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Tailoring and development
Local configuration
Quartz has been developed recognising that there is a wide
variation in local processes and terminology across awarding bodies.
To address this, Quartz allows suitably authorised users to extend
the local capability of the system through three innovative
features. Together these enable awarding bodies to match their
local processes and information requirements in a unique and
powerful way.
- Locally defined processes and steps – which allows new
processes to be created and a set of steps associated with them.
This enables local processes which need to be recorded, managed or
monitored to be incorporated within the Quartz system.
- Locally defined coding and classification – this provides a
facility to create new simple or complex (flat or hierarchical)
coding schemes and apply these to almost any item in the system
(i.e. they can be applied to people, organisations, qualifications,
etc). This enables management of activities and information in any
way needed to support the business, for example, by area, gender,
type of organisation, role, etc. This capability is often used to
support business development or customer relationship management,
such as by enabling market segmentation and identification of trends
or exceptions.
- The ability to write additional reports which are fully
integrated into the application - most Quartz screens include a
‘Reports’ menu and through simple configuration, locally developed
reports will appear on the ‘Reports’ menu appropriate to the report
content. (E.g. a local report with information on qualification
uptake could appear on the ‘Reports’ menu of the qualification
screen in Quartz.)
In addition to the above facilities, which add local
functionality, all Quartz implementations are configured to match
local requirements in areas such as the use of local terminology on
the tabs and menus in Quartz, local certificate and document
templates, and local branding on externally accessed facilities.
More details on these areas are given under ‘Support and
implementation’.
Bespoke developments
Quartz currently delivers a very wide range of functionality, but
it is also is designed to be tailored and extended as necessary to
meet the specific requirements of individual awarding bodies where
these are not part of the core product or achievable with the local
configuration capabilities described above. The use of a highly
structured architecture and design, and our own deployment model,
allows Portico Consulting to maintain a single code-base, but
incorporate specific additional capabilities to individual awarding
bodies, promptly and in a highly cost effective way.
Examples of integration with other systems are given under ‘local
integration’.
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