Publishing policies and tracking who has read them

The policy library keeps every policy with its versions, owner and review date, and sends published versions to staff in the support worker app to read and acknowledge. This tutorial covers creating a policy, approving and publishing versions, and chasing acknowledgements.

Before you begin

• Permissions: compliance.policies.create to add a policy, compliance.policies.approve to approve a version, compliance.policies.publish to publish and send, compliance.policies.update for new versions and reviews.
• The policy document as a Word or PDF file.

Create a policy

1. Go to Quality → Policies and select New policy.
2. Enter a Code (for example POL-012), a Category and the Title.
3. Choose the Owner.
4. Select Upload Word or PDF and choose the document.
5. Select Create. You see Policy created as a draft and the policy’s drawer opens.

Approve and publish a version

1. In the policy drawer, find the banner Version … is a draft.
2. Someone with approval permission selects Approve. The banner changes to approved.
3. Select Publish. The version becomes current; if the policy is set to publish to the worker app, staff can read it there.
4. If you uploaded a Word document, a PDF being prepared banner shows until the PDF is ready. Staff see the Word file meanwhile.

Your organisation can require approval before publishing. If it does, publishing a draft that isn’t approved shows This version needs approval before it can be published.

Send it for acknowledgement

1. Select Send for acknowledgement in the page header.
2. Choose the Policy. Only policies with a published version are listed.
3. Under Send to, leave it empty for all staff or choose branches.
4. Set Acknowledge by. It starts 14 days from today.
5. Leave Remind people who have not acknowledged 3 days before the due date ticked, then select Send.
6. Staff open More → Policies in the app, read the policy and tap I’ve read and understood this.

Track and chase acknowledgements

1. On Quality → Policies, read the Staff acknowledgement column: acknowledged out of required, with a percentage bar.
2. Use the Acknowledgement filter and choose Staff outstanding.
3. Open the policy. Not yet acknowledged lists each person with their due date and an Outstanding or Overdue badge.
4. Select Remind outstanding to send reminders.

Review or update a policy

1. Filter Status to Review due, or check the Review overdue tile.
2. If nothing needs to change, open the policy and select Reviewed, no change.
3. To change it, use the New version card: choose Minor (wording) or Major (process change), select Attach document, write a Summary of changes (shown to staff when they acknowledge) and select Save draft version. Then approve and publish it.
4. A major change asks staff to acknowledge again.

Tips

• Acknowledgements count as evidence for Human resource management in the Practice Standards.
• New workers acknowledge policies as part of onboarding. See Onboarding a new worker: documents, contracts and induction.

If something goes wrong

A policy with this code exists.

Policy codes are unique. Use a new code or open the existing policy.

Finish or discard the current draft before starting another version.

Approve and publish the draft first. The New version card only shows when there is no draft.

PDF failed.

Select Try again. If the document is damaged or password protected, upload it again as a new version.

Remind outstanding is greyed out

Nobody is outstanding on an active acknowledgement campaign. Send the policy for acknowledgement first.