Site News

In the fall of 2010 our hosting service experienced a major meltdown that seriously impacted FarNet along with many others websites. It took nearly two years to reassemble the test and production servers with the application and database (and yes, we had backups. They are what we rebuilt from), and mail services through which FarNet reminders are sent out to members.

Although we lost a lot of momentum at the time, we have been steadily rebuilding and users from pre-2010 will be reassured to know all of their original data still exists in the FarNet database!

Last year we set about a major redesign of the user-interface (UI) that Students, Instructors, Agencies and Employers access the registry from. We have added new user groups at the same time, including Training Providers and Professional Organizations, and will soon have the long-envisioned portal for Government Agencies built too.

During the first two months of 2018 we are testing the new design while continuing to work on additional new features. Later this spring we will be adding new course data for Advanced Medical users to access as well, including Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS), Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) and numerous others. If it is a medical program and comes with an expiry date, we will provide service for monitoring.

The most obvious change here at FarNet is the addition of a map, populated with data about upcoming medical courses on the main landing page to the database. Clicking on any course on the map will now allow users to see specifics about courses that are being offered near them, or, at a destination they would like to travel to! More features will be added onto this terrific new interface as we navigate the months ahead. We are no longer just storing information about courses that have already been run, now, you will be able to see what is soon coming too. By May 2018 we anticipate adding information about over 5000 emergency medical training programs every month.

The FirstAid Registry remains the only universal registry of FirstAid certifications accessible by all students, employers, training providers, certifying agencies, professional organizations and government oversight departments. Now in our eleventh year of operations, we hope to expand services we offer to be able to care for all of your certification monitoring needs too!

Beginning with the version 4 publishing cycle we began including a brief list of modifications that are made to the site whenever we perform a major publishing event in order that members may review what has recently been upgraded.

Sometimes we make changes to the website that, after they're published appear so seamlessly, and are so intuitive, that it's hard to imagine the site before the features existed. Such is the case with todays publish...

We've added a number of convenience features for members in all portals, such as the ability to change your password, or more conveniently edit your own account and profile information. We've also re-ordered menus so information is accessible in a more logical sequence.

Members of the employer portal will now see a function that permits management of user access to their account information and archived data ... the beginnings of 'SuperUser' capability. So individual employers can now create and approve who has access to their information. This feature will expand soon, and even users will themselves be able to create access accounts that will first enter a holding pattern while awaiting approval from the Employers SuperUser.

Agencies get the identical function, only it affects their agency only, not the functioning of their Clients (the Employers). So Agencies now have the framework for SuperUsers too and can create accounts for others (approved, of course) to access their data.

Framing all of this was a change to our security system, and the way member accounts are created in all portals. This should appear seamless to you, but to us it was a huge deal....A lot of work went into getting this working correctly, and developed and published in a way that implementation wouldn't hinder anyones current access. Some of you may have noticed that didn't go perfectly, but we have resolved most access issues as of March 3rd.

The way that expiry reminders are sent out has been modified. And the way Agencies are browsed from within the Public Portal has also been updated and streamlined.

Zero data returns on inquiries now provide "false positive" feedback. Before today, in many sections of the FirstAid Registry, when there was no data to display during an inquiry the users were often met with a blank page. Now you get a message that confirms the search was completed accurately ... there just isn't anything to show.

There was several invisible error messages appearing in our stats ... these have been pared down significantly with this publish. Again most of you won't see any difference with this... it's mostly for our own peace of mind and related back to the good ole days when the site was entirely php driven.

Anyone trying to create a new membership account to access an Agency for the first time will find that process has also been streamlined. You no longer have to scroll through thousands of Agencies to find the one relevant to you .... the list is now filtered by jurisdiction.

And last, but hardly least, AED monitoring has appeared. Just as First Aid certificates expire, so do the leads and batteries in defibrillators. We've created the framework for you to enter the vital data about your device here, and within a month or so will have the functionality that'll allow you to monitor expiry information about the AED's as well. This will run on the same email reminder system that already exists for monitoring CPR and First Aid certifications. This currently appears in Employer and Instructor portals, but will soon be added to the Agency and Student portals too.

You may notice that we continue to tweak this publish over the next week or so, but rest assured forward development work will continue in parallel, and you may all expect another major version release of the site in about a month or so.

- Modifications to the instructor profile section, including an 'opt out' selection when registering new accounts that allows Instructors to maintain memberships without appearing in the public portals.

- Automated reminders that affect how notifications about looming certificate expiries has been expanded and improved.

-Several changes to the source code that reduces the overall footprint of the site, and should result in faster load times for everyone.

Another release this week, with changes being made to all user sections this time.

