Training Center Manager
Less Stress Instructional Services
The Ultimate Software
Packagefor Running
Your Training Agency
SUPPORTS:
American Heart Association
National Safety Council
American Safety & Health Institute
Medic First Aid
Less Stress Instructional Services – 138 Buena Vista Ave, Hawthorne,NJ 07506
(888) 277-3671 – (973) 427-9692 – Fax: (973) 427-7776 –
DISCLAIMER: This product is an independent creation of Less Stress Instructional Services. It is not affiliated with, licensed or endorsed by the American Heart Association, the National Safety Council, the American Safety & Health Institute, or Medic First Aid.
Training Center Manager User’s Manual
Index
Topic Page
What is Training Center Manager?2
Who would use Training Center Manager?2
The Main Menu3
Courses4
Instructors6
Reports7
Certificate Printer8
Course Configuration11
Instructors Certificates Configuration11
Messages12
About13
Registration 14
Really cool stuff you can do with TCM15
Support and other TCM details16
Contact Information17
Hey – did you know?17
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions about TCM18
TCM tutorial20
At one time I ran training courses like many other training centers. We took registrations on a form, called people one-by-one to confirm them for the class, hand-wrote a roster, and spent far too much time punching out training certificates on a typewriter or word processor template. It was time consuming to say the least…
I no longer have this problem. I type in the info once, and automatically perform all of the above functions and more. I use Training Center Manger…
What is Training Center Manager?
Training Center Manager is our response to the above problems. It is a top-of-the-line database system specifically geared towards the needs to training center coordinators. While it works for any type of training, it is specifically designed for agencies that conduct emergency care and safety training from organizations like the American Heart Association, the American Safety & Health Institute, National Safety Council and Medic First Aid. It enables the user to print certificates specific to those agencies without the use of a word processor template.
The program also allows for a number of different report and communications functions detailed later in this manual.
Who uses Training Center Manager?
Training Center Manager was designed for American Heart Association (AHA) Community Training Centers (CTC’s), Training Sites, and even really busy instructors. It was also designed for American Safety & Health Institute (ASHI) training centers/instructors, Medic First Aid (MFA) Trainers and also National Safety Council (NSC) Training Agencies.
Many trainers that perform functions other than emergency care also use TCM. They use it because it allows them a convenient way to schedule, confirm, track, and communicate with program participants. It can even print certificates of completion on certificate paper or regular 8½” by 11” paper. It’s a great tool for corporate trainers or training/safety officers.
The Main Menu
The Main Menu is where it all begins. It is the where most of your navigation to the other elements of the program will start. You should have a number of buttons on the screen, including:
“Go to Courses” – This button will take you to the Course Management section of the program. You will spend most of your time in this part of the program. This is where you schedule the program and enter registrations. You will also use it to confirm their attendance at the session.
“Go to Instructors” – This button will take you to the Instructor Management section of the program. From this point you can add or subtract staff for your center, maintain their personal information, and keep track of their instructorships.
“Go to Reports” – This button will take you to the Reports Section of TCM, where you can generate many reports for AHA reporting, administrative statistics, or other inquiries. It also performs very helpful functions, such as finding expired students, and reissuing certificates for students who call looking for a replacement card.
“Go to Certificate Printer” –This takes you to the TCM certificate printer engine, where most of your proof-of-training will be generated.
“Configure Course Types” – This button takes you to the Course Type Configuration section. This is where you add all of your course offerings. When you add or stop offering a program, you can change the titles from this menu.
“Configure Instructor Certs” – This button takes you to the Instructor Certification Management screen. This is where you add instructorships to your staff profiles.
“Configure Messages” – This takes you to the Message Configuration screen. From here you can change the messages you use to confirm the attendance of participants at your courses, and to remind students when they are about to expire so that they can come back and get retrained with you.
“About” – This button takes you to the About section of TCM. It tells you a little about the program and Less Stress Instructional Services, the company that created TCM. It also has links to our instructor support websites.
“Order Supplies” – This button will take you to – our site for coordinators and instructors, where you can purchase manikins, manuals, and other course supplies.
“Register” – This button will take you to the TCM Registration Screen where you can enter your training center information and punch in your registration code and unlock the program.
