PlatCore LMS Blog | ServiceNow Learning Management New

Townsville's Training Roles

Written by Lauren Alweis | Apr 22, 2020 10:42:00 PM

Townsville Australia, the largest urban center north of the Sunshine Coast, operates in a highly regulated environment. Hear how they are using the PlatCore LMS to ensure the requirements of each employee is met: Read the Full Townsville Story

Learning Management System Training Roles

Townsville was using an old HR database and in some cases spreadsheets to manage thousands of certifications and licenses for a wide variety of job roles. This made compliance reporting difficult; manual processes resulted in errors, data integrity was questionable, and there was excessive lag time. The PlatCore LMS allows them to accurately report on training and certification requirements, but they still wanted a way to quickly identify compliance gaps within their many job profiles.

Townsville created Training Roles using simple configurations in ServiceNow. This LMS scope extension allowed TCC to record and track over 700 job roles across 1600 people. Each profile contains required or recommended courses for a job role. Training Roles allow Townsville to easily update training - or add/remove roles from a user’s profile.

In addition to facilitating reporting and training management, Training Roles provide the learner clear goals so they can take charge of their training and certification activities.

Example: Corporate Compliance Training Role

One example of a training profile is the Corporate Compliance Training Role (CCTR). Townsville provides this role to all staff to deliver important corporate updates. This allows them to make changes to one role, and it will apply to all users - rather than making changes to every users profile.

Townsville’s Corporate Compliance Role has seven essential training courses. These courses can each have their own requirements. For example, courses can follow a wide variety of schedules:

  • TRIGGER: An onboarding course could be assigned immediately when an employee is hired.
  • DATE: TCC’s Code of Conduct course could be distributed to all employees every June 6th.
  • RECURRENCE: The Fraud & Corruption course will reoccur on an individual’s schedule to ensure they maintain certification in line with when they first completed the training (ie: every 12 months on the anniversary date they commenced employment).
  • IMMEDIATE: Lastly, an (optional or required) executive update could be posted immediately for quick distribution.

This allows a great deal of flexibility while still giving each role the exact training they need.

A native application built on the Now Platform™, PlatCore connects the powerful ServiceNow reporting engine to Townsville’s training data. This gives them real-time, executive-level reporting on the status of their Corporate Compliance Training. ServiceNow notifications allow them to send automated training reminders to either individuals and/or their management team. Using this functionality, it is expected that they will see greater accountability and compliance with Australia's important legal requirements.

Example: LMS Dashboard

When the user first enters the LMS, they see a list of courses relevant for their role in the organization. Below is the dashboard for Townsville’s IT Director, “Leigh.” He has three Training Roles; the ‘IT Development Manager,’ ‘Townsville City Council Corporate Compliance’, and ‘First Aider’ attached to his role.

These training roles are persistent on the learner dashboard, so you can quickly and consistently see your training status. Status lights update based on any new requirements such as reoccurring courses or updated material.


For an easy to understand dashboard, Townsville developed a ‘traffic light’ system. Training listed in green is current and valid. Training in orange is due to expire soon (within 30 days). Training in red have not been completed or have expired. You can see in the example above that Leigh is 100% compliant for the Townsville City Council CCTP and is 50% compliant for the training he needs for his IT Development Manager role.

If an employee changes their role, for example, if they get a promotion, Townsville can easily add the learner’s new role, and remove the old one. The LMS will automatically update the dashboard to acknowledge past course completions. The PlatCore LMS’s traffic light dashboard will show the status of any additional required training.

The Bottom Line

With 700 roles, each with unique training requirements, Townsville created Training Roles to help manage and track compliance training. These profiles have streamlined the wide variety of roles, making training delivery even simpler and more closely matches their current process. In addition, a simple dashboard interface has made it easier for staff to understand and complete their role-based training.

Training Roles are just one way Townsville City Council has simplified its training delivery. Read the whole story of how they are saving 447 hours per month and achieved a 50% increase in efficiency using PlatCore.

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