The customer
IFPM Ouvriers, the Institute for Post-School Training in the Metal Manufacturing Industry, is the sector fund of the Joint trade Committee 111. As such, its missions are to promote, support and develop the training of workers, present or future, as well as to ensure the promotion of sector’s professions. Within this framework, IFPM Ouvriers manages financial support schemes for companies and develops HR tools called Technios.
The challenges
For several years now, IFPM Ouvriers has been using an extranet to monitor the training subsidies granted to companies (some 2,500 applications per year for more than 280 different training modules).This solution did no longer meet the new challenges: its technology was no longer supported and it was way too slow for users.
In front of this situation, IFPM Ouvriers decided to develop a new solution that would be faster, more user-friendly, more user-oriented and GDPR compliant.
It became quickly obvious that this new development should take on board a number of additional functionalities. This includes functions implemented outside of the old solution, such as the management of industrial apprenticeship contracts, or sector-based tests. It also included functions implemented using other supports, such as the management of sector-oriented coach missions and on-line questionnaires. Finally the project also embarked new functions, such as the management of the IT hardware inventory.
In addition, the users (IFPM Ouvriers staff, training centres, company HR and teachers) had high expectations in terms of ergonomics and wanted to improve the speed at which information was entered.
The solution
IFPM Ouvriers has chosen a complete overhaul of the environment based on a Java framework developed by Contraste Digital.
1. Complete management of the follow-up of applications for subsidies for continuing training in companies :
- Access for companies (duly authorised persons mandated ) to the introduction and follow-up of training requests.
- Automation of the approval process, thanks to a validation workflow: automated sending of emails and access to documents to be validated to IFPM Ouvriers managers but also to external organisations (Agoria, ACV-CSC Metea, MWB-FGTB).
- On-the-fly generation of .pdf documents, very useful for the creation of official documents required by companies.
- View on the annual training budget of each company and management of the annual subsidy envelope.
2. Organisation of sector tests :
- Management of registrations for the tests with dedicated access for teachers wishing to involve their students.
- Generation of statistics for activity reports.
3. On-line theoretical questionnaires for professions :
- Integration of the tool for creating complex questionnaires with multiple types of questions: multiple choice, placement of answers on images, association, etc.
- Questionnaires available in 4 languages.
- Open to all target audiences (companies, schools, institutional partners).
4. Industrial apprenticeship contracts and sector coaches :
- Development of an interface enabling schools to submit applications online and monitor the validation process.
- Automation of tasks and document generation.
5. Internal management of IT asset inventory :
- Hardware database management
- Internal incident management (helpdesk): communication, follow-up, resolution
The results
The new application enables all users to perform their tasks much faster and more efficiently than before. They benefit from good ergonomics and a smooth exchange of information.
The closer integration of the various devices also allows for a more global vision in the management of files and therefore a more targeted approach to the various audiences concerned.