“Quit” – This takes you out of the program and back to Windows
The Courses Screen
This is one of the busiest screens in TCM. Much of your more routine work will happen here. If you are new to using TCM, you should see a sample course. There are a few course elements visible from this screen:
DateProgram Date(ex. 09/23/00)
TypeType of Course(ex. CPR for Healthcare Providers)
LocationsWhere the course took place (ex. Holy Name Hospital)
StatusHow far along the course is (ex. Scheduled)
There are also several buttons that enable you to perform different functions:
ENTER NEW COURSE – This button will take you to a Course Profile Screen where you can schedule a program and add participants to it. Important fields about a course include:
LOCATION: Where the course took place
TYPE: The program being conducted – very important as it is often
printed on the certificate
COURSE DATE:Date of the program
EXPIRATION DATE:Date the training expires (used for searches)
COURSE TIME:Time parameter for the course – used for the confirmations
INSTRUCTORS: Staff assigned and ultimately teaching the program. TCM
supports up to five instructors for a course. We estimate that
will be enough for 99% of programs.
ON-SITE COOR.:This Yes/No toggle will dictate who gets the confirmations or
expiration notices. It is used for courses arranged for groups
(such as corporations) where the training center does not know
the individual participant names but rather plans the course
with one representative of the group. If YES is checked, all
correspondence will be sent to the on-site coordinator and not
to the students. If NO is checked, all correspondence will be
sent to the individual participants.
COURSE STATUS:The course status is an indication of how far along the program
is. The default settings are SCHEDULED, CONFIRMED,
TAUGHT, and COMPLETED. You can also add your own.
COURSE LENGTH:This is how many hours are scheduled for the program. Some
certificates (such as National Safety Council certificates) require
a number of hours to be posted on the proof-of-training. The
number you input here will be imported to the card printing
engine.
STUDENT FIELDS:
NAME:The student’s name.
ADDRESS:The student’s address.
CITY:The student’s city.
STATE:The student’s state.
ZIP:The student’s zip code.
PHONE:The student’s phone number.
EMAIL:The student’s email address.
MISC: This field is to enter the student’s Driver’s License Number when printing
National Safety Council Defensive Driving Certificates. If you do not need to
print this type of certificate, you can enter miscellaneous notes about the
student here.
STATUS:The student status. There are several default fields – PASS, FAIL-WRITTEN,
FAIL-PRACTICAL, FAIL-BOTH, and INCOMPLETE. You can also add your own
comment here.
BUTTONS IN THE ENTER COURSE SCREEN
DUPLICATE COURSE – This button makes an exact copy of the course and its participants. This is especially helpful if you do back-to-back combination courses (CPR/First Aid). Simply enter the participants for the CPR course, duplicate the course, and change the second program to First Aid and adjust the expiration date.
DELETE THIS COURSE – This button will permanently delete the program.
FIND A COURSE – Locates a course by searching for parameters you specify.
PRINT ROSTER – This button will print a program roster including program location, date, instructor(s) name, and the names, addresses, and status of the students.
PRINT CARDS – This imports student information into the CARD PRINTING screen so that you can print course completion cards. IMPORTANT: Only students marked “PASS” in the STUDENT STATUS will be imported. Students marked anything else are assumed to not have completed the course successfully.
DELETE THIS COURSE – This button will permanently delete the program.
FIND A COURSE – This button will help you look for a program in the database. It is especially useful when you have entered a lot of programs and need to find a program that is “lost”.
PRINT A COURSE LIST - This button will give you a hard copy of the currently displayed list of programs.
The MAIN MENU button allows you to exit this screen.
The Instructor Management Screen
The Main Menu is where it all begins. It is the where most of your navigation to the other elements of the program will start. You should have a number of buttons on the screen, including:
“ENTER NEW INSTRUCTOR” – Use this button to add an instructor to your roster.
INSTRUCTOR FIELDS:
NAME:The instructor’s name.
ADDRESS:The instructor’s address.
CITY:The instructor’s city.
STATE:The instructor’s state.
ZIP:The instructor’s zip code.
PHONE:The instructor’s phone numbers (two of them).
EMAIL:The instructor’s email address.
AHA ID:This field accommodates the instructor’s AHA instructor ID number.
Generally prints on the AHA certificates.
NSC ID:This field accommodates the instructor’s NSC instructor ID number.
Generally prints on the NSC certificates.
MFA ID:This field accommodates the instructor’s MFA instructor registry number.
Generally prints on the MFA certificates.
CERTS:These are the programs this instructor is accredited to teach. New certs can
be added as necessary from the CONFIGURE INSTRUCTOR CERTS from the
MAIN MENU.
DATE/NOTE:This section can be used to make miscellaneous documentation about the
instructor, such as monitoring and updates.
“DELETE THIS INSTRUCTOR“ – Remove an instructor from your teaching roster.
“FIND INSTRUCTOR“ – Locate an instructor by inputting text into one of the fields and trying to match it to the instructor database.
