1. Start of Meeting & Recording Announcement

• 0:00:08 – Dee Reinhardt announces the recording and transcription.

 
2. Introduction and Meeting Purpose

• 0:01:27 - Chase Martin introduces himself and outlines the meeting goals, including grant expectations and reporting.

• Expectations
• Review the tool
• Review new features

We are halfway through the grant already and we want to make sure we are all on the same page.

3. Grant Expectations Overview

• 0:02:27 - Chase discusses the importance of monthly reporting and ensuring all costs are logged.

• Quarterly Reporting is due at the end of this month.
• These grants are use it or lose it, so please let us know if you are using the funds.
• Make sure you are getting the costs put in each month by the 20^th

 
4. Introduction to Key Grant Features and Priorities

• 0:03:35 - Nate Carlson explains the ultimate goals of the apprenticeship program, including developing new programs and engaging businesses.

Meaningful Apprenticeships:

• We want to be sure you are meaningfully expanding these apprenticeships.
• The employers need to be meaningfully expanding the program.
• Expected to be doing business outreach and engagement.
• If you have any questions on the Standards Builder or anything else, reach out to Nate or Chase and they can assist with your questions.

 
5. Data Review & Discussion of Reporting Gaps

• 0:09:37 - Jennifer Foil and Nate Carlson address discrepancies in reported data and the need for accurate updates.

Current Activity:

• The only way we know you have programs in development are reading your quarterly report.
• There are so many different factors here on the Current Activity chart.
• New Apprenticeships are the ones that are created this year. If it is already developed and you are working on it, then you should put on a RAPIDS ID to show it has already been developed.
• We want real data because it not only gives us a picture of what is happening, but it gives us realistic understanding of how long it takes to create an apprenticeship program. It really helps us understand the process as a whole. We want to build that story with data around it.

 
6. New Reporting Features Overview

• 0:14:04 - Dee Reinhardt reviews the tool and demonstrates the new features for tracking progress and better capturing data on apprenticeship programs.

              New Reporting Features Overview

• Apprenticeship Illinois Grantee Reporting Guide can be found here: https://www.illinoisworknet.com/partners/Pages/Apprenticeship.aspx
• This is the link to the document that Dee reviews in the recording. It can also be found in the “Full List of Resources" section on the Grantee Reporting Guide.

Demonstration:

• When you land in the CSC, you will land on the group page.
• When you have more than one program, you may want to bookmark each program.

 
UAT (User Acceptance Testing) links and logins were sent late yesterday.

• You can have two screens open.
• One of the screens you can have the UAT environment open. This is not what you use for the real system.
• What you put in today, will be gone tomorrow.
• Please do not put any test data in the Production site, that will skew your numbers.

 
7. Detailed Walkthrough of the Navigator Tool

• 0:18:56 - Dee Reinhardt provides a comprehensive demonstration of the tool, covering organization data, outreach events, and apprenticeship statuses.

Groups > Apprenticeship Illinois > Outreach Event

• When you click on Apprenticeship Illinois, you land on the Customer page.
• Click the Navigator tools tab. Then click the Outreach Events tab.
• On the Outreach Events tab, you can filter by your organization and should see that the list reduces to your Outreach Events. You can see what is going on with everyone in the system and then filter to just see yours.
• Click Add Outreach Event
• Outreach Name
• Audience Type
• Outreach Type
• Event Date
• Number Attendees
• You can click Save OR click Add Follow Up Note.
• If you want to send the case note to others, you can select them from the list on the right.
• If you want to upload a document, you will be taken to the File Uploads tab.
• Click Upload File
• Select the file from wherever you saved it.
• Then click Save.
• After all of this has been entered, you will see it in the Outreach list.
• This is representative of two of your performance measures:
• # of Outreach Events
• # of Attendees
• The purpose of an Outreach Event is so you can engage more people at one time. This is great for putting in follow-up meetings. It is not just doing the events or consultations, but it is also tracking each time you make contact with that employer.

 
Navigator Tools > Organization information
Here, you enter those companies that are actually interested in doing apprenticeships. To the organization information, you can add specific case notes to that company.

• Organization Name
• Industry
• Current Status
• Last contact Date
• Status Indicators

Filter on your Navigator Name
              Please let the entire list load before you filter on your organization.

