Posts on Bespoke Software

It was great to see the buzz at the 2019 Saffron User Conference held in Sheffield recently. We were invited along to see the presentation on the Saffron Wellbeing Portal which SkillsLogic have helped in the development of since its inception in 2014.

HFE is an active leisure sector training provider that delivers a range of regulated and unregulated fitness industry qualifications across the UK. The nature of the qualifications require a mix of online learning and practical assessment at one of over forty UK fitness centres. SkillsLogic have recently completed a new CRM module that successfully integrates 3 separate systems into a single software solution.

This week sees the launch of a new augmented reality smartphone application developed by SkillsLogic for our partner The Skills Network. The app delivers video case studies, a virtual tutor and interactive 3D models to accompany their qualifications - starting with their Level 2 Certificate in Understanding Nutrition and Health.

SkillsLogic has been awarded a three year contract to deliver a bespoke ePortfolio system for the Education and Training Foundation (ETF). The system will be used to support ETF's Advanced Teacher Status programme (ATS) - the badge of advanced professionalism and mastery in further education and training.

In 2017, Practice Index, an organisation providing a wide range of services to General Practitioners, approached us about developing a learning management system to deliver online training courses to GP practices in the UK. Practice Index found themselves in a common predicament. They had spent some time configuring a hosted virtual learning environment (VLE) solution provided by a big player in the market but were unsatisfied with the inability to modify the system to better support their business model.

At SkillsLogic we develop and maintain bespoke learning management systems on various server operating systems, but our preferred option is Linux and we tend to use Apache as we have tons of experience configuring, optimising and keeping it running smoothly.

Skillsby, the easy-to-use learning management system (LMS) from SkillsLogic, is offering a free GDPR course online titled 'GDPR Awareness' to help large and small organisations get to grips with the shake-up in data protection legislation.

We have been using Postgres replication successfully now on a number of projects - mainly to ensure that we have data backed up in real-time to a separate disaster recovery site. But a useful side effect of having this up-to-date backup on a Postgres instance, is we now have the ability to take regular snapshots of it without affecting performance of the live site, and to provide read-only views onto the data with the benefit of it being bang up to date.

SIR Data Insights - the national FE sector workforce data service - is ready for the 2016/17 SIR25 upload window. All FE colleges in England are encouraged to submit workforce data - the staff individualised record - to the online service when the upload window opens at the start of July. Independent training providers, charities and adult and community learning organisations are also encouraged to make a submission.

From time to time we get asked to develop a bespoke learning management system for a training provider that wants to use e-learning to deliver compliance type training to multiple client organisations. Most of those training providers are already using an established off the shelf system - either Moodle or a commercial Software as a Service (SaaS) solution.