Description

The Competence datagroup allows assigning crew members' competencies that identify the specific capabilities required to perform a particular role or task.

Functionality

Get Started

To access the Competence datagroup, navigate to Datagroups > Competence. This opens the Competence datagroup workspace by crew member:

Open

Add Competence

To add a new competency, click New on the toolbar. This opens the dialog:

Open

In the dialog, fill in the fields:

• Document Code. From the drop-down list, select a competence code. The list of competence codes is fetched from General Codes > Competence > Competence Codes.

• No. is a unique number issued by the certificate issuer.

• Date From is the document validity start date or a start date of the training aimed at obtaining the certificate (competency document).

• Date To is an end date of the training aimed at obtaining the certificate (competency document).

• Expiry Date is the document validity end date.

• Planned. Select the checkbox if the current competency document is to be acquired. Otherwise, if the competency document is available, leave the checkbox cleared.

• Issued By is the name of the certificate issuer.

• Issued Where is the place where the certificate is issued.

• Valid In. From the drop-down list, select the country where the current certificate is valid. The list of countries is fetched from Setup > Tables > Region Editor.

• Comment. Enter any comment you want to add.

• Rank. From the drop-down list, select the rank name for which the certificate is applicable. The list of ranks is fetched from General Codes > Personal Details > Ranks.

• Vessel Location. From the drop-down list, select the vessel location where the certificate might have been issued. The list of values is fetched from General Codes > Vessel > Vessel Location.

• Organization/Company. Click the ellipsis (…) to select the organization and company names.

Once completed, click OK to save the records.

As a result, a new record is created in the grid:

Add Attachment to Competence

On adding a competence, you can attach a certificate proving a crew member reached a standard of capability and can actually use that knowledge.

To attach a certificate to a competence:

1. Select a competence to which you want to add an attachment.

2. Click Open Enclosed on the ribbon to view the Document dialog:

3. Fill in the fields in the Document dialog:

   • Description: Enter a short description of the certificate.

   • Document type: From the drop-down list, select the document type. The list is fetched from General Codes > Enclosed Documents > Enclosed Document Codes.

   • Keywords: Enter the attachment keywords to facilitate quick and efficient searches.

   • New: Click the command to select a document or a URL to a document.

   • Scan: Scan documents directly from APM and add the digital copies to the Competence datagroup.

4. Once completed, click OK to save the changes.

As a result, the attachment is added to the selected competence record. On the workspace, the Validity of Scan column is highlighted in blue for the corresponding competence record:

On adding an attachment, you can open it and check attachment properties by using the following buttons on the ribbon:

Check Required Competences

APM enables you to verify whether a crew member holds all the competences required for a certain position. To perform the verification, navigate to Options and view the available options:

• Perform Requirements Profile Check: Enables the Documents evaluation button. Click the Documents Evaluation button. The system compares the listed competences against those predefined in the Requirements Profile module and shows any missing or expired competences:
  
  

• Requirements Profile Check Options: Select the option to verify the requirements for the position linked to a crew member’s Current sea-service activity or First planned sea-service activity.
  
  

• Promotion Requirements Check Options: Select the option to compare the competence documents required for promotion, as set for Current Rank or Promotion Rank, against the documents available for a crew member. Both current and promotion ranks are fetched from Personal Details > Employment.

   

Print Competence Reports

To print out the list of competences a crew member holds, follow the steps below:

1. On the ribbon, select Print > Competence Summary.

2. In the dialog that appears select the print options that best fit your needs and click Print or Preview.

3. On the Adonis Report Preview dialog, click Print.

Housekeeping

Define Competence

To set up competencies, first, navigate to the Setup ribbon tab > General Codes > Competence > Competence Codes and proceed with the following steps:

1. On the ribbon, click New to make the dialog appear:

2. Enter a Code (mandatory field), a unique alpha-numeric APM code.

3. In the Text field, indicate the name of a competency and its alternative name, if needed, in the Alternative field.

4. In the Sort field, define the order number of a record (where 0 means the first record in the list).

5. In the Is Passive field, specify whether the code is to be active or passive. Passive codes appear as disabled. It is recommended to set a code to Passive if it will no longer be in use.

