Food safety schemes such as FSMA, HACCP, SQF, BRCGS and FSSC 22000 each expect certain training to be in place. Regulatory Requirements is where you list those expectations for a site and say which of your courses meet each one. The Compliance Dashboard then shows how far through that training your people are, scheme by scheme. It also links to the reports you would take into an audit.
Where to find it: Training > Regulatory Requirements and Training > Compliance Dashboard in the main menu. In an account with Quality but not Training, both appear at the end of the Quality section.
Concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Regulatory requirement | One training expectation of a scheme, with a code such as HACCP-P1 and a name such as Hazard Analysis Training. Requirements belong to a site. |
| Scheme | FSMA, HACCP, SQF, BRCGS or FSSC22000. |
| Template / Custom | A Template requirement was loaded from QTRACA’s standard library. Its wording is locked. A Custom requirement is one you typed in. |
| Linked course | A course you have said satisfies a requirement. Every compliance figure comes from the assignments of linked courses. A requirement with no linked courses counts nobody. |
| Assignment | One course given to one trainee. Assignments a supervisor has excused are left out, because they were never required. |
Quick start
- Open Training > Regulatory Requirements and click Load standard requirements.
- Tick the schemes your site is certified to, click Load, then Done.
- For each requirement, click the Linked Courses button, tick the courses that satisfy it, and click Save.
- Open Training > Compliance Dashboard to see compliance for each scheme.
- Click a scheme’s Details to see which requirements and trainees are behind.
The Regulatory Requirements list
| Column | Notes |
|---|---|
| Actions | Three buttons: Edit, Linked Courses and Toggle Status. |
| Code / Name | Searchable from the box above the list. |
| Scheme / Category | Which scheme the requirement belongs to, and its subject area. |
| Frequency | How often the scheme expects the training: One Time, Annual, Semi-Annual or Quarterly. This is for reference only. How often a course recurs is set on the course itself. |
| Active | Switch a requirement off to take it out of the dashboard, gap analysis and audit report without losing it or its linked courses. |
| Type | Template or Custom. |
Load standard requirements
Rather than typing requirements in, load QTRACA’s standard set for each scheme onto the site:
| Scheme | Requirements | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| FSMA | 5 | 21 CFR Part 117, starting with FSMA-117.4 Preventive Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI) |
| HACCP | 7 | One per HACCP principle, HACCP-P1 to HACCP-P7 |
| SQF | 5 | SQF Code training requirements |
| BRCGS | 5 | BRCGS Food Safety training requirements |
| FSSC22000 | 7 | FSSC 22000 training requirements |
The dialog explains: “Adds the standard training requirements for the schemes you choose to this site. Requirements this site already has are left exactly as they are, so it is safe to load a scheme again.” Tick the schemes and click Load.
The result lists, for each scheme, how many were Added and how many were Already on this site. When requirements are added it reminds you to “Link courses to each one so it counts on the Compliance Dashboard.” Loading again never duplicates a requirement or resets one you have changed or switched off. Requirements are matched by code.
A Skipped column appears if some could not be added: “Skipped requirements use a code another site of this account already holds.”
Linked Courses
This is the step that makes a requirement count. The dialog says: “Tick the courses that satisfy this requirement. The Compliance Dashboard, gap analysis and audit report count every assignment of the ticked courses towards it; a requirement with no courses counts nobody.”
- The list holds every course on the requirement’s site. Each shows its type (for example Quiz, Document, Practical assessment), its recurrence if it has one (for example Annual), and a status badge if it is not active.
- Use Search courses to find one. The footer shows how many are selected.
- Save replaces the requirement’s links with exactly what is ticked, and confirms with Linked courses saved: “N courses now satisfy this requirement”. Untick everything and save to unlink all courses.
- Courses can be linked to Template requirements too. Linking changes the figures, not the requirement’s wording.
- If the site has no courses yet, the dialog says to create them under Training > Courses first. See Creating a Training Course.
Adding your own requirements
Click New to open Add Regulatory Requirement. Code and Name are required (“Code and Name are required fields”). You can also set Description, Scheme, Category, Training Frequency and Active. Your own requirements can be edited later.
