Setting up and running your training centre
Everything from your first login to your first certificate going out - in the order that works best. Each step shows you exactly where to go and what you should see.
Screens in this guide show Brightwater Training Ltd, a demonstration company - every name, email address and learner is fictional.
Sign in to your portal
Your training centre has its own address - yourname.trainaidsolutions.org - and this is where you and your instructors sign in. Use the admin email and password you registered with. If you've forgotten the password, the Forgot your password? link emails you a reset link that works for an hour.
Meet your dashboard
The dashboard greets you with your key numbers - certificates issued, seats available this month, upcoming sessions and courses - plus quick links to every area.
Below them sits Getting started: the same six steps as this guide, and the clever part is that the ticks appear by themselves as you complete each one. You never mark anything done - TAS notices.
Make it look like your business
Open Company Settings from the sidebar or quick links. Upload your logo (an SVG stays crisp on printed certificates), set your two brand colours, and add the reply-to email - the address learners reach when they reply to anything TAS sends for you.
- Your logo and colours appear on your portal, every email, and every certificate.
- Further down the same page: learner feedback wording, Google & Facebook review links, and session defaults.
Give your instructors their own logins
Open Instructors and press Add sub-account. Each trainer gets their own email and password for running session registers on the day - from a laptop, tablet or phone. Choose the Instructor role; use Admin only for people who should manage courses and settings too.
Design your certificate once, reuse it everywhere
Open Certificates, switch to the Certificate designs tab, and press Add certificate. Give it a name, and pick a design from the library - every design previews in your own logo and colours, so what you see is what learners get. Add your lead instructor's name and signature, and if you train under an accrediting body, tick the box to put its name and logo on the certificate.
One certificate can serve many courses, so most businesses need only one or two.
Create your first course
Open Courses and press Add course. A course is your template: its title (which prints on certificates), whether its certificate expires (and after how many months - this drives automatic renewal reminders), whether it has assessment requirements instructors mark against, and whether learners get a feedback email afterwards.
- If feedback is on, submitting it is what releases the learner's certificate email.
- If feedback is off, certificates go out the moment an instructor marks a learner as passed.
Add the assessment points and feedback questions
Creating the course opens its page, where two builders live. The assessment rubric is the list of competence points your instructors mark each learner against - add one row per point, with an optional reference number from your qualification specification (like "2.1"). Courses with no pass/fail elements can skip this entirely by unticking "specific training requirements".
Feedback questions are what learners answer after the course. Two answer types: a 5-star scale (with an optional comment) for anything you want to measure, and a text answer for open questions. Group related questions under a section heading, and reorder them with the arrows.
Built a feedback form you're proud of? Apply to all courses copies it - questions, sections and intros - to every other course in one click. The only courses left untouched are ones where learners have already submitted answers, because replacing their questions would delete those responses.
Put a session in the diary
On the course page, fill in Schedule a session: date and time, how many seats to allocate from your monthly allowance, the venue, and which instructors are delivering. The instructors you tick will see the session in their login.
Add your learners
Open the session's register and add learners by name and email. Three other ways when that's slow: a bulk CSV import for corporate bookings, the QR code so learners add themselves in the room (step 5 of the instructor guide), and an under-16 tickbox that routes everything to a parent or organiser instead of storing the child's details.
Watch the setup complete itself
Back on the dashboard, the journey shows how far you've come - each tick appeared the moment the real thing existed. The last step happens on training day, and it belongs to your instructor: run the register, mark learners as passed, and TAS does the rest.
What your learners receive
After the session, each learner who passed gets a feedback invitation by email (worded and branded as you set in Company Settings). The form takes a minute on a phone. The moment they submit it, their certificate PDF is emailed to them - and if you've added Google or Facebook review links, they're invited to leave one.
Where to check on things later
Three pages cover almost every "can you just check…" moment:
- Certificates → Issued certificates - the ledger of everything your business has ever issued, newest first, filterable by course and date. Each row shows the learner, verification code, expiry and status, with the PDF one click away. (The Certificate designs tab next to it holds the designs from step 5.)
- Learners - search one person by name or email: resend their certificate email, download the PDF, or handle a GDPR export or erasure from one place.
- Feedback - every learner response, question by question.
Anyone can verify a certificate
Every certificate carries a QR code and a verification code. An employer or inspector scans it and lands on a public page confirming it's genuine - learner (initials-protected), course, dates and status. No login needed, and it keeps working even after a certificate expires, which is exactly what an incident investigation years later needs.
You’re all set up
When every step is done, the journey folds away into a quiet celebration - and from here on, this is simply how your training runs: schedule, register, deliver, and the paperwork takes care of itself. Renewal reminders go out automatically at 6 weeks and 4 weeks before a certificate expires, with a final nudge 8 weeks after.