6. In the STCW Code field, enter the STCW code of the certificate.

7. In the Competence Enrollment Profile drop-down list, select whether the current competency is office- or vessel-specific.

8. Click OK to proceed.

Define Competence Options

Competence-specific preferences are grouped under various tabs:

• Details

• Editor Form

• Replaced Competences

• Replacing Competences

• Interface - xref

This section describes all available options and their purpose.

Details tab

In the Options section, define the competence options as described below:

• Check Out. To keep records of which position a person is checked out for (Job Familiarization), it is required to define one or several codes for entries with the option Check Out selected. 
  The Check Out codes should be set in a separate group, to have them grouped in the same view. 
  See Defining Competence Views section.

• STCW. Select the checkbox if the competence is STCW-specific.

• Only allow one document. Select the checkbox if you want to allow adding only one record with this code in the Competence datagroup.

• Restriction. Select the checkbox in case the competence specifies limitations and restrictions caused by a medical condition, an impairment, illness or injury. In other words, a crew is not physically capable to perform some kind of work or is not able to operate on certain vessels. This information is then available in the Crew Change/Rotation Planning module.

• Industry required. Select the checkbox if the competence is required in the a certain industry.

• Company required. Select the checkbox if the competence is required in the a certain company.

In the Measurement section, specify the measurement unit for periods in the Default Period section:

• Days

• Weeks

• Months

• Years

In the Default Period section, set the default number of years/months/weeks/days (based on a measurement unit selected in the Measurement section) for the periods:

• Default “Expiry Date” period is the competency document validity end date.

• Default “Date To” period is an end date of the training aimed at obtaining the certificate (competency document).

In the Document type section, select one of the types in the list:

• <none>

• Certificate

• Education

• Endorsement

• License

• Medical

• Training Travel

• Certificate of Competence

• Language Proficiency

Editor Form

The Editor Form tab enables you to customize the Competence Details dialog (see Add Competence) by defining each field as mandatory/optional, disabled/invisible. For this, in the Editing Options column, select a record to be affected and proceed with one of the options from the drop-down list:

• Optional field is not mandatory.

• Mandatory field is required. Such fields are then marked with a yellow triangle.

• Disabled field appears as dimmed and, thus, unavailable to users.

• Not Visible field is excluded from the dialog.

Replaced Competences

On the Replaced Competencies tab, you can define the competency hierarchy by listing competencies of a lower status than the current one. For instance, we assume that a chief officer license encompasses competencies available in licenses issued for the positions: Second Officer and Third Officer:

In this case, competencies of lower status are added to the grid under the Replaced Competences tab. To specify the competency documents which can be replaced by the current competency, proceed as described below:

1. Under the Replaced Competences tab, click Add. This enables a field in the grid.

2. In the enabled field, select a competency document from the drop-down list.

3. Click OK to save the records.

While there may be many levels of replacement, the system always considers and operates on the highest level. 

Replacing Competences

On the Replacing Competencies tab, you may see competencies of a higher level that can replace the current competency:

Q88 /Officer Matrix

The Interface - xref > Q88 tab allows defining extra data pertaining to a particular competence document:

• Certificate of competence (available only if the document type is set to Certificate of Competence on the Details tab): Class 1, Class 2, EOOW, OOW, None.

• STCW Paragraph (available only if the current competence is set as STCW-specific on the Details tab): Para, Para, N/A.

• Radio Qualification Certificate

• Is Tanker Certificate

• Tanker Certification (available only if the Is Tanker Certificate option is selected): Chemical, Gas, Oil, All/General.

