Dovetail Standard CPD Manager Dovetail Management Software Limited Product Information Jan 2003 Standard CPD Manager was designed specifically for large UK law firms. It has been in widespread use since October 1994. This document outlines Points of interest: its content.. Components 2 A complementary product called GlobalCPD.NET will be made available in 2004. This is particularly suitable for firms who need to apply web technology to the delivery and administration of training across many UK E-mail 3 and overseas offices. It has been designed to cater for the CPD rules of several jurisdictions and professional bodies. CPD record 4 Clients include large & medium Task Manager 6 size firms such as: Monitoring · CPD Hours compliance Allen & Overy Publishing on the 8 · Law Society compulsory course compliance Intranet Berwin Leighton · Expenditure & activity Intranet Access to 10 Bird & Bird Communicating Training Records · Reminders & confirmations by email Clyde & Co Technical Info 17 · Information on the Intranet Denton Wilde Sapte · Training Plans & Progress reports Frequently Asked 18 · Reports in portable (PDF) format by email Questions DLA Planning Report Samples 19+ Field Fisher Waterhouse · Trainee Solicitor PSC programme Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer · Other Core programmes Professional Administration Herbert Smith · Accuracy and efficiency Lovells · Less time on basic, mundane tasks Masons Business Development · Administration of client Seminars Norton Rose · Invoice & letter production Penningtons · Client delegates database S J Berwin · Marketing Analysis Some of its components Page 2 Course Schedule CPD Training Publishing on the Data Warehouse Record Enquiry on Firm’s Intranet for ODBC / SQL the Firm’s Intranet Reporting Tools Dovetail SQL Web Server giving fee-earners and support teams greater access to information via the Firm’s Intranet and third-party reporting tools. Front Office Back Office The Back Office system is for training administrators and managers. Training Records Courses & Bookings Client for both Solicitors Training published on Training & Support Staff Programmes the Intranet invoice production monitoring Law Society Skill-Base Compliance Financial Ledger monitoring Automatic CPD Calculations Page 3 l Filters the hours accumulated by solicitors to check if they satisfy the current regu- lations of the Law Society of England and Wales. l Ensures ineligible CPD hours are excluded from calculations. l Identifies individuals who are falling behind with their hours before it is too late to take remedial action. l Incorporates the transitional arrangements at the time the new scheme began in Nov. 1992 and its subsequent changes. l Allows amendments to be made retrospectively. l Analyses non-structured training activities attracting CPD credit. (e.g. Legal writing, distance learning) “Filters the hours accumulated l Caters for deferral of hours, authorised extensions and part-time working. by solicitors to check if they satisfy the current regulations of l Except in the case of deferrals and part-time working, the system merely requires the Law Society of England and the solicitor’s admission date to perform all the complicated compliance analysis. Wales. Put the calculator away!” Law Society Compulsory Courses l A special report will tell you who has and who has not attended Management Course Part I. l It caters for single and multiple (modular) sessions. l Useful for estimating how many sessions will required over the next year or so. l The CPD Training record shows when this or the previous compulsory courses were attended. E-mail Integration · The names and default message are automatically generated. Quite an advantage when under time pressure. · Encourage high attendance rates with timely reminders. · Send reports by email. · Reduce the circulation of paperwork. · Produce booking confirmations, reminders and general emails. Automatic transfer to MAPI compliant email systems. Handles deferrals, secondments & part-time working. Changes in regulations covered by the software maintenance agreement Calculated automatically. Page 4 Training records for all staff Page 5 l Training records for all staff may be maintained, not only admitted solicitors. l Also caters for external delegates. l System generated code for each individual is based on the person’s surname. Facili- tates name searching on merely the first two or three leading characters. A change in surname will trigger the appropriate re-coding of all related records. l Ex-employee records retained on file and easily accessed. l File import of joiners, leavers, transfers etc from personnel system. l Can monitor staff CPD hours against an in-house standard. Task Manager Page 6 This optional module helps managers and administrators keep track of the administration workflow. “With so much going on have we forgotten anything? “I’m on holiday next month! Will my manager know which critical tasks must be re-assigned and monitored?” “A multi-user, shared task list. All members of the admin team share this information.” Tasks listed depend on search criteria