Administrative Staff & Upskilling Plans

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

Not everyone you track delivers training or works on the front line. Reception staff, finance officers, compliance officers, student-support staff and managers still need their checks and certificates kept current, and many organisations want each of them on a simple yearly development plan. They don’t need a unit-of-competency scope or an annual currency plan.

Attestation Core Pro gives these people a lighter workflow:

• an Administrative Staff screen for adding and maintaining their profiles, and
• upskilling plans: a yearly list of development activities (training, workshops, conferences, online courses) that you track to completion and approve.

This guide is for organisation administrators. Staff members only see their own plan on the portal (see Submitting an upskilling plan).

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Before you start

• Both plugins must be active (Free and Pro), and the Pro licence must be active. See Licensing and updates.
• Administrative staff are ordinary compliance profiles underneath. They appear in Attestation Core → Compliance Profiles with everyone else, and their documents, evidence and attestations work the same way. See Staff profile and credential management.
• Plan approvals for operational staff (trainers and assessors) are a separate feature. See Annual currency plans.

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Administrative staff

Where to find it

Go to Attestation Core → Staff. The screen heading is Administrative Staff. The menu item sits in the people group: after Departments if you use departments, otherwise straight after Compliance Profiles.

You need to be an administrator, or a department coordinator (see Permissions). If the Pro licence isn’t active, the Staff and Upskilling Plans menu items don’t appear at all.

Who counts as administrative staff

A person counts as administrative staff when their profile was added or saved on the Staff screen. Saving there marks the profile with the plugin’s administrative-staff type, and that type is all the Staff list and the upskilling plan features look at.

This is not the same as the “Administrative staff”, “Support staff”, “Compliance staff” or “Leadership / manager” workforce categories you can tick on a compliance profile. Those categories label the profile and change some wording on the staff portal. They don’t add the person to the Staff list or let them have an upskilling plan.

	Trainers / operational staff	Administrative staff
Added from	Compliance Profiles (or CSV import)	Attestation Core → Staff → Add Staff Member
Yearly plan	Annual currency plan (Pro), submitted by the staff member on the portal	Upskilling plan, created and maintained by you
Units of competency (RTO)	Assigned and tracked in the matrix	Not used
Documents, evidence, Sign & Attest	Yes	Yes, once a WordPress user is linked
Plan approval	Plans screen	Upskilling Plans screen

Adding a staff member

1. Go to Attestation Core → Staff and click Add Staff Member.

2. Fill in the form:

   Field	What it does	Default / rules
   First Name	Given name	Required
   Last Name	Family name	Required
   Email	Contact address	Optional. Must be a valid email address
   Phone	Landline or main number	Optional
   Mobile Number	Used for Pro SMS notifications	Optional. Only digits, +, -, spaces and brackets are kept
   Status	Active or Inactive	Active
   Linked WordPress User	The login this person uses for the staff portal	— Not linked —. Users already linked to another profile aren’t listed

3. Click Add Staff Member. You’ll see “Staff member added.” and the edit screen opens.

To let the person see their plan on the portal, pick their WordPress user under Linked WordPress User. If they don’t have an account yet, create one under Users → Add New, then come back and link it.

Editing staff

The list shows Name, Email, Phone, Status and two actions:

• Edit opens the same form. Click Save Changes to save. Once the person has plans, the edit screen also lists them (Year, Status, Due Date and an Edit Plan link).
• Plans opens the Upskilling Plans screen.

Workflow differences to know about

• Inactive doesn’t remove portal access. A linked user keeps their portal permissions while the profile is Inactive. To remove access, archive the profile in Compliance Profiles (open the profile and use Archive profile). The Staff screen has no archive or delete action.
• Saving on the Staff screen sets the profile type. Saving someone here (even a trainer) turns their profile into administrative staff. If you later save the same person in Compliance Profiles with a different primary workforce category, they drop off the Staff list.
• One WordPress user per profile. If you pick a user who is already linked to another profile, you’ll see “That WordPress user is already linked to another record.”
• Large organisations. The Staff list is built from the first 500 compliance profiles in surname order. If you have more than 500 profiles in total, some administrative staff may be missing from the list. You can still find them in Compliance Profiles.

