Training & credentials

Training in MakerOps is one chain: a member completes a training, MakerOps awards a credential, and every machine that requires that credential starts working for them. Nobody re-enters anything.

• A training is a course. It’s either self-paced, built in MakerOps or uploaded as SCORM, or in person, where a trainer issues the credential after the session.
• A credential is the clearance a training earns, such as “Laser Cutter Certified”. Machines require credentials, and credentials can expire.

Everything here lives in Learning › Training Catalog, which has four tabs: Entry Requirements, Trainings, Sessions and Credentials.

Create a credential

Create the credential first, so the training has something to award.

1. In the Training Catalog, open the Credentials tab and click New Credential.
2. Enter a Name, such as “Laser Cutter Certified”, and a description.
3. If it should lapse, set Expires after (days). Leave it blank for a credential that never expires.
4. Click Create Credential.

The form has two more optional fields. Auto-granted when holding all of (optional) issues it the moment a member holds every credential you list, waivers included, such as an “Onboarding Complete” credential. Nested under (optional) shows a micro-credential beneath its machine’s credential. It’s for display only: a trainer still issues the parent.

Build a training

1. On the Trainings tab, click New Training.
2. Enter a Name and choose the Type: Self-paced or In person.
3. Under Grants credentials, pick the credential from the step above.
4. Leave Status as Inactive while you build it.
5. Click Create Training, then open the row’s ⋯ menu and choose Open training editor.

In the editor, the buttons above the list of steps add content. Apart from Slide, they’re icons: hover over one to see its name.

Button	Adds
Slide	A blank slide for text, images and annotated callouts
Slide from an image	A slide built around a photo or diagram
Slides from PDF/PowerPoint	Imports a PDF, PPT, PPTX or ODP. For a PPTX file you choose Editable slides or Page images; other files import as page images
Question	A quiz question
Video	A video
Reveal cards	Cards the member taps to reveal

The editor saves as you go. Use Quiz settings to set the Pass threshold (%) and the Feedback timing. When it’s ready, edit the training, set Status to Active and click Save Changes. Only active trainings appear to members.

Preview as a member

Click the phone icon (Preview on a phone) in the editor’s toolbar to open the Member preview. It floats beside the editor, so you can keep editing, and it redraws as you type.

• It shows the step you select, laid out as members see it. A selected slide shows with the questions attached to it. A question that is its own step shows on its own.
• Phone, Sideways, Tablet and Web switch the screen size. Smaller and Larger zoom the preview.
• Start over closes every callout again.
• Open in its own window moves the preview to a separate window, for a second screen. Bring it back here returns it.

To check a training on a real phone, click On my phone and scan the QR code with your phone’s camera. The training opens in the MakerOps app as a member sees it, and follows the step you have open in the editor. Changes show about two seconds after you make them. In the app, turn off Follow editor to page through the steps yourself. Nothing you do in the preview is recorded.

Sign in to the app with the same account you use in the editor. Only people with the Manage trainings permission can open the preview. If the camera opens a web page instead of the app, tap Open in MakerOps on it.

Already have SCORM courses? Create the training, then use the row’s ⋯ menu › Upload SCORM package (a .zip up to 100 MB).

A training can hold both a SCORM package and slides, but learners get only one of them. The Trainings list shows which one, with a note such as “Also has slides, not shown”. To switch, use the row’s ⋯ menu › Give learners the slides (or Give learners the SCORM package), or click Use these slides in the editor.

Group trainings by area

Give a training an Area, such as “Wood shop”, to group it on the member’s Training page. The area only groups trainings: it doesn’t change who can take them.

1. On the Trainings tab, open the training’s ⋯ menu and choose Edit details & credentials.
2. Under Area, choose the area, or — No area —.
3. Click Save Changes.

The Area field appears once your space has at least one active Area, under Facility › Areas.

On the web, members then see a button for All and one for each area above their trainings, each with a count. Trainings with no area are under General, listed last. The buttons appear only when trainings fall into more than one group. The app doesn’t group trainings by area.