• Administrative Accepters / Endorsement

• Watch Keeping Certificate

Ocean Learning Platform

To create an association between a certain OLP module and a competence in APM, navigate to the Interface - xref > Ocean Learning Platform tab:

For more information on how to associate OLT modules with the selected competence code, see Ocean Learning Platform (OLP) Interface.

Set Competence Views

You can define grid views to group similar sets of competencies.
To create a grid view, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Setup ribbon tab > General Codes > Competence > Competence View.

2. Click New on the ribbon to make the dialog appear:
   
   

3. Enter a Code (mandatory field), a unique alpha-numeric APM code.

4. In the Sort field, define the order number of a record (where 0 means the first record in the list).

5. In the Is Passive field, specify whether the code is to be active or passive. Passive codes appear as dimmed and, thus, they are unavailable to users.

6. In the Security Code field, enter a number larger than 0 to define the permission levels to the record.

7. In the Text field, provide the name of the code and its alternative name, if needed, in the Alternative field.

8. In the Include Groups field, specify Sort numbers defined in Competence Codes that you want to be included in the view. For this, enter numbers separated by commas (e.g. 12,14, 90) or use a dash to indicate a range of numbers (e.g. 0-999).
   
   If the Include Groups value is not defined, all competence codes will be shown in this view.

9. In the Options tab, set the fields you want to display in the competence view. For this, use the Add Column button to display an additional column and select a value for the column heading.

10. Click OK to save the changes.

As a result, a new competence view code is added to the list of codes:

Before working with the datagroup, you need to set up Competence Codes and Competence Views in General Codes.

Go to Setup > General Codes > Competence > Competency Codes and input the codes you need.

Click  the button to add a new code:

1. Enter Code and Text (description).
   Sort the field defines the order according to which the documents will be sorted in the datagroup.
   The codes with the smallest number will be shown first, the ones with the biggest number will be shown last.
   '0' means the very first.

2. Details tab:
   You can see Date From, Issued By, Expiry Date, and Date To option groups that define whether the corresponding fields should be Disabled, Optional, or Mandatory.
   If you select the Mandatory option for Expiry Date or Date To, you can set up default periods for these fields.
   This means that when you input the Date From field (while adding a new competence record in Competence datagroup), Expiry Date or Date To will be filled automatically according to the inputted periods (in units selected in the Measurement section). 
   
   Options section
   To keep records of which position a person is checked out for (Job Familiarization), it is required to define one or several codes for entries with the option Check Out selected. 
   The Check Out codes should be set in a separate group, to have them grouped in the same view. 
   See Defining Competence Views section.
   Allow only one document: If the option is set, yo u can add only one record using this code in the Competence datagroup.
   Restriction: If the crew member has a Medical, Travel, and Competence record with restriction option set. It means that he/she is not physically able to perform some kind of work or is not able to operate on certain vessels, or should be located close to the port in case his health condition gets worse, etc. This information will be seen in Crew Change/Rotation Planning module. So, if a crew member is assigned on board, and he has a medical, travel, or competence document with this option enabled, the system displays a warning.
   
   Select Document Type.

3. Replaced Competencies tab (competencies of a lower status than the selected one):
   Here it is possible to define the competence hierarchy. You can define what documents can be replaced by this competence.
   Click

   button and choose the competence record that can be replaced by this newly created one.
   All the records that are added to this section for competence A, can be replaced by competence A.
   The replacement logic is as follows: no matter how many levels of replacing documents exist for the current certificate - the system will always end at the one that is on the highest level.
   
   E.g. if a person has a certificate A, that is replaced by B (and B is available as well) then only certificate B will be taken to count. An (as well as its expiry dates) will be simply ignored. If certificate B is not available, then the system operates with certificate A.
   There may be as many levels of replacement as possible. The system always operates with the highest existing. 

4. Replacing Competencies tab (competencies of higher status than the selected one):
   Here you can find the list of competencies that can replace the competence in question.
   This section is only for viewing dependencies, not for modifications.
   
