HACCP Control Point

In order to start using HACCP Control Point there are a few things that need to be setup initially. There are many different aspects to the HACCP Control Point system. The information presented below will give you a rough idea of what is required in terms of basic configuration. If you wish to use other modules such as Customers, Products, Equipment, Suppliers, etc. further configuration may be required.

Subscribe to the Service

The first step is to subscribe to the service by going to the HACCP Control Point website. Follow the instructions on the site to register. You will be asked to provide basic account information regarding your company, the number of users you require licenses for and credit card information. Each user you register should have a distinct email address.

Once your account has been received and payment has been processed you will receive a confirmation email with access information. Your HACCP Control Point site will be provisioned and ready to be accessed within approximately 1 hour of registration.

 

Enter Users

When your site has been initially provisioned the first step will be to enter in the users within your company that will be accessing the system. Access the system with the information provided in the confirmation email that was sent. If you have purchased licenses for five users you will now be able to enter in information regarding the five individuals. Be prepared to enter at a minimum first name, last name, role and email addresses for everyone. New users will be sent confirmation emails automatically with information on how to access the site.

 

Load Forms

HACCP Control Point uses Microsoft InfoPath forms as its native electronic form format. If your company forms are not in this format they will need to be converted. VSI can assist in converting your forms if you are unable to provide the forms in the required format. In many cases companies have existing forms in Microsoft Word format such as the example below.

Microsoft Word forms can be easily converted to the required Microsoft InfoPath format. The converted form will look identical to the original. See the Microsoft InfoPath converted form below.

The InfoPath forms can now be added to the HACCP Control Point website by accessing the “HACCP Forms” document library. The screenshot below shows the HACCP Forms library after company forms have been loaded.

These forms can now be tied into HACCP plans and used by workers to capture information. Even though the forms are in Microsoft InfoPath format they can be filled out by workers within a web browser. You do not need additional software to fill out forms. This is one of many advantages to using InfoPath forms. Another is that these forms could be accessed and filled out with mobile devices such SmartPhones, PDAs, etc.

Below you will find a screenshot of an InfoPath form rendered in a standard web browser. This is what a worker will see on their screen when the system prompts them to complete a form.

 

Configure HACCP Plans

HACCP Plans are what tell the system how to work. Existing HACCP Plan material will need to be interpreted and entered into the HACCP Control Point system. For example, you may have a plan defined that deals with building exterior inspection like the one below.

The plan above basically indicates that the custodian is responsible for completing an exterior building inspection on a weekly basis and completing a “Housekeeping Checklist” form. There is also further detail regarding who performs the verification and what happens if there is a deviation.

The goal is to have the HACCP Control Point system automatically inform the custodian weekly that this building inspection needs to take place and the “Housekeeping Checklist” form completed. We do this by accessing “HACCP Plans” section of the system and defining a new plan. See screenshot below.

You can associate your HACCP Plans with the appropriate HACCP codes which reside in the system. See screenshot below.

You can see in the screenshot below that the proper HACCP code has been associated with the HACCP Plan that is being entered. You can enter multiple HACCP codes if you wish.

Now that we have the plan associated with proper HACCP code(s) we can enter in the procedure information. We are going to add a procedure to the plan that tells the system to prompt the custodian to complete a “Housekeeping Checklist” form every Tuesday at 2PM. See the screenshot below.

Once the procedure has been entered we can click on the calendar for this particular procedure and see that we have scheduled a Housekeeping checklist every Tuesday at 2PM. See screenshot below.

The system will now prompt the custodian to complete the Housekeeping Checklist every Tuesday. We will see later exactly how this occurs and what the custodian will see. For the time being understand that there is a timer that runs in the background on the HACCP Control Point server that looks ahead in time to see if there are upcoming tasks that need to be performed as specified in the HACCP procedures. If the timer finds tasks it will assign the proper resource and notify the user. Those are the basic steps involved in setting up a HACCP Plan in the HACCP Control Point system. You will repeat the steps for all of your HACCP Plans. Once entered the system will take care of remembering who is supposed to be doing what work when!