Overview

The TRAINING system features the American Society of Office Dogs, a credentialing program that awards specialty credentials to canines with a demonstrated ability to behave in an office environment.

In this module, we will register as a new applicant (a dog wishing to earn this credential) and will go through the process of submitting an application.

Subsequent modules will show the back-end process of reviewing that application.

Setting the stage…

The training system is built around a fictional credentialing board called the American Society of Office Dogs.

This organization offers multiple office-themed credentials for our four-legged companions to obtain. Some of these are fairly simple (“Office Dog”) and some are more specialized (“Therapy Dog” and “Corporate Mascot”).

In this module, you will begin the journey as "Fido", a lovable mutt who hates being left at home all day. You want nothing more than to earn your Certified Office Dog (COD) credential so that you can accompany Amy, your owner, to her day job where she goes to an office and spends 8 boring hours staring at a computer screen. You've decided that today is the day that you make your dreams a reality! (If you can't suspend disbelief this far, then just pretend that you're Amy doing all this work on behalf of Fido.)

Becoming an office dog isn’t super difficult, but it does require a bit of work. You will need to:

1. Submit an application for eligibility

2. Pay a fee (humans are really obsessed with this “money” stuff…)

3. Pass an obedience exam

Step 1: Register as an Applicant

1. From the login screen, use the “Get Started” button on the left to register for a new account.

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   Login page

    

2. Enter all of your (Fido’s) account information. You will need to use an email address not already present in the TRAINING database. Click the orange Submit button when finished.

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   Registration form

    

3. After submitting the form, you will be asked to confirm ownership of the email address by entering a code that you were emailed. You can copy the code from the email, or click the link in the email instead.

    

4. After creating an account, you will be asked to upload a recent photo and to successfully answer a super-secret-doggo-only screening question.

    

Step 2: Begin the Office Dog application

After signing up, you will land on a page listing the applications available to you.

1. For now, expand the “Certified Office Dog Application” section and click the orange Begin button.

    

2. The application loads in an initial state. You can see a number of unmet requirements; you cannot submit this application for eligibility until those requirements are met.

Step 3: Fill out the application

You can’t take the Office Dog exam unless you’re current on your shots and have taken some approved training courses. The first step in completing the application is to upload that information into the system.

1. Click the “+” icon in the Vaccination Records section and then fill out the form. (You can upload any random text file as the Vet Records, but feel free to “get into character” and upload real documents from your actual vet if you’re into method acting…)

2. The screen will update, and the bar next to the “Vaccination Records” header will turn green. This means that you have completed all of the requirements in that section. Nice work!
   
   Next, click the “+” icon in the “Training” section to enter the training classes you’ve taken.

    

3. Multiple approved training courses exist, and in order to take the exam you must have already completed 5 hours of basic training and 5 hours of advanced training. Start by selecting “A to Z Basic Training”.

    

4. Fill out details about the course. (Feel free to make this up; I’m assuming you haven’t actually taken a fictional dog obedience course at this point in your life)

    

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4, this time selecting “Advanced Walking” as the course. When you are finished, you should have met all of the submission requirements, which means you are ready to submit your application for eligibility to take the exam.

Step 4: Begin the submission process

In many cases, “submitting the application” is a process rather than a single click. This process can take many forms, but it’s common to include a payment step and an attestation of some kind.

1. Click the “Submit” button in the upper right corner of the application

2. Complete the attestation

3. Do not click “Pay Fees”. Just click “Submit” instead. (It simplifies training when we don’t have to continually process refunds…)

Step 5: Wait for your application to be reviewed

That’s it for this part of training! At this point your application has been submitted and is pending review.

Continue to the next phase of training to see what the review process looks like.