Frequently Asked Questions about TCM

Here are some common questions about Training Center ManagerÒ . Some are technical questions about the programs, others are common pitfalls of inexperienced users, others are just plain curiosity at work.

Q. How did you guys get away with printing American Heart Association course completion cards? I have to pay for each certificate I order…

A. We didn’t. TCM does not generate the cards from scratch, it just prints onto your purchased cards when you run them through the machine. The program is good, but it’s not THAT good. Sorry.

Q. I usually hand-write rosters and training certificates. Why should I do all this data entry with TCM?

A. Consider this – how many times do you hand-write a student’s name? Once to register them by phone/mail, once on the course roster, and again on the training certificate. Plus any other additional documentation you might use. In TCM, you do this once, and print everything from there without additional typing – confirmations, certs, and rosters. Additional benefits include the ability to look students up with a couple of mouse clicks instead of searching through file cabinets (REALLY handy for those times when a student calls and says "Uh…. I lost my card and I took the class in …. Uh…. I don’t remember but it was snowing outside!"), and the ability of sending them expiration notices when their training expires. Plus the cards look much more professional when you print them on a machine.

Q. Do I have to have internet access on the computer I use TCM on?

A. No, not necessarily. You can use TCM on any computer, but if you do not have internet access, you will not be able to use the email confirmation and expiration features. We happen to think that’s one of the coolest parts of the program. If you can live without it, you should be fine on a non-internet enabled computer.

Q. We don’t collect email addresses from students. Can TCM still be useful to us?

A. Yes. We understand not all training centers are using the internet for their training. TCM gives you the option of using letters, labels, or postcards to communicate with your students. We do however, HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you begin to ask students for email addresses. The cost of mailing a letter is currently $0.42 in the US. The cost of sending an email is $0.00 in the US (without factoring in the monthly ISP). If you train 1000 students per year and send them both a confirmation and an expiration, you just saved your center $840.00 in postage costs alone! Factor in the paper, ink, envelopes, hassle, and time, and the savings increase significantly from there.

Q. We run a very popular training class that we created ourselves. Can we use TCM to administer this program?

A. Yes. Use the program like you would with any other course, and use the CERT COMPL button in the certificate printing engine to create an 8 ½" by 11" certificate of completion. If you’d like, you can run the certificates on commercially purchased certificate paper for a more "sophisticated" look.

Q. When I import a course to the certificate engine, I seem to lose students. I start with a class of 20 in the COURSES screen, but when I click to the PRINT CERTIFICATES screen I only have 18 students. What gives?

A. 9 out of 10 times this happens because you didn't set some of the student status to PASS. TCM will not generate certs for students who did not pass the program (the software is very ethical). Set all the students to PASS in the COURSES screen and then click PRINT CERTIFICATES. You should now have the appropriate number of students in the printing engine.

Q. I’m not sure the software is worth the price...…

A. This may seem like a lot of money for a shareware product, but consider the time and money the program will save your center in postage and especially time. In most areas, $249.95 is not even a day’s pay (8 hours) for the person who runs the center. We guarantee you that the program will save you MUCH more than that in your first year in time, hassle, and administrative inconvenience. Most of our test centers also reported increased activity from the expiration reminders (not every center does this, and it’s a great way to get repeat trainings). Depending on the size of your center, this may pay for itself in the first month!

Q. I don’t run CPR/First Aid courses. What can TCM do for me?

A. TCM is a specialized training database – it happens to be configured to print various CPR/First Aid certificates, but it is not exclusive to that. If you are an industrial health center that runs HAZWOPER training and Forklift courses, you can configure the course types to your own needs and even print certificates of completion on certificate paper. It works just as well.

Q. Every time I print an expiration letter, student certificate, or a roster, there are large blank fields in the print out. It looks like there should be some info in that spot. What’s wrong?

A. This is a common question. In most cases, there is a missing piece of data on the REGISTRATION page. Some users do not fully fill out the registration page because they either think that you have to pay immediately if you do, or they simply want to play with the program immediately and don’t take the time. Please realize that if you don’t input that information, TCM cannot print it on to the various forms and cards it uses. Be sure to type in all of the information in the REGISTRATION page – you get 45 trial uses regardless of how much data you put in there.

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