Template requirements are read-only. Opening one shows “This is a template requirement and cannot be edited. You can only activate or deactivate it.” Their wording matches the scheme, so it stays consistent across sites and audits. Requirements cannot be deleted; switch them off instead.
The Compliance Dashboard
Headline cards
| Card | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Overall Compliance | Completed assignments out of every training assignment on the site, shown as “N of M complete”. This is all courses, not only linked ones, so it can differ from the scheme figures. With no assignments at all it reads 100%. |
| Total Required | The number of training assignments on the site. |
| Overdue | Open assignments past their due date. Click it for the Overdue Training Report. |
| Expiring Soon | Trainee certifications on the site that expire in the next 30 days. Ones already expired are not counted. Click it for the Certification Expiration Report. |
Compliance by Regulatory Scheme
One row for each scheme that has at least one active requirement, the scheme with the most overdue assignments first (Sorted by overdue), so the scheme most in need of attention is at the top. Schemes with the same overdue count are listed alphabetically. The header shows how many schemes are monitored.
| Column | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Complete | Completed assignments out of all assignments of the courses linked to the scheme’s active requirements. A course linked to several requirements in the same scheme is counted once. |
| Compliance | The same as a percentage. Green from 90%, amber from 70%. A scheme with no linked courses shows 100%, with nothing counted. |
| Overdue | Those assignments that are open and past due. |
| Expiring | Trainees whose completion of a recurring linked course falls due for renewal in the next 30 days, where no renewal has been assigned yet. Excused trainees are not counted. This is about course renewals, not certifications. |
Click a row or Details for that scheme’s Compliance Details.
Date Range and buttons
- Date Range: Current Status (every assignment), or Last 30 Days, Last 60 Days or Last 90 Days. The day ranges keep only assignments made, or due, within that period. They narrow the assignment figures, not Expiring Soon or Expiring.
- Gap Analysis and Generate Audit Report open the reports described in Running Training Reports. Refresh reloads the figures.
- Quick actions: Audit Report, Gap Analysis, Requirements, Trainings and Trainees.
- With no active requirements on the site, the scheme table reads No regulatory schemes configured. and offers Configure Requirements.
Compliance Details for a scheme
- Cards count Total Requirements, Compliant (100%), Partial and Non-Compliant (0%). A requirement with no linked courses is Non-Compliant and reads 0 / 0 trained.
- Filter: All Requirements, Compliant Only, Partial Only or Non-Compliant Only.
- Click a requirement to expand it. You see its description, Training Progress, Last Training (latest completion), any Linked Documents (managed documents tied to the requirement, which open on click), a Status Breakdown of Completed and Pending, and Individual Trainee Status.
- Individual Trainee Status has one row per assignment, with Completed and its date, Overdue or Pending with Due: date. The eye button opens the trainee.
Availability and permissions
- Available with the Training module or the Quality module. Every figure is about training, so an account with either can use it.
- Both screens open for Administrators, Setup Administrators, QA Managers and Training Coordinators. All four roles can also load standard requirements, add and edit requirements, switch them on and off, and link courses.
- Operators cannot see requirements.
- Requirements, links and figures are for the site you are working in.
Things to know
- Loading requirements is not enough. Until courses are linked, a requirement counts nobody. The dashboard shows a scheme with no links at 100%, which looks reassuring but means nothing has been measured.
- “Trained” and “employees” mean assignments. A trainee assigned two linked courses appears twice in Individual Trainee Status, and counts twice in 9 of 12 employees.
- Completed stays completed. A completion of an annual course still counts as complete here after its renewal date has passed. The lapse shows in Expiring only during the 30 days before it. Use Bulk Renewal and the Compliance Status tab of a training role to catch lapsed training. See Setting Up Training Roles and Compliance.
- Document training is not counted. Linked Documents are shown for reference, but read-and-acknowledge and document quiz records do not count towards compliance. Link a course instead. See Configuring Training Requirements for Documents.
- Excused trainees can still appear as Pending in Individual Trainee Status, although they are left out of the percentages.
- The requirement’s Frequency does not schedule anything. Set recurrence on the course so renewals are assigned.