Metz & Associates is a leading audit and accounting firm with offices in Phoenix, Milwaukee, and New York. Since its founding, Metz has built a strong reputation for offering a wide range of financial services, including tax, accounting, and retirement plan audits.
With a growing team spread across the U.S. and international locations like the Philippines and South Africa, Metz is known for its commitment to innovative solutions and a unique approach to integrating technology into its operations, which has made it a top player in its industry.
The Challenge: Creating a Customizable eLearning Platform
Metz faced a significant challenge in their training processes: they needed an eLearning platform that could meet the high-security standards required by an auditing firm while also being fully customizable to accommodate their internal needs. Off-the-shelf solutions in the market were insufficient, as they only fulfilled 60-80% of what Metz needed for their extensive training programs.
Moreover, Metz's international presence meant that the platform had to support users from various countries while maintaining seamless functionality and security. They needed a solution that was scalable, user-friendly, and adaptable to their evolving training requirements.
Our Approach: Develop a Tailored Solution Based on Their Needs
Initially, we conducted a comprehensive consultancy to understand Metz’s operations and needs. We engaged with their team to identify their comprehensive and objectives, capturing the roles, career paths, and specific requirements within their organization. With this insight, we proceeded to design and develop a platform tailored to their needs.
Thaloz collaborated closely with Metz to create a fully customized eLearning platform. Primarily utilizing technologies such as React JS, Node JS, TypeScript, and AWS services, the system was built for scalability and high-security standards across multiple countries. In addition to these core technologies, we also leveraged MySQL, Play Framework, Tailwind CSS, Jest, and Redux to ensure a robust and versatile solution. The platform centralized Metz's training processes while meeting the stringent requirements of the audit industry.
A key aspect was our weekly collaboration with Metz to refine the platform’s features. We developed a system for centralizing and sharing certificates from both internal and external courses, and created a unique evaluation tool that integrated assessments directly into video content to enhance engagement and effectiveness.
This approach replaced Metz’s outdated system with one that met 100% of their needs, streamlining the training experience, providing a robust evaluation process, and offering scalability for future growth.
Optimizing Training Processes with a Powerful Backoffice
The platform’s back office offers a comprehensive suite of tools that empower Metz to monitor student progress and easily manage reporting. Key features include:
- Tracking real-time course completions, assessment scores, and individual performance metrics
- Generating detailed reports that provide insights into training trends and areas for improvement
- Allowing administrators to customize their approach based on data-driven insights to maximize learning outcomes
This back office ensures Metz has full control over the training process, optimizing its internal education efforts and compliance tracking.
Overcoming Technical Hurdles: Ensuring Security and Scalability
One of the most significant technical challenges was maintaining high-security standards while enabling access to users across multiple countries. For a firm like Metz, data protection and privacy were paramount, especially in an industry dealing with sensitive audit information.
To overcome this, Thaloz leveraged AWS infrastructure to create a scalable, secure platform that adhered to stringent security protocols. Additionally, ensuring seamless functionality while integrating customized features, such as certificate tracking and interactive video evaluations, required a balance of flexibility and robust architecture.
Sneak Peek of the Solution
Feature 1: Dashboard & Report View
To keep track of training progress and performance, our platform offers a robust dashboard and reporting system. This feature provides:
- Real-time tracking: A clean, intuitive dashboard for real-time monitoring of student progress, course completion rates, and performance metrics.
- Comprehensive overview: Clear metrics on enrollments, completed courses, and overdue courses. Provides a snapshot of student progress and detailed reports.
- Completion breakdown: Detailed view of course completion by user or group, highlighting overall rates and pending courses.
- Automated summary reports: Regularly generated summaries of pending and overdue mandatory courses for each department, simplifying progress tracking and keeping team leaders informed.
Feature 2: Certificate Management Feature
Managing certifications efficiently is key to tracking achievements. Our platform includes a centralized certification management system that:
- Centralized certification: Streamlined tool for centralizing and sharing certificates from internal and external courses, ensuring easy access and visibility of achievements.
- User-friendly interface: Manage and view certifications, including course name, issue date, and categories, with straightforward access to certificates.
- External certification upload: Simple form for uploading and categorizing external certifications, including details like name, issue date, and supporting files.
Feature 3: Interactive Evaluation Module
Enhancing engagement and assessment accuracy is crucial. The interactive evaluation module offers:
- Interactive video player: Dynamic player integrating interactive assessments, allowing students to answer questions during playback and receive immediate feedback.
- Engaging learning materials: Embedded quizzes within the video player, with progress tracking and easy navigation across different course sections.
In Summary
Thaloz’s partnership with Metz exemplifies the impact of a tailored approach to corporate training. By crafting a bespoke eLearning platform that meets rigorous security standards and offers extensive customization, we’ve delivered a solution that’s both scalable and effective. This platform has significantly enhanced Metz’s training processes, administrative control, and learner engagement.
Collaborating with Metz has been a truly rewarding experience, presenting exciting new challenges that have fueled our innovation. This project is just the beginning of our ongoing partnership, and we’re eager to continue working together on future initiatives.
Don’t miss our exclusive interview with Travis P. Jack, Managing Member, and Warren Schmidenberg, IT Director of Metz. Discover how our tailored solution transformed their operations and hear their success stories.
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