Getting Started on FOM PortfolioBuilder

If you're new to FOM PortfolioBuilder this article is for you.

To start building your portfolio on the Faculty of Occupational Medicine's ePortfolio, you will need to register for a FOM PortfolioBuilder account. To do this, you will need to be a member of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine and you will need an NTN (National Training Number) and FOM Contact ID. If you are not already a member of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, or do not know your NTN, contact [e-mail].

Once you're done registering for your FOM PortfolioBuilder account, our 'Portfolio Advisor' will prompt you with what to do in your portfolio next such as add a new training level folder or add a career entry.

Once you've finished setting up your portfolio and you've had your first meeting with your supervisor, you can request they write up notes about your meeting by requesting a review, or you can write up some notes yourself by adding an activity to your portfolio and using the 'supervision' proforma. All activities will automatically be stored in your current training level folder.

Supervisors new to the ePortfolio might find the article Supervision & FOM PortfolioBuilder useful.

With your first meeting with your supervisor all done, you'll have some agreed objectives and can start adding learning objectives to your online portfolio. These can be linked to the competencies in the curriculum you're following.

When the time comes for an assessor or supervisor to do a Work Place Based Assessment for you, you can request an assessment from them. Information about the Faculty's multi-source feedback (MSF) assessment or '360 degree assessment' can be found in the online article Undertaking an MSF. 

There'll be times when you'll want to record an activity in your portfolio other than one of the Workplace Based Assessments (WBA). You can do this by adding an activity to your portfolio. This is how you add things such as reflections which can be used to demonstrate reflective practice (GMC Guide on Reflective Practice) or log a case. All activities, including assessments can be organised into categories or be given tags.

With the exclusion of case logs, all activities including assessments, can be mapped to curricula. It's imperative in specialty training that you map activities to competencies because this is how you evidence competency. Find out more in our article mapping activities to competencies.

You will, of course, have regular meetings with supervisors and you can request your supervisor write up notes about these meetings by requesting a review or you can write up some notes yourself by adding an activity to your portfolio and using the 'supervision' proforma. There are other online reviews you can have in your portfolio such as the online Educational Supervisor Report and the Form R.

Trainees wishing to demonstrate how activities are related to each other may wish to use FOM PortfolioBuilder's follow-up feature.

Every year specialty trainees undergo an Annual Review of Competence Progression (ARCP). Deaneries schedule the ARCP online for trainees and any past and upcoming ARCPs are displayed in a trainees's portfolio. FOM PortfolioBuilder automatically populates ARCP Outcome Forms with any relevant data along with the folders & reviews that fall in the ARCP review period. It also gives automatic access to ARCP reviewers 14 days prior to a scheduled ARCP.

Deanery Administrators & ARCP Reviewers new to FOM PortfolioBuilder might find the articles The Deanery Administrator Role on FOM PortfolioBuilder & The ARCP Reviewer Role on FOM PortfolioBuilder helpful.

If you need assistance using FOM PortfolioBuilder our dedicated team are on hand Monday-Friday, 9-5 (excluding bank holidays). Mail us on [e-mail] or call [phone]. If you need help out of these hours, head to our online articles and guides at Building a trainee portfolio We also post news, updates and advice on social media, @fomportfolio on Twitter.

The FOM PortfolioBuilder Team