How long does it take to get started with Exploration Hub?

How long does it take to learn?

Our standard Exploration Hub onboarding process is built on an approximately five-week training program.

This is roughly the time it takes to digitise one or two drill programs and have Exploration Hub configured, validated and embedded in your operational workflow.

The road to success includes five online or in-person training sessions with one of our dedicated account managers for your pilot user team. Each session covers one of the five pillars of Exploration Hub (more on that in a second) and takes around an hour to complete.

By the end of the final training session, your pilot team will be able to run every aspect of a drill program from planning to completion independently. Plus, to be able to create, configure and run your own projects going forward.

The process begins with a kickoff meeting with your pilot team to plan your personalised training schedule and configure your CorePlan account.

The configuration process includes setting up your first drilling contract, the plod importer and plod form fields to meet your requirements. This way, you can jump straight into using the platform rather than having to spend lots of time tweaking your settings.

If you select a subscription with sample dispatch, this software section will be set up to match your lab contract. This will make it easy for you to accurately track your lab costs and generate SDOs immediately.

So, what's involved in the training schedule?

Your training schedule covers all five pillars of Exploration Hub:

1. Drill planning and drill production: one hour‍

Get the keys to your CorePlan account! Create and edit your first digital drill program and learn how to import and approve plods.

**2. Sampling and field activities*: one hour**‍

Track and manage samples, generate SDOs in CorePlan and use the pre and post-drilling field activity workflow.

**3. Tenements and rig scheduling*: one hour**‍

Set up and configure your tenements and assign rigs to a hole and drilling schedule.

4. Workspace management: one hour

Add contractors and users and create your own project from scratch. Configure your organisation settings and contracts.

5. Reporting, analytics and integrations: one hour

Explore the project and global dashboards, export your data and explore CorePlan’s integration capabilities.

*Not included in the starter subscription package.

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Total: three to five hours.

Each pillar is personalised to your team and runs either onsite or over Teams or Zoom. We typically recommend scheduling the sessions about one week apart to allow you time to master each section and come back with questions before moving on.

Then, we meet again around one month later to review how things are going and identify opportunities for any further training if needed.

So, now you have an idea of the training parameters and time commitment totalling roughly three to five hours, let’s look at the four main factors that influence how long it takes to start using CorePlan Exploration Hub in its full capacity across your daily business:

the scale of your operations
your time availability for training
the sense of urgency (how quickly you’d like to start)
any extra additions you want to add to your subscription (eg CorePlan Forms).

The scale of your operations

The most significant factor in how long it takes to start using Exploration Hub is the size of your operations.

The fastest time to full-scale adoption we see is Junior explorers on a starter subscription package for one drill program with one contractor. These customers clock in at around three weeks to complete the process.

The starter package only requires three training sessions, which can be done in fewer than the standard three weeks if needed.

Most Junior explorers decide to train only one or two staff members (usually the Exploration Manager and a Geologist), making it easy to coordinate calendars. Drilling with a small number of contractors also makes for faster onboarding, as fewer variances between contractors need to be accounted for during the account configuration process.

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What about if you are a larger company with multiple projects?

The number of drill programs you're running at any time will influence how long it takes to reach full-scale adoption.

We recommend a pilot and scale approach if you're running more than two drill programs simultaneously. This begins with the standard training process but is limited to one or two pilot projects. The staff trained on your pilot project(s) will become your CorePlan Champions. These product experts will lead the rollout across the remainder of your organisation and bring in our success team for additional support on an as-needed basis.

So, naturally, a larger company will take longer to reach full-scale adoption to allow this process to occur. Depending on the size of your company and your operational requirements, this could take anywhere from a few months to over a year - or even longer.

Sometimes, the CorePlanChampion at larger exploration companies is a Database Administrator, Database Coordinator or Database Geologist.

The advantage of this arrangement is that this person has a deep understanding of your data structure and will be able to integrate CorePlan into an extensive, established software stack. Having a Geologist or Exploration Manager handle this process is possible. However, extra time and training may be required in some cases to acquire the skills necessary for this task.

Alternatively, our team can train all of your personnel. This can be discussed when creating your training plan.

Time availability for training

Short on time? No problem. We will work with you to create a schedule that fits around what’s happening in your business.

Taking more than the standard five-hour, five-week period to complete the onboarding process is not necessarily a disadvantage, so long as there is a regular cadence with your training sessions. This way, you won't lose momentum by having to return to previous sessions' content.

Remember: the sooner you get up and running, the sooner you can spend less time doing manual paperwork and more time optimising the performance of your drill programs!

Some teams prefer to book training for a specific period, eg the beginning or end of the year, mid-year or outside the field season (more on this in a moment).

Another consideration is that not everyone on your exploration team needs to attend the training. Some staff may only need to participate in specific sessions (your kickoff meeting will help determine this requirement). Every training session is personalised and recorded for you to access at any time later. This can give you extra flexibility when necessary to avoid having to cancel or reschedule training sessions.

Sense of urgency

How fast you want to get up and running is one of the most important factors influencing how long it takes to start using Exploration Hub.

Some exploration teams want to hit the ground running ASAP and schedule their training to begin the following week. Others have a specific drill program they are forward planning for and decide to sign up for CorePlan, but they don’t want to start training or use the platform until closer to the drill program or drill season.

To either of these, we say no worries!

Because CorePlan is a subscription service, you have the flexibility to pause your subscription and reactivate it when you’re ready to start drilling. This is great for Juniors drilling intermittently.

Many of our customers want to start in the middle of a drill program, and we can accommodate this as well. We will run a discovery session with your team to work out a schedule that will work best for you and minimise disruptions to your operations.

Extra additions

Want to add CorePlan Forms to your subscription? In that case, we usually plan another week of training to ensure your team is confident in submitting forms using the app.

This training also includes using the forms admin panel, uploading and managing documents and contacts and using the forms reporting functions. We will also set you up with 10 digitised forms ready to go from day one during the account configuration stage.

For our Enterprise customers, extra time may be required to go through the advanced feature set and integrations with your team. This will be scoped out during your kickoff and training to suit your schedule.

What next?

This article should have given you some idea of how long it will take to onboard your exploration team to CorePlan. We would love to discuss your unique requirements in further detail at a free demo.

If you still have questions, our team are here to answer them. Please send us a message using the chat bubble, or keep reading about Exploration Hub and drill program intelligence software on our Exploration Blog.

How long does it take to get started with Exploration Hub?

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