“PRINT INSTRUCTORS“ – Print out your instructor database. Helpful for audits of your training center or for keeping a binder of information at your fingertips.
The MAIN MENU button allows you to exit this screen.
THE REPORTS MENU
The Reports Menu generates data useful for maintaining a training center. Some of this data will be used to check instructor activity for recertification. Other data might be used to prove training center activity to an accrediting body, like in an AHA CTC audit. Other data might just be generated to satisfy your curiosity. Reports can be displayed either on the screen or sent to the printer for a hard copy by toggling the radio button on the screen. There are four buttons in the Reports Menu, with the corresponding sub-buttons:
“Class Summary” - This button will take you to a listing of courses. You can see how many students of each course type your center has trained. The summary is sorted by course type, and shows dates and locations of each course.
“Instructor Summary” – See how many students and courses each of your instructors has taught. The summary is sorted alphabetically by instructor.
“Expiration Summary” – Look to see what training is due to expire. You enter a starting and ending date and TCM produces a list of courses whose participants are due for retraining.
SUB-BUTTONS:
SEND EXPIRATION NOTICES: Sends each participant in that class a notification that their
training is about to expire.
PAPER:Sends paper notices to the students/coordinator that you can send
via postal service.
LETTER:Sends a letter on a regular piece of paper that can be folded
and placed into a window envelope.
LABELS:Creates a set of labels for the class participants in the event
you want to send them more information, such as a course
schedule or brochure. Uses AVERY 5180 layout (10 by 30).
POSTCARDS:Creates postcards on letter sized cardstock (4 postcards on
each sheet of card stock). It is very helpful for cost-conscious training centers as postcards cost much less to mail (around $0.20 per piece currently in the US).
EMAIL:Sends expiration notices to students/coordinators via email.
BOTH: Does the both above for each class. Email is very inexpensive (well,
pretty much free) but not always very reliable (email addresses
change, not everyone uses it or checks it often).
“Student Summary” – Look for a particular student name, and TCM returns the courses that match that name. Especially helpful for reprinting certificates for students who lose their proof of training and require a reissue of their certificate(s).
SUB-BUTTONS:
REPRINT CARD: Imports the selected student into the card printing engine so that a
certificate can be printed.
SUB-BUTTONS:
NEW CARD: Creates a new student profile so that you can print an additional certificate
in the same session.
The MAIN MENU button allows you to exit this screen.
THE CERTIFICATE PRINTER
The Certificate Printer is where you print out your proof-of-training. It is a special database engine that matches up data you’ve inputted in the COURSES screen with special templates designed for various types of certificates. You should see various data fields for each student record to be printed:
PRINT FIELDS:
COURSE DATE: Date of the course
EXPIRATION DATE:Date the training is due to expire
STUDENT NAME:The student’s name.
ADDRESS:The student’s address.
CITY:The student’s city.
STATE:The student’s state.
ZIP:The student’s zip code.
NSC ID:The instructor’s National Safety Council ID Number.
NSC HOURS:The number of hours printed on the NSC certificates.
INSTRUCTOR NAME:Name of the first instructor inputted on the COURSES screen.
ADDITIONAL:This field imports data from the MISC field of the COURSES screen.
There are also five toggle buttons on this screen: LEFT, MIDDLE, RIGHT, TOP, and BOTTOM. These are used as adjustments on your printer when doing certificates. What setting you will require is highly dependent on what printer you use.
IMPORTANT: You should spend considerable time testing your printer with TCM. Training certificates can be very expensive, and it is vital for you to make sure everything works well between TCM and your hardware. We cannot be responsible for misprinted certificates with TCM. Be sure to test TCM with your printer by printing several test courses on plain white paper and matching them up against your certificates.
NEW CARD:This adds a student record to the card printing engine. If you want to print
an additional certificate for a student who was not imported from the
program, you can create a blank profile with this button and enter the data
manually.
CERT. COMPL: Creates a Proof-of-Training certificate of completion in a landscape
orientation on a 8 ½” by 11” paper. Excellent for miscellaneous inservices
or other ‘generic’ training.
NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL CARD PRINTING:
GEN:This button will print your student profiles on to National Safety Council
certificates. Use this button to print on to NSC CPR, First Aid, AED, and
Bloodborne Pathogens certificates.
DDC:This button will print your student profiles on to National Safety Council
certificates. Use this button to print on to NSC Defensive Driving Course
certificates.
AMERICAN SAFETY & HEALTH INSTITUTE CARD PRINTING:
ASHI F:This button will print your student profiles on to American Safety & Health