- Verifying & Managing Skills

Skill Verification

iPassport provides the option to add a verification step for skills to be approved by a supervisor. Skill verification is enabled in the OU Preferences of the OU where the document resides (please refer to the Skilled Task Settings section of the Permissions & Settings article). Once this is done, when a user completes a skilled task, it becomes a requirement for a skill verifier to sign off the skill (approve or reject it). Verifiers can add comments and/or state they have seen some form of evidence to substantiate their decision. Attachments can also be added to a skill.

Add Skill Verifiers

Skill Verifiers need to be appointed when the verification step is enabled in an OU. Eligible verifiers require the permission, “Skilled Staff: Verify skill”, which is only included in the system role, Administration Editor but can be added to a custom role. Once set up, they will receive system emails to notify them that a skill requires verification. Skill verifiers cover all types of documents in their OU. Only one person needs to verify or reject a skill.

To add skill verifiers:

  1. Go to Competency > Skilled Groups > Skill Verifiers

  2. Click the (+)Add Verifiers button in the header area of the OU required (each OU has its own list of verifiers)

  3. In the lightbox that pops up, find and select verifiers in the search filter provided (by ticking the box by the users’ name)

    Only users who have the permission, “Skilled Staff: Verify skill” in the OU selected will be displayed.

  4. Click Save

Verifying a Skilled Task

With skill verification enabled, when a user completes a skilled task, the skill status transitions from, ‘Unconfirmed ’ to ‘Awaiting Verification ‘. This triggers a notification to the verifier(s) who can verify or reject the skill in one of these places:

In all cases, clicking the ‘Verify ’ or ‘Reject ’ skill options, opens one of the following lightboxes respectively (only the title of the lightboxes changes slightly):

Verify Skills

  1. Evidence Seen - tick the checkbox if evidence was collected
  2. Evidence Type - an option must be selected from the dropdown menu if ‘Evidence seen’ was selected (more below)
  3. Verification Comments - can be optionally added
  4. Click Verify to complete the operation (the skill status will become, “Confirmed”)

Reject Skills

  1. Reject Reason - an option must be selected from the dropdown menu (more below)
  2. Reissue Skill Tasks - fresh tasks can be assigned by selecting this option (the original skill status will become “Verificaation Rejected”)
  3. Rejection Comments - can be optionally added
  4. Click Reject to complete the operation

Skill Verification tab

Multiple skills for multiple documents or multiple users can be verified in one operation, when appropriate, in the Skill Verification page. All skilled tasks awaiting verification will be listed here (including skilled tasks for Equipment, Materials and Reagents), as long as the user is a verifier in the OU of the related record or a Site Admin. Here is also where Rejection Reasons and Evidence Types can be managed (more below). These are required when rejecting a skill (in all cases) or approving a skill if the option, Evidence Seen is selected.

To verify skills in the Skill Verification tab:

  1. Go to Competency > Skilled Groups > Skill Verification
  2. Use the following search filters to narrow the results when the list is long:
  • Search - free text field to search documents by name or index
  • User - a dropdown list of users appears when clicking in the field (the first letters of the name can be entered to find one more easily)
  • Completed Start Date and Completed End Date - date range of when users completed skilled tasks (click in the fields to select dates from the pop-up calendars)
  1. Select skills to verify by ticking their checkboxes in the left column (the whole list can be selected by ticking the checkbox in the header area)
  2. Click Verify Skill(s) or Reject Skill(s) as appropriate and follow instructions above

If a user selects multiple staff or multiple documents, the same evidence type and comments will be applied to all.

Skilled tab in Controlled Documents

Skills that are awaiting verification will display ‘verify’ ( “✔️”) and ‘reject’ ("X") icons in the Actions column under the Skilled tab of the corresponding controlled document. These icons will only be visible to users who have the permission to verify skills (Skilled Staff: Verify skill) in the document’s OU.

There are instructions on the use of the search area in the Viewing Skills in Controlled Documents section of the article, Viewing Skills & Skilled Tasks.

To verify or reject a skill, click the appropriate icon and fill out the corresponding lightbox above.

Attachments can also be added by clicking the magnifying glass icon in the Actions column. They can be added at any time, regardless of the state of the skill.

Skills tab in Staff Profiles

The Skills tab in Staff Profile records also provides a place to verify or reject skills assigned from Controlled Documents, Equipment, Materials or Reagent records.
The same as with the Skill Verification tab, multiple skills can be selected and the whole list can be selected by ticking the checkbox in the header area. Three options are available: Reject Skill, Verify Skill and Request Verification.

Clicking Reject Skill or Verify Skill opens the corresponding lightbox above.

Users that don’t have permission to verify skills (Skilled Staff: Verify skill) in the Home OU of the staff member will only see an option to “Request Verification”. Verification can only be requested in OUs where Skill Verifiers have been added.

Managing Rejection Reasons and Evidence Types

Clicking one of the options, Rejection Reasons or Evidence Types under the Skill Verification tab, opens a lightbox where they can be managed. There are separate lists for types of rejection and for evidence types.
To add a new type, enter the Name in the field required and click, Add Type.
To remove a type, click the trash/bin icon in the Actions column.
Click the “X” on the top right of the lightbox to close it when finished.

Verification History tab

Once a skill has been verified, it is removed from the Skill Verification tab and the details can then be seen in the Verification History tab. Individual records can be viewed and attachments can be added by clicking the magnifying glass in the View column.

The following search filters can be used to narrow the results when the list is long:

  • Search - free text field to search documents by name or index
  • User - a dropdown list of users appears when clicking in the field (the first letters of the name can be entered to find one more easily)
  • Verified Start Date and Verified End Date - date range of when the skills were verified (click in the fields to select dates from the pop-up calendars)

If it is deemed that a skill should not have been approved, it can be revoked here (instructions below).

Revoking a Skill

Once a skill has been verified, it is possible to revoke it, essentially saying that the user is not skilled and not verified on the controlled document. This can only be accomplished via the Verification History tab.

To revoke a skill:

  1. Go to Competency > Skilled Groups > Verification History
  2. Narrow down results by using search filters if required (details above)
  3. Select skills to revoke by ticking their checkboxes in the left column (the whole list can be selected by ticking the checkbox in the header area)
  4. Click the Revoke Skill option in the header area of the list
  5. In the lightbox that pops up, details of the skills selected can be viewed by clicking the banner with the legend, “Revoke the following ‘x’ skills
  6. Skilled tasks can be reissued if appropriate, for the revoked skills, by ticking the checkbox under, “Reissue task for the revoked skills
  7. A Revoke Reason must be entered in the field provided
  8. Click Revoke

If reissue is selected, skilled tasks will be issued immediately for all the tasks revoked during this process. Another skill record will be displayed in the controlled document and the staff profile ‘Skilled/Skills’ tabs and in related skilled groups, under their ‘Tasks’ tab.

Deleting Skills or Skilled Tasks

When a skilled task is deleted (for example, under the Users Tasks tab), the related skill becomes ‘invalid ‘.
When a skill is deleted from a controlled document’s Skilled tab, even if it was confirmed, it will be deleted from the user’s staff record and vice versa. On the other hand, if a user or a document are removed from a user group, earned (confirmed) skills are retained in the staff profile. To retain skills earned when a user group is not involved, it’s best to wait until a new version of the document is created (while in Draft state) to remove users that no longer need to be skilled.