Some training can only be proven by watching someone do the job. A Practical Assessment course holds a competency checklist: the skills an assessor must see demonstrated, with the safety-critical ones marked Critical. The checklist is what the assessor ticks off, and its critical items decide whether the trainee passes.
Where to find it: Training > Courses, open a course whose Type is Practical Assessment, then the Checklist tab.
Concepts
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Checklist item | One skill or behaviour, such as “Completes the pre-use safety check”. |
| Critical | An item the trainee must pass. Failing any critical item fails the assessment, however well the rest went. |
| Order | The sequence the items appear in, for the assessor and in the record. |
| Score | The percentage of all items passed. It is recorded but does not decide the result. |
Quick start
- Create a course with Type Practical Assessment and save it. The Checklist tab appears.
- Type a skill into Add Checklist Item and press Enter or click Add Item. Repeat for each skill.
- Click the warning-triangle button on each item that must be passed, to mark it Critical.
- Put the items in order with the up and down arrows.
- Click Save Checklist.
Nothing on this tab is saved until you click Save Checklist. Leaving the course before then loses the changes.
The checklist builder
Forklift Operation has four items, two of them critical. The counters at the top show Total Items and Critical Items. Each item has four buttons:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Toggle Critical (warning triangle) | Marks or unmarks the item as critical. Critical items show a red Critical badge and bold text. |
| Move Up / Move Down | Changes the order. The numbers update to match. |
| Remove Item (bin) | Removes the item. The remaining items are renumbered. |
Save Checklist saves the course as a whole, so the Detail tab must be valid too. If a required course field is empty the checklist is not saved, and a Course not saved message names the fields to complete.
Preview
Preview shows the checklist laid out as an assessment sheet, with Pass and Fail columns and critical rows highlighted. Click Edit to go back to the builder.
The preview is a layout guide only. The real assessment is done on screen from the Trainees tab, and it asks for both the trainee’s and the assessor’s signature — see Conducting a Practical Assessment.
How the checklist decides the result
When an assessment is submitted, the result is worked out on the server from the items, not from anything the assessor’s screen says:
| Checklist has | The trainee passes when |
|---|---|
| One or more critical items | Every critical item is passed. Non-critical items can be failed. |
| No critical items | Every item is passed. Otherwise a checklist with nothing ticked would count as a pass. |
The score is the percentage of all items passed. In Forklift Operation, passing both critical items and one of the other two is a pass with a score of 75%.
Choosing critical items
- Mark as critical what would make the trainee unsafe, or the product unsafe, if they got it wrong: pre-use checks, load limits, allergen segregation, hand washing.
- Leave as non-critical the things you want recorded and coached, but that do not stop someone working on their own.
- If every item is truly essential, mark none of them critical: the effect is the same, since every item must then pass.
Changing a checklist that has been used
Each assessment stores a copy of the checklist as it stood when the trainee was assessed. Adding, removing, rewording or re-marking items later changes future assessments only; past records still show what the trainee was actually assessed against.
Availability and permissions
- Part of the Training module. The Checklist tab only exists on Practical Assessment courses.
- Editing the checklist needs the Admin or Training Coordinator role. Others see it read-only.
Things to know
- A checklist with no items cannot be assessed. The assessment dialog says “No checklist items defined for this training. Please configure the checklist first.” and will not move on.
- Removing an item and adding it back makes a new item. Past assessments keep their copy of the old one; the new one starts fresh.
- There is no minimum number of items to pass. The result is decided only by the critical rule above; the score is for information.
- Trainees cannot complete a practical assessment themselves. In the Training Centre they are told it is completed when their assessor signs it off.