional cost.
What’s Next?
Captis to date has been a big investment, both financially, and in human resource from ourselves and SkillSeeder, for the last 12 months or so and it’s great to start to see the fruits of that labour and our vision becoming a reality.
We continue to develop the functionality of the software, both on the app side, and office side, and have some great ideas for where we could take it next.
We have very much concentrated on our specific needs throughout the development, but the SkillSeeder team have had their eye on the bigger picture and have ensured that the software has been developed in a way that is completely mouldable to the needs of another provider. If you would like to reap the benefits for your training business, then get in touch with SkillSeeder to find out more
Otherwise, next time you’re on a course with us, you’ll know a little more about why your trainer is using their phone or tablet quite so much, and the benefits that is bringing you!
