LabMate Training
A 1 hr on-line training session is given at initial deployment to each location/lab where xGEL is installed. The session teaches the lab personnel how to use the system, and steps them through the various input screens.
This works great because:
- When the lab users see our interface. and the data entry screens, their initial reaction is usually “These look like what I am already used to seeing in the lab.”, and,
- xGEL is a “black box”, and is designed to be an easy to train by showing, easy to learn by doing, and easy to use by doing more of it. In this vein, our efforts are devoted to making software directed along the lines of NOT having to create, or have, any complicated training courses, or create Users Manuals, or Operations manuals, or Technical Support/Inner Workings manuals for clients or users, detailing “how to do this, and how to do that”, or “how what is done is done”.
After the initial training session covering “how to do this” and “how to do that”, we rely on the primary user of the platform to teach their other staff how to use and interact with the program. For example, xGEL will provide the initial on line training session for those actually work at the testing bench, on how to use the platform: e.g. how to set up a project, how to enter borings, how to enter test assignments, how to set up sample zone templates, and things like that. As mentioned, this takes about 1 hr. After that, experience shows that users can start effectively using the program, and teach others how to use it. This arrangement is one of the reasons xGEL fees are set at the economical levels that they are.
So then, after this initial training on new client deployments, those lab personnel trained will need to be the ones who train others in their lab, as that falls outside of xGEL’s scope, unless special arrangements , for additional fees, have been made for such additional services.
In addition, based on past experiences with users, and their questions, we include in the user interface, at various appropriate places, dedicated “Help/Info” buttons, that when clicked, show information relating to things that users can do “Self Help” on.
In addition, on our website, under the “Support” link, there are links for:
“Tips and Tricks ( a.k.a. “How do I...”)” and “Troubleshooting and Errors”