Appendix H.1 Comments Submitted by USDA Professional Standards Training Tracker Tool Workgroup Part 1

Appendix H.1 - Comments Submitted by USDA Professional Standards Training Tracker Tool Workgroup Part 1

Professional Standards Training Tracker Working Group

Meeting Minutes

General Information
Date:	10/21/15
Scheduled Time:	11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (EST)
Actual End Time:	12:10 p.m. (EST)
Location:	FNS 6th Floor Conference Room
Purpose:	To gain insight from people who actively use Training Tracker.

Roles and Assignments
Meeting Organizer:	USDA FNS
Recorder:	Jamilyah Smith-Kanze (ITCON)
Invitees:	USDA/FNS: Kaushalya Heendeniya, Sheldon Gordon, Darrick Butler, Malinda Sands, Amy Frady, Ebony James, Marci Shaffer-Hughes ITCON: Cindy Hsu, Margot van der Vossen, Jamilyah Smith-Kanze
Attendees:	USDA/FNS: Kaushalya Heendeniya, Darrick Butler, Malinda Sands, Amy Frady, Ebony James, Marci Shaffer-Hughes, Melissa Farris, Sharon Walls, Jill Griffin, Cheryl Johnson, Tizine Chowdury ITCON: Margot van der Vossen, Jamilyah Smith-Kanze

Agenda

	Topics	Expected Outcomes	Discussion Leader
1	Professional Standards Training Tracker	To gain perspective of how Training Tracker is actually currently used and what new features would be most beneficial to people actually employing Training Tracker	Margot van der Vossen

Minutes

• Margot briefly reviews current Training Tracker application and requirements that led to this product

  • Product must record employees’ compliance with Professional Standards

  • Had to be stand-alone, no internet, simple, easy and user-friendly

  • Feedback from working group was very valuable

• Reevaluating and creating new web-based tool

  • Plan to address challenges

  • Still provide a user-friendly application

  • Will require and use feedback from group to create best application

• First question for group is Security

  • In order to protect people’s information, security must be in place

  • Don’t want security to get in the way of usability and accessibility

  • Users will have to provide information or prove identity to gain access

  • Marci does not believe the information we are gathering is PII and therefore does not warrant eAuth Level 2

  • Information is not PII, it is not sensitive; eAuth level 1 should be fine

  • Concern is allow access for those who enter information. So, do employees enter own information or are managers entering information for employees

    • Tizine enters all information for her staff to guarantee accuracy

    • It’s not feasible for everyone to enter their own information

    • Marci wants to know if there is an identifying number; no, employee badges with names, but no number

    • In Montana, Food Service Directors enter information using employee names

    • In Kansas, food service directors are using their own excel spreadsheets to avoid limitations of the system

      • Don’t like that Access tool requires employee name to be entered repeatedly

      • In the excel spreadsheet, the name is entered once, then trainings and hours are added

      • Cheryl states that Key Area and Key Topic codes are not required within excel document and should not be required in tool since it’s time consuming and overwhelming to some users. Kansas believes that Key Area/Topic codes were meant as guidance only and were not required

      • Everyone in room believes that Key Area/Topic codes are required and must be filled out in current tool and must be migrated to future tool

      • Can training names be prepopulated and associated with Key Area/Topic automatically?

        • No, too many trainings, no standard list of trainings

      • States have received many questions about how to categorize trainings. There is concern that requiring categories would become a barrier to access

      • Could there be word association for categories? A Help Button to suggest types of trainings?

      • Have list of ICN trainings, could use these trainings to begin building a database of training names

      • Amy says going forward, all trainings should be categorized. If there are no categories, reports are not useful.

      • Kansas agency asks to consider what information is requested. The more information requested, the harder the pushback will be. Do not ask for too much. It’s up to the manager and employee to ensure that employee gets right training. Keep it easy.

      • Marci asks if states/districts ever want to run reports against training areas

        • No. Agencies don’t run these reports. They would prefer that it’s easy to track trainings

      • Could training types be prepopulated based on job description? No.

      • Tizine notes that there are specific trainings for particular jobs

• Melissa notes that ICN is moving to new type of system that would have ability to track trainings not administered by ICN. If ICN is already trying to accomplish this, why are we reinventing the wheel?

• Discussion in the room about different types of software available that track training. Cost associated. ICN system is noted.

• Margot moves to next question: if each employee has an account, would there be someone to manage these accounts, to help ensure that everyone gets access and gets the correct access?

  • Tizine, no? who? HR? yes, a manager on her team could do it.

  • Marci asks about a person who can clarify a manager-employee relationship/association?

    • Tizine says yes, it’s too difficult to expect individual to keep track of their own training

  • Marci asks if everyone isn’t doing their own training tracking, is eAuth really the way to monitor the security of the site? eAuth is still a process, is it worth it? Manager would set up accounts via forms. Would have to set up site so that individuals can have accounts and enter information if they want.

  • No one in the working group has employees entering their own information.

  • Margot will check with technical team for alternatives to eAuth.

    • Would have to implement password retrieval option

• Next question: Data archiving, how long do records have to be kept?

  • Amy thinks it’s 3 years.

  • Tizine has administrative review every 3 years

    • Marci wants to know how 3 years is counted? Calendar, fiscal, from data entry date?

  • Kansas is on 5-year cycle. Would hope there is an option to keep documents for longer than 3 years if necessary

  • Marci says the document storage would be based on need, so 5 years

  • Montana counts from school year, so July 1 start

  • Keep 3 (or 5) years of history, plus current year

• Kaushalya circles back to ICN option. Confirms that trainings can be entered that were not administered by ICN. Melissa confirms

• Marci points out that manager cannot enter information for individuals in the ICN system

• Kaushalya likes the ability to import transcripts, etc.

• Marci details the difference between the ICN system and the actual need. In ICN, an employee enters their information only. But Tizine’s need is for managers to enter training for multiple people

• Margot notes ICN system for when we’re flushing out system features. Will work with technical team to demonstrate ICN, Primero and other systems

• List of questions is complete, any other feedback?

• Melissa wants to know if there is any unique identifier for each district? Each school?

  • It was requested to have a list of schools from the Board of Education to upload into system. This information would require review yearly.

• Tizine wants to know if there is any way to store training completion certificates, agendas, class information, documents?

  • This was requested and noted in previous conversation

• Kaushalya requests to be notified of any other people within district who would be interested in participating

• Call ends

• Group discussion: Amy is worried that Key Area/Topic is not included in outside tool tracking. Amy and Ebony will email most recent memo to confirm that codes are required.

• Jamilyah will ask mother for a district food service contact in New York City schools

	Decisions Made	Decided By
1	Information is not PII, not sensitive. eAuth level 2 is not required	consensus
2
3

	Risks/Issues	Assigned To	Comments	Follow-Up Date
1

Action Items:

	Description	Owner	Open Date	Due Date	Status (as of 10/22)
1	Resend recent memo to illustrate that policy requires Key Area/Topic to be recorded	Amy Frady & Ebony James	10/21/15
2	Request contact in food service at NYC board of education	Jamilyah Smith-Kanze	10/21/15