   

5. Interface Xref tab displays information depending on what competence type and options you've selected on the Details tab.
   
   

Defining Competence Views

After all, needed Competence codes are created, you need to define one or more Competence views.

Each view will be shown as a separate page in the Competence datagroup.

For every view, you can define what competence documents will be shown on a corresponding page.

Go to Setup > General Codes > Competence > Competence View.

We recommend you create at least one view - ALL - to show all the competencies.

Click  the button to add a new view:

1. Enter Code and Text (the value of this field will be shown as a title of the corresponding page).
   Include Groups. Here you define the Sort number of the Competence codes that you want to be included in the view. You can input groups separated by coma as well, e.g. 12,14,90
   0-999 means that all the competencies with sort between 0 and 999 will be included in the view.
   If nothing is defined in this field, all competence codes will be shown in this view.
   Security Code field. When a security code other than '0' is defined, it is possible to set up different access rights (Read, Write, None) to this view for different users' levels. This can be done in Adonis Control Centre > General Codes >
   Competence View:
   
   

2. View Grid > Columns Definition - in this section, you specify what columns will be shown in the view.
   Click

    and select the Heading from the available list.
   Click

    to delete the column.
   
   
   

3. Also, you can define on the Editor Form tab, what fields will be optional, mandatory, disabled, or invisible for the view:

   
   Click OK to save the view.

Functionality

You can open the Competence datagroup by clicking  the icon on the Datagroup Ribbon or pressing Ctrl+7.

Also, you can open which shows all the documents data groups including the Competence.

The Competence datagroup allows you to store competence documents for each person.

Then you can easily find a person who has a certificate required with the help of the Adonis Query tool.

The below example screen shows the competencies a person is holding.

As you can see, we have as many pages as many views we defined in General Codes (see Defining Competence Views section):

The competencies that expired or are close to expiring within the next 30 days are highlighted red, those that are going to expire within the next 60 days are highlighted yellow.

The details of the expiry can be defined under Global Options > Expiry tab. Administrators can change these settings according to the company's needs.

In our example: we set numbers 60/30. It means: if it is left 60 days to Expiry Date, the record becomes yellow, and if 30 days to Expiry Date it becomes red.

The number near the page title indicates how many expired records (highlighted red) exist on this page. Documents will be highlighted on those Competence views only, where the Expiry Date field exists.

Letter 'Y' on the blue background in the Validity of Scan column means that a scanned document is attached to this Competence record. 

You can open the enclosed record, view the scan, and check attachment properties for this record:

Under Options, you can select to show only the current documents command.

Adding a New Record

To add a new competence record, please click  the button and input the required information in appeared Details form, e.g.:

Select Document Code. You can start typing the code in the Document Code field and the system will suggest you the code.
It's possible to search by:

• Code;

• Name;

• STCW code.

Right-click the drop-down and select how you want to search:

Date From - the date of issue for a competence.

Date To - maybe used to store a date (if this competence was emitted).

Expiry Date - the final date when competence is valid.

Starting from ver. 2015.1, the radio box Planned/History is changed to a checkbox Planned.

Logic: if a checkbox is not set, the competence is considered as Historical.

Please note that for competence that is defined as Endorsement in General codes, the Planned /History modes are changed to Applied for/Received.

Click OK to save the record.

It is possible to print the Competence Summary report for a specific person.

Click button under Manage menu or run reports under Reports > Competence:

• Competence List;

• Competence Summary;

• Required Competence:

 New validation is applied from ver. 2018.1 when adding a competence code, defined as Certificate of the Competence document type. 

A crew member's position (in Personal Details) should have the Competence defined as Documents for Promotion under General Codes > Personal Details > Ranks or as Required (in Position Requirements Profile).

If it is not - the application will show a warning message to flag that competence is not required for this crew member's current rank.