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Submitting an upskilling plan

In version 1.0.0 the administrator creates and maintains each upskilling plan. The staff member’s portal page is read-only: they can see their plan and progress there, but they can’t edit or submit it from the portal. “Submitting” a plan means agreeing the activities with the staff member, recording them, and setting the plan’s status to Submitted when it’s ready for sign-off.

Create the plan (administrator)

1. Go to Attestation Core → Upskilling Plans and click Add Upskilling Plan.
2. Staff Member: choose the person. Only administrative staff are listed (required).
3. Year: defaults to the current year. Allowed values are 2000 to 2099. Each staff member can have one plan per year. To change a plan, edit it rather than adding a second one.
4. Status: defaults to Draft. The options are Draft, Submitted, Approved, Returned and Overdue.
5. Under Activities, click + Add Activity once for each activity and fill in the row:
   • Activity: what they’ll do, e.g. “Certificate IV in Business Administration, unit 3”
   • Type: Training, Workshop, Conference, Online course or Other. New rows start on Other
   • Hours: optional, in half-hour steps
   • Completed: tick Done and, if you like, enter the completion date
   • Notes: optional free text
6. Click Create Plan (“Plan created.”). From then on the button is Save Plan (“Plan updated.”).

Each time you save, all the activity rows are replaced with what’s on the screen. There’s no button to remove a single activity row. A row left blank is still saved as an empty activity and counts towards the total, so avoid adding rows you don’t need.

When the plan is agreed, set Status to Submitted and click Save Plan. That puts it into the review queue (see Reviewing upskilling plans).

Show the plan on the portal

Use the shortcode on a page that the staff member can reach while logged in:

[attestation_core_my_upskilling_plan]

Attribute	What it does	Default
year	Which plan year to show	The current year

Example: [attestation_core_my_upskilling_plan year="2025"] shows last year’s plan.

The easiest way to set this up is Settings → Portal pages. With Pro active, the list includes an Upskilling Plan row. Choose an existing page, or use Auto-create missing portal pages to publish one called “Upskilling Plan” with the shortcode already in it. See The staff portal and the Shortcode reference.

What the staff member sees

• A heading such as My Upskilling Plan — 2026 and the plan’s Status
• A progress bar and a line such as “3 of 5 activities completed”
• A table of activities with Activity, Type, Hours and Status (Planned or Completed). The type appears as a short name (for example “training” or “online”), and hours are rounded down to whole hours on the portal

Other messages they might see:

Message	Why
“Please log in to view your upskilling plan.”	They aren’t logged in
“No staff profile found for your account.”	Their WordPress user isn’t linked to any profile
“Upskilling plans apply to administrative staff. Your profile is not set up as administrative staff, so there is nothing to show here.”	Their profile wasn’t created or saved on the Staff screen
“No upskilling plan has been set up for you for 2026 yet. Your administrator creates upskilling plans — contact them if you expect one.”	No plan exists for that year

Portal dashboard tile: with Pro active, the [attestation_core_dashboard] page adds a plan tile. That tile links to the Upskilling Plan page only when all of the person’s workforce categories are administrative ones (Support staff, Administrative staff, Compliance staff, Leadership / manager). Otherwise it links to the annual plan page. This check is separate from the Staff screen. If your administrative staff land on the wrong page, also tick an administrative workforce category on their compliance profile, or put a direct link to the Upskilling Plan page in your site menu.

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Reviewing upskilling plans

Where to find it

Go to Attestation Core → Upskilling Plans. The menu item sits straight after Staff, and the screen heading is Upskilling Plans.

The list shows Staff Member, Year, Status and an Edit link. In 1.0.0 the Staff Member column shows the person’s profile record number, not their name. Open the plan to see the name in the Staff Member field. Use the status filter (All statuses, Draft, Submitted, Approved, Returned, Overdue) and click Filter to narrow the list. The list shows the 50 most recent plans, newest plan year first.