-The print certificate function that students currently access has been improved.

- When user memberships at the FirstAid Registry expire a message with improved instructions now greets members.

- The way Classifed advertisements are entered has been modified to make the process more intuitive.

- Instructor biographies have been expanded, and are now present more information in the public portal than they did ever before. Instructors can now post a short resume of their experience, and even a picture of themselves if they wish.

- Courses available for registration also show information more intuitively than ever.

- Students now have the ability to enter their own training histories. The data entered will appear as unverified, however it will associate with all of the same functionality as verified data. After entering your old certification history it will be possible to receive e-mail reminders with this data as well as for the verified data presently being input by instructors. Soon, we will provide links to get your unverified data revewied by an Instructor.

-Employers can do this as well, inputting past data that has not been entered by instructors. Entire class rosters can easily be input using the same interface that an instructor would use.

Next month we are getting ready to expand the classes of data that can be monitored by the database, including online AED monitoring capabilities, such as battery and lead expiry dates. The communication features of teh registry are being expanded even further as well.

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you’re holiday time is enjoyable, and we look forward to seeing everyone in the registry next year!

Welcome to the database England, Wales and Scotland! The FirstAid Registry is already the largest database of First Aid Training Agencies in the world, and it will continue to grow. When browsing the agencies you can see from the drop down menus that we are also working on Northern Ireland next, and will add this information in the very near future.

Included in this release are several other cosmetic modifications that make using the database more intuitive, and allow Instructors and Agencies more control over their data. Class and roster creation is now easier than ever.

Keep watching as we get closer to Christmas . There will definitely be another release this year that permits students to enter their own training history to complement recent entries by their instructors, along with nearly a dozen other enhancements.

Classifieds are now ready to use ... and now include the ability to upload a photo of your item! We also added the ability for users to recall their username and password when they haven't been back for a while. Instructors will also see some improved functionality in the process that converts Class Registration forms into Archivable rosters. Along the way there we cleaned up a few outstanding items that have been on our wish list for a while now, such as lengthening text fields and labelling columns in tables and so forth.

Another new release this week. First Aid and CPR related Classified Advertisements may now be placed on the site when you have something you would like to sell. Teaching equipment, First Aid materials, First Aid Services (eg: Advanced First Aider for hire) may all be listed here. There are a number of revisions coming in the next few days to this section, but we anticipate it will be fully functional by early next week. Ad placement is FREE by the way.

Along with this release we have amended a number of issues related to how scheduled classes were converted to archived rosters ... this wasn't working properly in some browsers but should be correct for everyone now.

The database of agencies is also growing. This is easily the largest such listing available on the Internet and is getting larger every week. Keep watching to see where we expand to next!

FirstAid Registry has always used a public php format discussion forum. Although it will appear in the main window of the website it is actually a physically separate application hosted by another service provider. This helps ensure security of our core data and the application used to access it while facilitating open communciation between users of the FirstAid Registry.

Recently it's become apparent that many members of the discussion forum (there are over a thousand) have registered for reasons that have nothing to do with the FirstAid Registry. They achieve nothing by doing so but may not be aware of this until after they've signed up. So, we've now added 'Create our own discussion forum' to the list of things to do, .... but it's not our first priority. We have other items in the pipeline that we think everyone will find more useful than the forum has been.

In the meantime please submit any suggestions you have, or reports of errors in the application through our contact link.

--Tied Class Creation and Roster Creation together for Instructors. You will now be able to convert your registation sheets into Rosters with just a few mouse clicks....no need to re-enter all of the same information over again.

--Added links to the Terms of Use, CopyRight and Privacy Statements (Late 4.06 feature)

--We discovered a glitch with the new account registration process today, and are working to repair this. Further updates to follow.

-----UPDATE - New account registration has been reopened as of 00:05h UTC. We became aware today that certain new account registration attempts were failing after creation, and that this affected all user portals at different times. The entire system should now be working as expected. If you experience a failure, please let us know by sending a message through the 'Contact Us' link, or by posting a message in teh discussion forum.

--Instructors can now post upcoming classes online! Class registration forms can be automatically converted to completed rosters after the class has been taught. Amendment is possible prior to saving in case the registration list is different than the actual class list. This feature will save another step in the instructors work day, and makes finding and registering for courses far easier for potential students that require the training.

--Table layout in Instructor portal modified to make roster creation more intuitive.

--Default dates and times in Class and Roster creation pages modified for faster data selection.

--Several old pages removed from service as new layout offers more efficient retieval and display of data

--We’ve started differentiating between PDA and web-enabled phone capabilities

- Application link added to banner to allow users to get back to their portal after clicking on the Home Page Link without having to sign-in again.