How Professional Accreditation Can be Managed Effectively Online

Professional accreditations (also called trade certifications, professional certifications or professional designations) are produced by individuals to secure their qualifications to perform a job or task. They are generally earned from a professional society (such as The Chartered Institute of Linguistics, The Chartered Logistics & Transport or The Chartered Institute of Marketing etc) or IT vendor (such as Oracle, Cisco or Microsoft etc).

Commonly, once individuals have attained a certain level, they must show proof of continued learning to ensure that the accreditation does not run out.

There are many benefits to individuals who achieve professional accreditations:

• Having professional accreditations on a CV allows that candidate to stand out from others and acts as a reference from a neutral, third party association or society
• Accreditations are transferable, since they do not depend on one company’s definition of a certain job

Accreditations are widespread in aviation, technology, environment, construction and other industrial sectors, as well as healthcare, business and finance. They can range from internal business certifications, to product specific accreditations through to professionally wide accreditations.

Individuals can become accredited in a number of different ways; however the bulk of certifications do require an exam to be taken and passed. Once successfully completed, the individual must continue to provide verification that they are maintaining their skills and knowledge in their area. This is done through:

• Networking with peers etc
• Reading current literature
• Attending events
• Giving presentations and seminars

One of the most accepted ways of maintaining accreditations is through attending key events. These can be seminars, training courses, webinars or conferences and provide priceless qualities to individuals wishing to maintain their qualifications.

If a professional body organises a lot of events for their members, they may decide to take advantage of software which can help improve efficiency and control, whilst reducing their costs and empowering their members.

Professional accreditation software has remuneration for both the professional body and for their members. For their members it will provide a self service portal where they can securely log in to access and mange their membership profile and accreditations. They can see what they need to do in order to retain their qualifications, and can book and pay for courses, take exams and tests, download applicable material and upload details of any offline activities which will help sustain their certification renewal.

Members are able to access their account at any time due to the online web portal; they can do this from any place (internet pending). Providing your members with this level of control helps gives authority to them and provides them with a greater level of substance from their membership subscription.

For professional bodies, using accreditation software can assist them cut costs whilst improving efficiency and control. Allowing members to book courses online eliminating staff from this stage and letting them concentrate on more tactical tasks.

The software will:

• Can take payment (or send invoices), update the internal finance solution and send out receipts
• Will send out relevant course reading material and pre-course tests
• Automatically capture all relevant information pertaining to the member and their chosen event
• Will generate and send online certificates
• Will book the member onto the course
• Will send out post course tests and exams
o Members can take these test/exams online, securely
o The software can grade online tests/exams and mark as pass/fail etc
• Will update the member account/CRM with the result of the course (either marking down as attendance, course pass/fail etc)

With the event management side of the software there is little for event personnel to do in terms of delegate management. It means they can utilise the software to get a transparent view of their member’s career development. Using the built in reporting and analysis suite, they can immediately see how members as a whole are doing, how well particular events/courses are being attended, how individual members are performing and how successful they are in terms of test results etc. The information collated at this point is priceless as it means the organisation can continually improve events and increase the value provided to members.

The integration into internal back end office systems, such as CRM and finance applications means that the entire organisation has an immediate, up to date view of all their members’ history and activity. This not only saves time, but helps to reduce errors and wasted communications.

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For more information on how professional accreditation software can help your professional body or association, please contact evocos on 0800 369 8677 or email events@evocos.com.

Incorporating integrated reporting and analysis tools as well as social media, email marketing, website integration, registration, online payment, badge production, resource management and event surveys, evocos is one of the most comprehensive event management software solutions on the market today.

The evocos event software team ensures you are able to seamlessly manage your events; gaining huge cost and efficiency benefits.