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How to define capabilities and record capability holdings

Create a named competency, set its expiry window, grant holdings to team members with a proficiency level and expiry date, and monitor expiry risk across your workforce.

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Courses teach content; capabilities track whether a person actually holds a competency. At Bayou & Co., forklift operation is a capability — not a course. Mei Lin grants a Trained holding to any technician who passes their practical assessment, sets an expiry date 12 months out, and gets an automatic warning when that date approaches. The capability matrix tells her at a glance whether the site is covered or not.

This guide covers creating a capability definition, setting up its expiry rules, and recording or updating holdings for individual employees.

Before you start

  • The Training module must be enabled. Go to Settings → Modules and toggle it on if needed.
  • Creating and editing capabilities requires admin or owner role (or the training.capabilities.manage permission).
  • Granting and revoking holdings requires the training.capability-holdings.manage permission.
  • Employees must have profiles in the People directory before you can assign holdings to them — holdings are linked to People profiles, not just workspace accounts.

Step 1: Open Capabilities

Navigate to Training → Capabilities (/training/capabilities) in the left sidebar. The list shows all capability definitions in your workspace grouped alphabetically. On a fresh workspace the list will be empty.

Step 2: Create a capability

Click New capability in the top-right corner. A dialog opens with the following fields:

Field Required Notes
Name Yes A short, descriptive label — for example, "First Aid – Level 2" or "Forklift Operation"
Description No One or two sentences explaining the scope of the competency
Default expiry (months) No How long a holding stays valid after it is granted. Enter 12 for annual, 24 for biennial. Leave blank for no built-in expiry.

Click Create. The capability appears in the list.

Northwoods Outfitters organises capabilities by regulatory category. Their naming convention is [Category] — [Level], which makes the capability matrix sortable at a glance: Fall Protection — Basic, Fall Protection — Rescue, Confined Space — Monitor, Confined Space — Entrant.

Step 3: Grant a holding to an employee

From the Capabilities list, click a capability name to open its detail page. The Holdings section shows all current holders with their proficiency level and expiry date.

Click Grant holding. In the dialog:

  1. Search for the employee by name or email. Click their row to select them.
  2. Choose a Proficiency level:
    • Trained — completed basic training requirement
    • Proficient — demonstrates applied competency in the role
    • Expert — can train others and leads the practice
  3. Set an Expires on date. If the capability has a default expiry, the field pre-fills to today plus that window. Override it if this particular grant has a different expiry — for example, an early-renewal scenario.
  4. Add a Source note if relevant — for example, "External certification — certificate #FL-29183".
  5. Click Grant.

The holding appears in the Holdings table with the employee's name, level badge, expiry date, and the date it was granted.

Step 4: Update an expiring holding

When a holding approaches its expiry date, the cell on the capability matrix shows an amber warning. The Training → Capability matrix (/training/capabilities/matrix) view surfaces this at scale — any cell with an upcoming expiry turns amber; cells past expiry turn to a danger state.

To extend or update an existing holding:

  1. On the capability detail page, click the employee row in the Holdings section.
  2. In the dialog, change the Expires on date or the proficiency level.
  3. Click Save changes.

The change is recorded immediately. If you use an external certification authority, keep the source note updated so there is a paper trail.

Step 5: Link a capability to a course for automatic granting

If completing a specific course should automatically grant a holding, you can link the capability to that course. Open Training → Courses, click the course, then click Edit metadata. Enter the capability's ID in the Capability ID field and save.

When an employee completes that course (passes all quiz questions and reaches the final block), SPLX OS automatically grants a Trained holding for the linked capability with an expiry calculated from the capability's default expiry window.

This works well for mandatory compliance courses where completion equals certification — Bayou & Co. links their WHMIS refresher course to the "WHMIS — Hazardous Materials" capability. Every completion automatically records the holding without Mei Lin needing to grant it manually.

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