Award a credential automatically

A credential is awarded when the member finishes a training that grants it. You can link the two from either side: Grants credentials on the training, or Granted by trainings on the credential. Granted by trainings appears when you edit an existing credential (⋯ › Edit credential) and saves with Save Granting Trainings.

If you link a credential to a training people have already passed, the training’s row on the Trainings tab says how many of them don’t hold it yet. Click Issue now and confirm with Issue credentials to give it to them as if they had just passed. Issue now needs Issue credentials in person as well as Manage trainings.

If several trainings grant the same credential, finishing any one of them is enough. To require all of them, tick Require ALL linked trainings on the credential.

Add a skills checklist

A skills checklist splits a training into small sign-offs, such as “Drill press” and “Chop saw”, that a trainer grants in person. Each skill is its own credential, so a machine can require it under Required credentials and a prerequisite can name it. When a member holds every skill on the training, MakerOps issues the training’s Grants credentials automatically.

1. On the Trainings tab, open the training’s ⋯ menu and choose Skills checklist.
2. Keep New credential selected and enter the skill’s name, such as “Miter cut”.
3. Optionally, under Nest under (optional — e.g. the machine’s credential), choose the credential it belongs beneath, such as “Table Saw”.
4. Click Add. The skill appears in the list, and the training’s row on the Trainings tab shows how many skills it has.

To reuse a skill another training already teaches, choose Link existing credential instead, pick the credential and click Link. Earning it from either training counts everywhere, machines included.

Use the pencil icon to rename a skill. Its credential is renamed too, unless another training shares it. The bin icon removes a skill: confirm with Remove skill. MakerOps keeps the skill’s credential if members hold it or anything else uses it, such as a machine or a prerequisite.

Adding, renaming and removing skills needs the Manage trainings permission.

Sign off skills

Signing off skills needs the Issue credentials in person permission. Only active trainings offer their skills.

• Web: open the member (People › Members & Groups) and go to the Training tab. Under Training Skills, tick the skills they have shown you, then click Grant. The button shows how many skills it covers.
• App: open the Training tab, tap Credentials, then Issue. Tick the training, tap Scan to issue, tick the skills to grant, and scan each member’s code. Each scan grants the ticked skills. If you tick more than one training, each scan grants every skill on them.

When the member now holds every skill, the confirmation adds “all skills complete, training credential awarded”.

Where skills show up

In the app, a training with a checklist shows progress on the Training tab, such as “3/9 skills signed off”, until it’s complete. On the web, each skill a member holds is listed under My credentials, like any other credential.

Trainers see a member’s skills, per training, under Training Skills on the member’s Training tab. In the app, they’re on Training › Credentials › Look up after scanning the member’s code.

Require it on a machine

Each machine lists the credentials it needs under Required credentials. A member needs every credential listed there. To accept another credential instead of one of them, click or… beside it and pick the alternative, for example “Table Saw or Panel Saw”. Credentials needed to borrow on loan items and Credentials that open this door on doors work the same way. See Require training for a machine.

Prerequisites

To make one training wait for another, open the training’s ⋯ menu and choose Prerequisites. Prerequisites are arranged in groups:

• Within a group, any one entry is enough (OR).
• Every group must be satisfied (AND).

So “Advanced CNC” might have one group with “CNC Basics”, and a second group with either of two shop orientations. Entries can be credentials the member must hold or trainings they must have completed.

Click Add group to start a group, add entries with + add prerequisite…, and click Save Prerequisites. Saving needs the Manage prerequisites permission. For a training where everything is required, you can instead fill in Must hold credentials and Must have completed trainings in the training’s own form. Changing them there also needs Manage prerequisites; without it the fields are shown but can’t be changed.

Entry requirements for the whole space

To lock every training until a member holds the basics, such as the credentials from signing the waiver and finishing orientation:

1. In the Training Catalog, open the Entry Requirements tab and click Add requirement.
2. Pick the credentials. Holding any one credential in a requirement meets it, and every requirement must be met.
3. Click Save Entry Requirements.

