Completing a course and being competent at the task are two different things, and being qualified to do the work unsupervised is a third. TrainGrid keeps all three separate, because assuming they are the same is how an unqualified person ends up on a machine.
The rule: Training completed ≠ Competent ≠ Qualified. An employee can finish Forklift Training on Monday and still be Not qualified on Tuesday, because the practical assessment hasn't happened yet.
Turning competency on for a course
Competency is a per-course setting. Open the course, and in the Competency & topics card tick Requires a competency assessment. You can then describe what the assessor should look for, and set how many days a passed assessment stays valid before it needs redoing.
Only courses with this switched on ever ask for an assessment; everything else records as training alone.
Recording an assessment
Open any completed record (from Record Completion, the employee's History tab, or a matrix cell) and choose Record assessment. You capture:
- Outcome — one of the six below. The legend link beside it explains each one on screen.
- Assessor and date — who watched the demonstration, and when.
- Suggested actions — what should happen next. These are chosen separately from the outcome, so a single result can carry any combination of follow-ups.
- Reassessment due — optional for any outcome other than Competent. Anything with a date appears under Reports → Competency Status in the Reassessment scheduled view, and is counted on the dashboard Competency card once the date arrives.
- Comments — free text for the detail that matters later.
The six outcomes
| Outcome | Meaning | Suggested action |
|---|---|---|
| Competent | Demonstrated the required skill to the expected standard | Mark achieved; issue or maintain the qualification |
| Competent with conditions | Can perform the task, but with restrictions or extra supervision | Record the conditions; assign follow-up or supervised work |
| Needs improvement | Some capability, but not fully to standard | Remedial training and a reassessment date |
| Not competent | Did not demonstrate the required competency | No independent work; retraining and reassessment |
| Not assessed | Not evaluated yet — a status, not a result | Schedule the assessment |
| Exempt | The requirement does not apply to this person | Record the exemption, its reason and who approved it |
Competent with conditions asks for the restriction in writing (“supervised operation only”), which is more useful than a bare pass. Needs improvement lets you tick exactly which of the course's topics need work, so the record says Needs improvement — changeover procedure rather than just “failed”. Exempt always requires a reason and an approver.
How qualification is worked out
TrainGrid never stores “qualified” as a flag — it works it out from the facts, so it can never drift out of date:
- Training not complete → Not qualified, whatever the competency says.
- Competency required but never assessed → Not qualified.
- Competent (or Exempt), and not expired → Qualified.
- Competent with conditions → Qualified (conditions), so the restriction stays visible.
- Competency lapsed past its validity date → Not qualified again.
Tip: The Competency Status report has a Trained but not qualified view — that is the list to check before an audit.
Evidence and reassessment
Attach the assessor's sign-off sheet, a photo or a quiz result to the record and mark it as Competency evidence, which keeps it distinguishable from the course certificate. When you set a reassessment date, the record appears in the Competency Status report under its Reassessment scheduled view as the date approaches, and turns red once it passes. Picking that view retitles the report Reassessments Due, so that is the heading on a printed copy.