Staff Training
How are Staff trained in using SupportAbility?
SupportAbility has a host of on-demand training videos available in its in-built Learning Centre, along with help articles accessible via our ever-growing Knowledge Base allowing Staff the flexibility to learn in their preferred learning style and at their own pace.
Staff can access these resources to engage in self-paced learning and can revise the material whenever they need it. The Learning Centre makes it easy for new Staff Members to get up to speed as soon as possible. All Staff with a user account in SupportAbility will have access to this content from a computer or tablet.
We find that this self-paced and on-demand learning environment, in combination with an internal discussion around your organisation's processes, is what Staff require to understand SupportAbility and become proficient in its use.
For more information regarding the Learning Centre, please review the Introduction to the Learning Centre article linked below for reference.
Key elements of Staff training
When training Staff, this needs to factor in two key elements:
- SupportAbility system functionality, and
- How your organisation plans to utilise SupportAbility, based on your specific policies, workflows and procedures.
Much of the available content is very comprehensive and therefore requires Operations Management and Authorised Representatives to review this first and deciding how best to utilise the functionality before training other Staff in its use.
This is always further enhanced when combined with an internal discussion around your organisation's processes, systems training must be coupled with organisational policy and procedure, to provide Staff with the direction they need on how best to utilise SupportAbility within your organisation.
Why doesn't SupportAbility offer in-person or online Staff training?
Historically, our Customer Success team facilitated in-person or online support sessions with the majority of our subscribers, and as a result, we found that this method of training was becoming less and less effective. Due to the complexity and sheer volume of the content covered, we needed to approach our training in a more beneficial and efficient way.
It is important to note that we are a 'boutique' software provider and SupportAbility is our flagship product, and it is specific to the Disability sector and the requirements under the NDIS. We are based in Melbourne and providers across Australia subscribe to using SupportAbility. With our limited resources it is not only not feasible for us to travel across the country providing end-user training, in our experience this approach actually does not result in success.
When end-user training was conducted by us some three years ago, we found that operational guidance was always the missing piece of the puzzle and Staff would seek answers on this from us which we obviously cannot provide. In addition, the Staff who received this training would often end up leaving the organisation and training would understandably again be required for new Staff.
Upgrade of the videos available in our Learning Centre
SupportAbility evolves with each version upgrade and with this rapid evolution comes the challenge of upgrading the video content available in the Learning Centre. Staff will, therefore, notice some videos are demonstrated in older versions of SupportAbility.
We acknowledge that there are some gaps in our current available learning content also. We have been continuing to add many articles to our ever-growing Knowledge Base, however, our current video content available via the Learning Centre is in the process of being updated.
An example of a recently upgraded part of the system is our NDIS Direct Client Funding engine and we have created a comprehensive training video to assist any Staff who work in this area. This has been designed for Staff to understand the different ways in which Client Funding can be configured and how this can be set up based on who the Invoices for NDIS Supports need to be issued to for each Client. This example can be found in the Finance > NDIS Direct Client Funding section of the Learning Centre:
To prioritise the content created, we are compiling results of the most common email queries received via support, along with frequently searched terms in our Knowledge Base. This is a very exciting project that we are currently working on and are committed to constantly evolving for the benefit of all SupportAbility users. In the longer term, we will be redesigning the Learning Centre and providing improved contextualised help throughout SupportAbility.