Navigator Tools > Add Organization:

• There is a search feature with Dun and Bradstreet. That is why you must sign a confidentiality agreement. They have a list that they have accumulated with various resources, but they have a lot of other information for these businesses. That just indicates that you will not take the list of organizations away and use them for another purpose.
• Organization Search: If you have an organization name that is “Teal" and you click search, you are going to get more options than if you put the whole name of the company in.
• You can enter a partial address name: 11N
• It is going to give me every organization that has 11n as part of their street address.
• If you are having problems finding an organization, you can submit a Help Request or click on the Office of Secretary State link and use that search.

• Back to the Organization search click the blue button next to the organization name.
• It will present a green success message at the top right of the screen.
• The Organization information will load and come with you with all of the information that we gain from the Dun & Bradstreet listing.

 
Illinois workNet site timeout
We have implemented a 30-minute timeout on the Illinois workNet page. Meaning, if you have any Illinois workNet pages open for more than 30 minutes with a 5 minute grace period notification, the page will time out and you will need to re-login.

8. Specific Tool Features and Updates

• 0:41:59 - Dee Reinhardt explains the new occupations tab and how it helps track development status for various roles.

Navigator Tools > Occupations

• When working with an employer, they may just want one career (CDL) or CDL + forklift operator. The Occupations tabs captures this information.  
• For each individual program, we can set a status where it is at.
• This allows you to see all of the occupations with the employer that you are working with.
• Add Occupation button
• Occupation Name
• Contact
• Team member
• Occupation description
• State date
• End date
• Organization Status
• Referral stage is the first stage you would use.
• Comment
• When you are doing an update, you can add a comment and save it.
• On the Occupations tab: One Organization might have multiple occupations on that one registered apprenticeship. Click View/Edit.
• Add Occupation Status
• There are definitions provided at the top.
• But there is also a “PDF provided here" link that you can click and open.
• Once you save this, it will update under the “Date of Last Update" on the Occupations tab.
• The colors represent the number of days.
• Green is good.
• Yellow between 31 and 60 days.
• Red is over two months.
• Grey = Inactive
• The goal is to keep these updated and in a green state.

 
9. Final Q&A and Tool Insights

• 1:00:01 - Discussion about triggering accurate reporting measures and understanding employer service engagement.

 
 
10. Announcements and Closing Remarks

• 1:09:45 - Chase Martin and others provide announcements, such as upcoming NOFO (Notice of Funding Opportunity) details and reminders about quarterly reports.

Upcoming Items:

• Apprenticeship Expansion NOFO coming.
• Quarterly Reports due at the end of the month.
• Tuesday Webinars

 
Contact Information

• Apprenticeship Expansion Grant Manager
• Chase Martin – Chase.Martin2@illinois.gov
• Illinois workNet
• Dee Reinhardt – dreinhardt@illinoisworknet.com
• Apprenticeship Expansion
• Nate Carlson – ncarlson@niu.edu
• Jennifer Foil – jfoil@niu.edu
• OET Budget Management
• John Barr – John.W.Barr@illinois.gov

 
Technical Assistance Calls

• Technical Assistance calls are held on the first Wednesday of each month.
• Calendar invites are not sent out, but they are listed on the partner page.
• Next TA call is: Wednesday, February 5^th at 1:30pm
• Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87157204425

 
Open Office Hours

• Dee holds an open office hour every Wednesday from 10-11am.
• Link: https://zoom.us/j/8449601274

 
Submitting a Help Request

• When you are logged into the customer support center, at the top right, click the dropdown by your name and select Help Request.
• Then click submit a new Help Request.
• Make sure to select the appropriate program for your help request.

• ​There were no questions from the audience. 
• There are no pending updates for release. 
• The D & B contract is still pending with procurement. We were able to get organizations entered in time for the January through March quarter deadline for those who asked. 

• When adding an organization, if you cannot find an organization in D&B, search the IL SOS Business Entity search.
  
• Quarterly Narrative now has sections for the various questions instead of one large text box.
  
• Adding notes will include a column for connecting to the note itself.
  
• Super Admins can now remove a workplan if it is wrong or a duplicate.