Approve or return a plan

1. Filter by Submitted, then click Edit on a plan.
2. Check the activities, hours and completion ticks.
3. Below the form, a Review section appears for submitted plans only:
   • Approve sets the status to Approved and records you as the reviewer, with the date and time. You’ll see “Plan approved.”
   • Return for revision sets the status to Returned (“Plan returned for revision.”). There’s no comment box in 1.0.0, so tell the staff member what needs to change.
4. To reopen a returned plan, update the activities, set Status back to Submitted and click Save Plan.

You can also change Status directly in the dropdown and click Save Plan. That changes the status but doesn’t record a reviewer, so use the Review buttons when you want an approval on record.

Overdue is never set automatically. If you track deadlines, set it yourself.

Notifications and automation

Version 1.0.0 sends no email, SMS or webhook when an upskilling plan is created, submitted, approved, returned or becomes due. Upskilling-plan notification types appear in the SMS settings list, but nothing sends them yet. Let staff know about changes yourself. There are no scheduled jobs for upskilling plans.

Reporting

Attestation Core → Reports → Administrative Staff Compliance lists every administrative staff member with Name, Email, Plan Year, Plan Status (“No plan” when none exists), Total Activities, Completed, Completion % and Plan Due. Like all reports, it can be printed, saved as PDF or downloaded (XLSX with Pro). See Compliance reporting.

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Permissions

Who	Staff screen	Upskilling Plans screen
Administrator	Full access	Full access
Department coordinator (Pro)	Sees and edits only the staff in their departments. Can’t add new staff members	The menu item appears, but the list isn’t filtered by department and opening a single plan may be refused. Treat upskilling plan review as an administrator task
Staff members	No access	No access. They see only their own plan through the shortcode

See User roles and permissions for the full capabilities reference.

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Data, privacy and uninstall

• Plans and their activities are stored in two Pro database tables, one plan per staff member per year.
• When a personal-data erasure is processed, or the linked WordPress user is deleted, upskilling plans and activities are kept as compliance records, but their free-text fields and IP details are scrubbed. See Privacy, security and data.
• Deleting the Pro plugin keeps this data unless you’ve chosen to erase data on uninstall.

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When the licence isn’t active

• The Staff and Upskilling Plans menu items are hidden.
• On the portal, [attestation_core_my_upskilling_plan] shows nothing to staff or visitors, never the raw shortcode. Administrators see a notice, “Attestation Core Pro — licence inactive”, with a Manage licence button.
• On the Free plugin alone, the shortcode isn’t recognised, so remove it from your pages.
• Your plans and staff profiles are kept and come back when you reactivate.

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Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
Someone isn’t in the Staff list	They were added in Compliance Profiles, or their primary workforce category was changed there. Use Add Staff Member only for people who have no profile yet. If the person already has a profile, don’t add them a second time. Contact Dantian support for help converting the existing profile
“That WordPress user is already linked to another record.”	Each WordPress user can be linked to one profile only. Unlink the user from the other profile in Compliance Profiles first
The staff member sees “No staff profile found for your account.”	Link their WordPress user under Linked WordPress User on the Staff screen
The portal says there’s no plan, but you created one	Check the plan Year matches the year the page shows. The shortcode shows the current year unless you set year
“First name and last name are required.”	Both name fields must be filled before the profile will save

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Worked example

Riverbend Community College (an RTO) has 40 trainers and 9 office staff. The compliance manager, Priya, wants the office team on a yearly upskilling plan.

1. Priya adds each office staff member on Attestation Core → Staff, linking their existing WordPress logins.
2. She uses Settings → Portal pages → Auto-create missing portal pages to publish the Upskilling Plan page, then adds it to the staff menu.
3. In February she meets the receptionist, Tom, and creates his 2026 plan: “First Aid refresher” (Training, 8 hours), “Customer service webinar series” (Online course, 6 hours) and “Records management workshop” (Workshop, 4 hours). Status: Draft.
4. Tom logs in and sees My Upskilling Plan — 2026 with “0 of 3 activities completed”.
5. As Tom finishes each activity, Priya ticks Done and records the date. Tom uploads his First Aid certificate on his My Documents page as usual.
6. In November Priya sets the plan to Submitted, then uses Review → Approve. The Administrative Staff Compliance report now shows Tom at 100%, and she exports it for the annual management review.