Don’t you just love kids?! They can be some of the hardest to please, often imaginative, often technically more knowledgeable than most adults and occasionally troublesome! But we were all one once so we can sympathise. You can therefore imagine how we felt when asked by Achievement Training to build them a system that allows them to manage not only the students but also teachers and employers!
The current system of tracking a student’s work placement progress was paper based and sadly paper based systems have the disadvantage of going walkabouts from time to time. This was especially the case when passed from student to employer to teacher and round again. Achievement Training needed a way to centralise the information and make updates much quicker.
Using only a web server and a bit of ingenuity we were able to develop a tool that allowed everyone to work together sharing information. The client was happy with the first design but when we tested the system we felt that there was no way to communicate the changes between the users effectively. Most had email but not all of the students used it day-to-day, especially when they were on work placement. We carried out a survey of users and found that if we could send a text message to the students, and let’s be honest every student has a mobile phone these days, we could shorten the time it takes to update the reports.
Dan Williams, the IT Manager at Achievement Training, explains the improvements using text messaging made. “The original system was really easy to use and update but we were often kept waiting for the student’s input before we could have the report signed off. As we didn’t have sms technology in the business Innovate Software developed a web service that allowed us to use a third party system instead. The speed of the text messaging is incredible, most students are informed of the need to update their profile within a few seconds. Usually within 48 hours the reports are completed and ready to be signed off”.
