GOODWILL OF NORTHWEST NORTH CAROLINA, INC. EMPLOYEE TRAINING DATABASE PROTOTYPE

We live in a world that requires accurate data analysis to not only reach our organizational goals, but also go beyond what we originally thought possible. Goodwill- NWNC

WHY ARE WE HEAR TODAY? Review a prototype software application, populated with test data, designed to maintain the records of employee professional development for Goodwill of Northwest North Carolina, Inc. Goodwill- NWNC

WHAT IS THE APPLICATION PURPOSE? To keep track of employee training compliance. Goodwill- NWNC

WHY DO WE NEED IT? Currently, data is kept in multiple spreadsheets that are not organized for easy access. Therefore, an application was designed to track and report on employee training compliance for Northwest Goodwill Locations. Goodwill- NWNC

HOW DO WE USE IT? This is a Microsoft Access application that provides a single entry for data entry, retrieval, and reporting Goodwill- NWNC

WHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF THE SOFTWARE? After employees have been entered into the system, the software automatically assigns the required training associated with the position to them. The software maintains past training records that have not expired, even if the employee changes positions. Additional training can be assigned to any position easily. An employee can add a optional training and still maintain all required training. Training can be easily assigned and unassigned to all positions. Automated reporting Goodwill- NWNC

THE APPLICATION Goodwill- NWNC Designed to make managing employee training and professional development easy. One person can manage employee training for all sites or you can track training at the store level. To make this simple- the administration tasks, such as adding a new employee, were kept separate from the recording of training dates.

EMPLOYEE MAINTENANCE Goodwill- NWNC I would recommend using the corporate EmployeeID here to ensure that individuals can be uniquely identified. The system automates the changing of training requirements when the employee’s position changes. New Employees will automatically get the training requirements associated with the new position. The employee will not lose any training records as the system keeps all completed training records that have not expired. Drop Down Menus for Data Integrity (to control what is entered in the system) 1

POSITION TRAINING ASSIGNMENT Goodwill- NWNC Improves configuration of training requirements. Administrator can add a training to a position by double clicking on it. Administrator can remove a training from a position by double clicking on it in the Position Training list. Note: The software updates the existing employee training requirements automatically. 2

POSITION MAINTENANCE Goodwill- NWNC The design allows for stress-free maintenance of all positions. Simple to add a new position or change the name of a position. In order to remove a position, no employees may be assigned that to position. Note: These restrictions are not optional. The database enforces them. 3

TRAINING MAINTENANCE Goodwill- NWNC Adding additionally training courses or renaming a training course is almost effortless. The user can only remove a training if is not a required training for any position. The “Months Valid For” sets the timeframe for when is training expires. Zero is used to denote non-expiring training courses. 4 So if “Creativity I is renamed to “Imagine I”, changing it here changes it for all employees.

LOCATION MAINTENANCE Goodwill- NWNC Adding and changing the name of a location is easy. To delete a location, no employee can be assigned to it. (Of course, that is normal as the employees cannot work at a location that does not exist.) 5

STATUS MAINTENANCE Goodwill- NWNC Even the Employee Status can be added to or renamed easily. 6

EMPLOYEE TRAINING LOG - SET DATE Goodwill- NWNC Training dates are logged easily. The date can be changed or an optional training added. The optional training can be removed if the date has not been set. When the employee’s position changes, the required training is changed here. If a training has not expired but it is no longer required, the training is record is still kept. However, the training has become optional for the employee.

OPTIONAL TRAINING Goodwill- NWNC The user has the option to add additional training that is not required in the position, and the system still tracks when it is completed. Note: If the employee changes position, the training may not be optional anymore.

DAYS UNTIL EXPIRED REPORT Goodwill- NWNC The customized report prompts the user for the number of days to alert on.

REPORT PAGE 1 Goodwill- NWNC This is the report in print preview mode. Red numbers indicate how many days a training is overdue. “Not Set” indicates training that is required but not taken yet. Black numbers indicate how many days until a training expires. Note: The days you enter when you open the report limits the display of training classes that are not coming due.

REPORT PAGE 2 Goodwill- NWNC

ORGANIZED TABLES Goodwill- NWNC The data is stored in tables rather than spreadsheets. These are hidden from the user in the application. Documentation will be provided to Goodwill to make modifying the application easy.

DESIGNED FOR MAINTAINABILITY Goodwill- NWNC  This is a layout of how the tables are related to one another.

ORGANIZED FORMS Goodwill- NWNC This design includes “Hidden Forms” that are part of the application but are not designed to be used separately. Documentation will be provided to Goodwill for the purpose of making future modifications within the application easy.

DOCUMENTATION INCLUDED IN FINAL PRODUCT Complete documentation of the design will be provided.

THE OVERALL PACKAGE Written in MS Access Designed for maintainability Documented code Industry standard practices The data is not contained in one table as it would be in a spreadsheet. This is a relational database that limits data duplication and is optimized for speed of update. Indexes have been created to speed searching. The indexes are binary trees for finding data faster.