We knew when we embarked on our journey to simplify accreditation and certification workflows and create a world class accreditation and certification management software solution that we had to listen carefully to what our customers wanted. Initially, we found that this was a bigger challenge than we expected. That’s because we were asking the wrong questions.
We soon learned that asking customers what features they need wasn’t effective. They often didn’t know how to describe exactly what they wanted. So, we changed our approach. Instead of asking for a list of features, we started to ask what kind of phrases they wanted to hear from each of their stakeholders once their accreditation or certification management software was implemented.
This approach assisted us in identifying those things that users really need. It helped us pinpoint the software modules and discrete activities that were required to add value to a user’s day, while saving them valuable time and resources,
Tools Designed for Accreditation and Certification Lifecycle Management
So, what exactly is ARMATURE Fabric? It is a software product that makes the business of accreditation and certification easier. Some of the key features include customer relationship management (CRM)/customer experience management (CXM), data collection tools, workflow management, document management, insights and analytics, and quality/issues management, and the ability to manage communications and tasks from directly within the product.
Below is a breakdown of eight key areas where ARMATURE Fabric helps to improve the accreditation and certification life cycle:
- User Experience: ARMATURE Fabric delivers integrated productivity dashboards for users that are easy to understand and that provide click-through visualizations to guide their activity. It allows users to view their action items and helps them prioritize their tasks.
- Customer Engagement: To help manage customer relationships and experiences we’ve implemented stakeholder profiles that allows you to capture and manage data across your entire community including customers, reviewers, programs, institutions, and more. It provides a simple way to collect, track, and reference a stakeholder’s artifacts like forms, audits, and evidence while providing insight into their activities, workflows, and processes.
- Lifecycle Management: From handling the intake, processing, review, and approval of new applications to managing certificates, audits, processes, artifacts, and history ARMATURE Fabric provides tools that make it easy to manage all of the information and activities related to an entire accreditation and certification lifecycle.
- Data Collection: Having reliable data is a key component of an effective accreditation management process, and we’ve developed configurable forms to drive consistent data collection through self-studies, site visits, reviews, and surveys. This, combined with intuitive reporting capabilities, delivers insights from data collected from audits, forms, and surveys.
- Workflow Management: ARMATURE Fabric comes with system-wide workflows that allow you to configure and deploy simple or complex processes anywhere within the system. Our aim is simplifying accreditation and certification workflows.
- Document Management: Our tools provide extensive document tracking and control with configurable workflows that allow multiple users access and oversight. Global referencing means that you can collect and manage documents around the world within a single interface, tracking version numbers and maintaining a single source of truth across your organization.
- Insights and Analytics: High-level, interactive click-through dashboards aggregate critical information and present it in an easy-to-use interface. Analyze trends and create ad-hoc reports that provide instant insights into your data.
- Quality Management: ARMATURE Fabric is designed to take the headache out of quality management. It allows you to easily capture and triage areas of non-compliance through the automated tracking of issues, cases, complaints, corrective actions, and root cause analysis. It can also help you manage continuous quality improvement initiatives.
ARMATURE Fabric in Action
ARMATURE Fabric supports the full accreditation lifecycle from initial application through to decision, progress reporting, and re-accreditation. It is highly configurable, meaning that accreditation workflows and data collection tools can be built easily and effectively using out-of-the-box functionality. Once deployed, users can edit, create, and add new programs and workflow elements quickly, without the need for intervention from the ARMATURE team.
During the implementation phase, we engage with customers to discuss ways they can streamline their workflows in ARMATURE Fabric. In many cases, workflow steps can be replaced by smart automations, enabling enhanced productivity and improved visibility.
The flexibility of ARMATURE Fabric enables us to provide customers with solutions to address their major challenges such as improving their ability to view the accreditation history of a given program or institution, accessing status reports, and identifying issues and trends.
ARMATURE Fabric allows customers to assign reviewers/auditors/site visitors based on geographical locations, as well as identify any potential conflicts of interest. Reviewers can access their own portal that shows them the tasks assigned to them and provides them with single-click access to online review forms that can be completed during their site visits.
The software includes an event management capability that helps accreditation and certification bodies set up board or committee meetings. During these meetings members can review and make accreditation and certification decisions. Members have full access to the materials they need to review and, if desired, they can cast their votes via an online balloting system.
Over the last two decades, we’ve combined our passion for technology with our experience designing effective accreditation and certification lifecycle management tools to create a software product that is reliable, easy to use, and flexible enough to meet both straightforward and highly complex workflows.
Our goal is to provide our clients with solutions that eliminate problem areas while offering insight into new approaches that can save them both time and money. If you’re interested in seeing how ARMATURE Fabric can help your business better simplify accreditation and certification workflows, reach out to us and we’ll be happy to put our expertise to work for you.