Adding Attachment

To link/attach a scanned copy to a competence, select the record and click on the Manage ribbon bar or open the record and click Open Enclosed.

The Document a dialog appears on the screen:

1. Fill in the fields as below:
   
   Description. Enter the name of an attachment.
   Document type. From the drop-down list, select one of the types defined in Enclosed are Document Codes (see Define Enclosed Documents Codes).

2. Click New to choose between the options which allow you to attach:
   File. Click to indicate the path to the file.
   WEB link. Enter the link to be attached. In case the link protocol is not specified, the system uses the HTTP:// protocol by default.

3. You can scan documents directly from APM and add the digital copies to the Competence datagroup. To do this, use one of the tips below:
   
   Click the Scan button. APM will try to automatically detect an installed scanner and will start scanning.
   Click the down arrow on the Scan button and select the Select Source option if you want to manually select your scanner.

After adding and saving, you can open the enclosed record, view the scan, and check attachment properties:

A special field Validity of Scan is available in a view definition. This field is painted blue if a scan is valid or red if a scan is not valid.
When you first add a scan to a competence document the scan is considered valid.
But when you change any data for the competence document, the scan status is changed to invalid.

There is also a possibility to edit enclosed Word and Excel documents directly in the datagroup.

Please click in the Competence Details window, and click on the next screen: 

The document will be opened, and you can edit it as you like.
When the editing process is finished you can save your changes or revert them by answering Yes or No to the question. 

Certificates and Endorsement Handling

All competence codes that correspond to Certificates & Endorsements are set up in General Codes > Competence > Competency Codes.

A Document Type is defined for each code to see if it is related to a Medical, Certificate of Competence, Endorsement, or another certificate type.

Each crew member has their own updated set of competence documents that he owns, proving his professional skills.

Depending on maritime regulations, position/vessel specific requirements for certain certificates (setup in Requirements Profile module), the system provides automatic verification if a person has all necessary certificates (not expired) for his job.

There exist multiple cases when a certificate can be considered as the one, that can replace some other certificate(s).

This is also controlled by APM.

Replaced Competences the tab provides you with the possibility to define the competence hierarchy.

Here you can define what documents can be replaced by this competence.

Click button and choose the competence record(s).

In our example: all records that will be selected in this screen for Tanker Safety competence can be replaced by Tanker Safety competence.

The replacement logic is as follows: no matter how many levels of replacing documents exist for the current certificate - the system will always end at the one that is on the highest level.

E.g. if a person has certificate A, which is replaced by B (and B is available as well) then only certificate B will be taken into count. An (as well as its expiry dates) will be simply ignored. If certificate B is not available - then the system operates with certificate A.

A crew member's position (in Personal Details) should have the Competence defined as Documents for Promotion under General Codes > Personal Details > Ranks or as Required (in Position Requirements Profile). New validation is applied from ver. 2018.1 when adding a competence code, defined as Certificate of the Competence document type.

If it is not - the application will show a warning message to flag that competence is not required for this crew member's current rank.

Endorsement
Any Certificate of Competence (CoC) can have its Endorsement that holds another flag than CoC & justifies its usage.

This means that even if a person owns a CoC that is valid in a certain country only, but he has the Endorsement with the flag of another country: it is considered that the CoC is valid in the country of Endorsement as well.

To provide this validation, when creating a Competence Code, you should set the document type Endorsement & then define a list of competencies that are endorsed on Replaced Competence tab.

Endorsements validation exists only for Q88 Export & are not taken into count in other APM modules.

Dock Functionality

We introduce the new customization approach to make your work with APM even more convenient.

It allows you to dock modules (crew list, contacts) and data groups (activities, family, documents, appraisals, and competence) on the left/right/top/bottom:

So, the result can look as below:

The remaining part can then be used to display the other screens (modules, data groups) according to your needs without overwriting the Competence screen.

To reset the Dock functionality back, click  button under the Manage menu.