used. “A choice of search criteria to pinpoint potential time management problems.” Task Manager Page 7 “It looks good but surely it requires a lot of time and effort entering and updating the task records? No, it requires little effort. Sets of standard tasks can be defined in templates. All you have to do is attach a template to the course requiring close monitoring” Below, illustrates the details you may define for a task. “The Percent Done field would be worth updating if the task is a lengthy process over several weeks.” Publish Courses on your Intranet Page 8 l Browser access to information published in a SQL Server database. “The Intranet team no longer has to waste time typing the course l The Back-Office system remains secure, available only to authorised schedule in an HTML editor! administrators and managers. Once we schedule the courses in Dovetail; the rest is automatic. l Seamless integration with your intranet design. Make it look like the house-style. Therefore, if course dates change, l A choice of simple and advanced search criteria. the intranet is updated automatically. l URL links to other documents e.g. agenda, speaker CV. Encourages the use of our intranet.” l Can exclude specific courses from publication. Drill-down to see who has booked on a course event. Publish Courses on your Intranet Page 9 “A choice of simple and advanced search screens.” l Course titles are underlined (hyperlinked) if there is additional information in another HTML document like the one below. “Links to other sources of course information on your intranet. So you could produce an agenda etc. in a WP system, publish it on the intranet and then have a seamless link to it from Dovetail.” Technical summary · A Dovetail C++ ISAPI program processes user queries. “Server-side multi-threaded · Server-side multi-threaded processing processing. · This means the processor can handle a large number of concurrent queries This means it can handle many without the performance degradation associated with older CGI technology. concurrent queries efficiently.” · Fits into the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) model · All components supplied ready to run. Intranet Access to Training Records Page 10 “Encourages the use of the Firm’s intranet.” “Privacy. No access to other records. Automatic Network domain logon authentication determines the record retrieved.” “Indicates how many more CPD hours required to satisfy the regulations.” Page 11 Hyperlink to courses this individual has been booked to attend. Support staff as well as solicitors can view and print their training record via the Firm’s private intranet. Pre-bookings Page 12 l Pre-booking is optional. For many courses you might, instead, simply record attendance when the registers are returned. l Pre-booking enables you to issue confirmations and reminders via email and memo. l Staff can use the Intranet to see course bookings. l Enter names directly or search by a variety of criteria to form a target set of dele- gates. For example, search for all Year 3 qualified staff who still need to attend a compulsory course or newcomers who need to attend a core course. l Create external delegate master details while entering Single bookings. l Automatic update of booking records if the event venue or start date is re-scheduled. l Booking Status reporting: provisional, confirmed, cancelled (apology), attended, un- registered, absent & no apology. l Monitoring of cancellations & non-attendance. Course Scheduling l Regularly repeated courses may be copied. Saves time and ensures consistency. l Significant flexibility as to how much detail needs to be entered. Speakers, room- ing arrangements and so forth need not be entered. l Changes in the event start date and venue automatically trigger an update to any pre-bookings. l Different Admin Units can be allocated separate course code prefixes and access rights. l Up to five interest areas per course. These are useful search criteria. l Different Start and End times may be specified for the second and subsequent days of a multi-day course e.g. a weekend retreat. l Warns if the course time overlaps with another for which the same room has been allocated. l Internal speakers drawn from the staff master file. Avoids need to maintain a separate file. l Monitoring of course cancellations by speakers. l Global substitution of organiser and internal speaker on courses in a date range. l On-line resource availability & diary booking while scheduling / re-scheduling. Registering Attendance Page 13 l Block register any pre-booked delegates. On an exceptions basis, add and remove names. l Adjustments may be made for partial attendance. l Record preparation and presentation hours. l Produce attendance signature forms listing pre-booked delegates or all those in a dept or sector. Training Programmes l Link courses, exams and assignments to PSC or other programmes such as trainee seat inductions. l Individuals may be enrolled on more than one programme. l Individuals may be excused or given exemption from programme elements that have been flagged as mandatory for the rest of the cohort.