By: Andy Wills 

For years, Virtual Academy has been associated with “just online training.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but oftentimes your department misses out when not using ALL of the standard suite of features Virtual Academy offers. While online training helps meet mandates as well as saves departments time, money, and travel, you have other major efficient gains that are standard within the Virtual Academy system.

Let's dive in…

1. General Orders: Policy management at its finest. Digitally sign off on all policies, develop assessments, and run reports. All data is stored in the cloud indefinitely, so you can access records whenever you may need them. *Pro tip: host your entire policy manual in the Resources section as well so your department has 24/7 access to the most up to date policies and procedures*

2. Course Builder: Departments don’t have to rely on the Virtual Academy catalog alone. Course Builder allows your agency to build your own training and deliver it online or use it in a hybrid learning environment. See that article here. 

3. Roll Call: With over 175 new and up-to-date roll call videos for your department’s use, you also have a Roll Call creation tool much like the aforementioned Course Building tool. This allows you to quickly disseminate short bits of information to your staff in a very efficient manner with sign off capabilities.

4. Announcements: Instant announcements for consistent communication within your agency. Not just for use in the Virtual Academy system. When announcements are posted, users are able to get push notifications via email and text from the system, keeping you connected with your entire staff at all times.

5. External Training: Need a spot to host ALL your training records? We have you covered. Upload training records by individual officers or groups. This will help you track not only the online portion but training for the entire training cycle.

We have some new stuff in the pipeline, but you’re going to have to call me and ask me about that stuff. Here’s my number: 870-510-7521.

As always, be safe,

Andy from The Virtual Academy Family