Every corner of Veoci is packed with features, and it’s that long list of options that makes all of our customers’ solutions possible.
Veoci’s many features add levels of technical depth to the platform without requiring our users to take on technical training like coding. But we do offer training for our users who do want to get more hands-on and maximize each of the features on the Veoci toolbelt.
We want to reward our users that do choose to take on that higher level of professional development and provide them with something that clearly marks their achievement and denotes their proficiency with our platform.
In September 2023, we finally debuted our Veoci Administrator Certification, a program for our Administrators to demonstrate their Veoci mastery. The program has grown quickly in just a half a year, and we’re excited to see it continue that growth in the future.
The Veoci Administrator Certification is a polished process, but that smooth and clean exterior is built on a foundation of hard work. I led this program all the way through, so now it’s time to open it up and show our Administrators what’s under the hood.
The Starting Line
Establishing a certification program isn’t necessarily a new idea. When I started looking into it, it seemed like the idea had always been floating around, but working with customers, driving innovation, and continuing to develop new features took priority over a potential certification initiative.
When the idea landed on my desk in August 2022, I knew we could turn this idea into reality within a year.
A little about me: I am Tony Azzara, Software Training Specialist with Veoci, and I led the development of the Veoci Administrator Certification. I joined the Veoci team in February 2022 and immediately found myself in the middle of new and interesting projects with our Training team.
I have years of experience as an educator of all ages, a few degrees and certifications of my own, and plenty of experience with earning badges. As an Eagle Scout, former teacher, and tech enthusiast and hobbyist all my life, I knew I was the perfect candidate to put the Administrator Certification together for Veoci.
I also am an instructor for our L1 – Introduction to Building in Veoci, L2 – Expanding Your Veoci Building Skills, and Administrator Solution courses. The Veoci Basics Webinar and Veoci Fundamentals Training are also mine to manage, as well as our new database of Drip Training Videos on our Helpdesk. More recent initiatives, like our expanding training and knowledge databases, and the Veoci Administrator Certification, are additional efforts I’ve taken on to get more knowledge and training options out to our always-growing base of customers.
Developing the Veoci Administrator Certification
When I first started the project, its final shape needed to be informed by three important principles.
- The certification is a path for long-time and well-practiced Veoci users to affirm their contribution to their organizations and their skill level with Veoci’s technology.
- The program would be a process as much as it would be guidance for a newer Administrator to reach the skill level of long-time and well-practiced Veoci Administrators.
- Establish Administrators as power users who can take on unique operational challenges in Veoci and push existing solutions to new levels of efficiency and complexity.
Veoci is a powerful and incredibly adaptable software platform. Until the Veoci Administrator Certification, we had no specific way to acknowledge some of our platform’s most skilled users. Customer-led webinars were one of the few ways more adept Administrators could share their solutions. Our user groups were also another smaller outlet.
Many Veoci Administrators are very skilled, some are just beginning to learn, and others are somewhere in between. Regardless of where an Administrator falls on that scale, the Veoci Administrator Certification provides a welcoming entry point. It keeps up with the ‘wizards’, gives some the extra step up they’re looking for, and sets newcomers up for success.
Requirements for Veoci Certified Administrators
When we started brainstorming the requirements, we kept in mind the Veoci Administrators who would most likely prequalify. But there was a balancing act to manage. The requirements needed to not only encapsulate long-time Veoci Administrators, but also welcome and encourage newer Veoci Administrators to participate.
A path many of Veoci’s most dedicated Administrators took was a good model that met the two objectives we laid out above. Completing the L1 and L2 courses were two boxes many Veoci Administrators have already checked off, and these trainings are a great entry point for newcomers.
Many Veoci Administrators have also delivered webinars and presentations on their solutions. Webinars, we felt, demonstrated a level of mastery perfect for the certification. So the webinar or presentation, plus the training courses, became the foundation for certification.
With these ideas in hand, we settled on the first three requirements.
Requirement 1 would be to complete an L1 and an L2. These courses set Veoci Administrators up well to complete the next step.
Requirement 2 is to create your solution. A solution can serve any business or operational need of a Veoci Administrator’s organization. EOPs and planning, visitor management systems, or even virtual daily operations workspaces all would qualify. Once a Veoci Administrator has something built out for their organization, they can move on to the next requirement.
Requirement 3 is to deliver a webinar or the equivalent. Many Veoci Administrators have done this already, taking the opportunity to share with their peers challenges they’ve encountered and how they resolved those challenges with Veoci. If you’re a Veoci Administrator and exploring our certification, you can get some good ideas for solutions and presentations from our existing library of webinars. An equivalent could be a non-webinar option, as we don’t want to force public presentations on Veoci Administrators.
The 4th requirement is a much more active effort than the previous three. To satisfy requirement 4, Veoci Administrators must continue meeting a quarterly quantity of Power Admin Points. Completion of requirement 3, whether by a historical webinar or a new one, kicks off the tracking of that metric. The Administrator Certification Dashboard explains how this metric is calculated, and is accessible to a Veoci Administrator after their application has been approved. These points are crucial to maintaining one’s Administrator Certification: the points’ measurement drives the quarterly status of the certification as Valid, Endangered, or Invalid.
Many long-time Veoci users already easily met the first three requirements once the program debuted, exactly as we intended. And for those same users, the fourth requirement is one they’ll complete as they use Veoci over days and weeks of standard operations. New Veoci Administrators can use the Veoci Administrator Certification application process as a ramp into using the platform more and more, bringing them to the level of proficiency many long-time users already have.
We considered the Veoci Administrators that may find their daily lives less focused on using Veoci due to circumstances like changing jobs, responsibilities, or extended absences. A workflow allows certified Veoci Administrators to freeze their quarterly quantity of Power metrics and go on hiatus for up to a year and a half.
What’s ahead?
So what’s next for the Veoci Administrator Certification? Aside from continuing to use Veoci, there are a lot of potential things to do, and benefits to being a certified Veoci Administrator.
We’re exploring establishing a user group for Veoci Certified Administrators, allowing administrators to connect, share ideas, and discuss features and their solutions. It would be very beneficial for tackling problems and using that group to bounce ideas around.
We may even look into ways for Veoci Certified Administrators to maintain their Veoci access even after changing jobs, roles, or organizations. It’s all an effort to enable our administrators and allow them to keep their skills sharp despite certain circumstances.
The ideas above are just a few pins on the roadmap, but there’s so much room for this program to grow. The Veoci Administrator Certification has a lot of potential, a surplus we’ll certainly tap into as the program continues to grow.