Trainings that grant one of these credentials stay open, so members can still take the orientation itself.

See the training map

The Trainings tab has two views, List and Map. Map draws your prerequisites as a diagram, so you can see which training unlocks which.

• Each training is a box marked In person or Online. A training that isn’t active has a dashed outline and its status.
• Arrows point from a training to what it unlocks. Trainings sit to the right of everything they need.
• A credential prerequisite is drawn as an arrow from the training that issues it. A credential gets its own box when no single training issues it.
• Where any one of several entries is enough, their arrows meet at a one of marker.

Click a training to highlight everything it needs and everything it unlocks. Hover over a box to see its requirements. With a training selected, click Edit prerequisites to change them; saving returns you to the map. Click an empty part of the diagram to clear the selection.

On a phone-sized screen, Map shows the same chains as an indented outline.

Expiry

When a credential has Expires after (days) set, MakerOps warns the holder 30 days before it lapses and again when it does, and sends admins a summary. An expired credential no longer starts machines.

Grant or revoke by hand

• Grant: open the member (People › Members & Groups), go to the Training tab, and under Credentials click Grant. You can set an expiry date. Leave it blank to use the credential’s own validity period. Use this for someone who tested out in person.
• Revoke: in Training Catalog › Credentials, open the credential’s ⋯ menu, choose Active holders / revoke, and click Revoke next to the person. Add a Reason (optional) and click Revoke again to confirm.

Both need the Issue credentials in person permission.

Issue credentials to a class

1. In the Training Catalog, open the Sessions tab and click Open on the session.
2. Tick Attended for each person who came, then click Save attendance.
3. Click Issue credentials to attended. The button shows how many people it covers.

To skip the roster, use the session’s Check-in code. Tick Issue credential when scanned, and Mark attendance when scanned if you want both, then click Generate and show and project the QR code. Each member scans it once with the app. For a sign-off with no scheduled session, click Ad-hoc check-in code on the Sessions tab. A code that marks attendance checks each scanner the way signup does: someone missing a prerequisite or entry requirement is refused and told what’s missing, though they don’t need to have signed up. A code that only issues the credential still lets you override unmet prerequisites.

In the app, trainers open the session’s Roster from the Training tab and tap Show check-in code or Issue credentials to checked-in. Scheduling sessions is covered in Training sessions & signup questions.

Delete a credential

In Training Catalog › Credentials, open the credential’s ⋯ menu and choose Delete credential. MakerOps refuses while anything requires it, and names each one: a machine’s Required credentials, a loan item’s Credentials needed to borrow, a door’s Credentials that open this door, or one of your partner workspace rules. Remove it from each first. A credential that belongs to a waiver has no delete item: its menu shows Managed by waiver and the waiver’s name. Archive the waiver to retire it.

Warning: deleting a credential can’t be undone.

What members see

Members open Learning › Training on the web, or the Training tab in the app. Each training shows Launch, Resume or Review. In the app it’s Start training, Continue training or Review training. Trainings they can’t take yet show what they still need. Built-in trainings play natively in the app, and SCORM courses open inside it.

Members can also email proof of their credentials to someone outside the space, such as a professor:

• Web: on Training, click Send proof beside My credentials.
• App: More › Credential proof.

They tick up to 8 credentials, enter Their email and an optional note, and click Send proof. MakerOps emails a certificate. Only current credentials your own workspace issued can be sent.

Onboarding a whole class

Spaces that onboard hundreds of students at the start of term usually:

1. Put the waiver and orientation in Entry Requirements, so nothing else unlocks until they’re done.
2. Put machine trainings behind prerequisites.
3. Watch progress in Learning › LMS Dashboard instead of running orientation lectures.

To ask a class to finish its trainings by a date, put a to-do on their accounts. Its training and credential items tick themselves off as members finish. To accept credentials earned in another MakerOps workspace, see Partner workspaces.

If a member can’t open a training, see Troubleshooting.