Current version = 3.343
1. Q-Skills' Flowcharter now supports Business Process Mapping. To meet the demands of our major corporate clients, Q-Skills has been enhanced with the following new Business Process Mapping and Modelling features:
- Multi-level subprocesses, enabling flowcharts to be simplified.
- Automatic subprocess copying.
- Recording of times and costs for each step in a process.
- Automatic calculation of process times and costs, to help evaluate process changes. Automatic costing flows throughout subprocesses.
- Vertical and horizontal "swimlane" grouping, to analyze flows between departments.
- The abilty to add user defined properties to each step in a process.
- Full menu or simple menu to allow use by unskilled employees.
- Automatic logic checking to ensure the accuracy and consistency of documentation.
- Automatic generation of procedural documentation ( text or intranet based) from flowcharts.
- Automatic line drawing and automatic line re-routing to accommnodate layout changes.
2. A save settings button has been added to "Course Settings" in the administration area. This allows the administrator to duplicate settings on his/her PC on other stand alone PCs or networks. The settings may be copied either to the installation diskettes or an installation directory, if the latter has been used to distribute diskette data. The settings include compulsory topics selected, prior knowledge test(PKT) and mastery test questions, title, introduction text etc.
3. Previously saved data from drawing Pareto Charts can now either be modified or compared with new data.
4. Fonts checking has been improved. Q-Skills is more tolerant of non-standard PC configurations. When setting up a new PC on a network, always run "start.app" to check fonts and other settings.
5. An interactive normal distribution plot has been added to the glossary, showing graphically, defects vs. sigma.
6. The install has been modified to simplify distribution across multiple networks.
7.You can add a customized, introductory text and/or graphic message to the start of the course. Go to the course settings menu in the administrator's area to configure it. The purpose of this facility is to allow you to describe Q-Skills to the student, in the perspective of your own organization's quality program.
8. Customized questions can be added to the PKT. Go to the course settings menu in the administrator's area to configure this. You can modify the existing questions or add your own. Questions and answers are saved in an encrypted file "pkt_qs.txt". For each question, set the topic that should be made compulsory if the student answers the question incorrectly. (This will now appear at the bottom of the screen, during the test). The PKT should be selected by organizations who have already trained employees in the tools.
9. A new module on attribute control charts has been added to round off the section on control charts. It covers the 4 major types of attribute charts. It is in the form of another game, to help employees' understanding of this difficult topic.
10. In order to enable tracking of the usage of Q-Skills once training is complete, a log-on has been added to the toolkit and tools support. The report summary now tracks total number of users, training users, training log-ons, number of toolkit users and number of tools support users.
11. Plotting has been improved for user drawn Run charts, Bar Charts, Pareto Charts, Control Charts and Cause and Effect Diagrams. Printing is now full A4/letter size.
12. A "modify" facility has been added to user drawn Cause and Effect Diagrams, to allow modifications to be made to the final chart. Effect description; causes; and cause heading text, may be changed. Causes may be added or deleted. Connecting lines are drawn automatically.
Q-Skills Tips and Hints
1. To escape from the mouse training - click the "Esc" key.
2. There are two (2) administrator passwords - one for the admin area and a separate password for setting the mastery test passmark. Contact MicroMultimedia.
3. There is an escape in the mastery test for demonstration purposes. Contact MicroMultimedia.
4. If testing Q-Skills in 16 color mode, the warning screen may be bypassed by clicking to the right of the "Exit" button. Do not allow users to run Q-Skills in 16 color mode because some text will not appear.
5. There is a "cheat" in the histogram and control charts ship game. Hit "Ctrl 1" to ensure a hit!.
6. There is a "secret" or hidden cause of the slow trip in the cause and effect car game. It's a police picnic day in Eastern USA (or in WA in the Australian version) and you can speed on the last section of your trip, without being booked.
7. In draw cause and effect diagrams, you do not have to place all your brainstormed items on affinity cards. The system will automatically take care of the unplaced items for you.
8. For increased security, the administrator's password may be hidden from view when it is entered, by first hitting the "F1" key. "F2" will restore it to full view. This instruction is not displayed to users, to avoid any confusion when logging on normally.
9. Do not try to bypass Q-Skills' security - it will cause Q-Skills to be deleted.
To find out more about Q-Skills:
Complete the Q-Skills Request for Information form
E-mail:
Phone: (888) 867-1828 toll free
Fax: (408) 867-8665