Transforming members’ engagement in a regulatory context

Client / Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario

Service / Consulting and Custom Application Development 

Industry / Regulatory College 








The Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario, more commonly known as RCDSO is the governing body of dentists in Ontario. It protects the public's right to quality dental healthcare. It services over 9,300 dentists and is responsible for setting the educational criteria for certification. It administers quality assurance programs members are required to participate in, develops, monitors and maintains professional and ethical standards and guidelines, and provides a complaint and investigation process for people who feel that those standards have not been met.


Business Challenge Tasked with such a broad mandate, the RCDSO required a technology-based solution to help it meet the diverse requirements of the organization, as well as meet present and future regulatory requirements.


Consultation and Client Engagement RCDSO selected Enginess to develop a program of transformative digital initiatives. Enginess began each program with a rigorous consultation and information gathering process that involved coordinating with several departments:

• The RCDSO senior leadership team
• The Quality Assurance department – tasked with adhering to the regulations and the practice assessment criteria
• The College’s own IT department
• The RCDSO communications department


unified digital asset and content management

global delivery strategy

globally-connected platform


Transformative Solutions The first such initiative involved the deployment of RCDSO main association website. Built on the Advantage® CMS platform, the site featured a fully mobile optimized solution that allows RCDSO to manage several web properties from a single CMS, all containing a unique look and feel with different content and content administrators, each servicing their own audience group. The solution includes a number of mission-critical custom-designed features including documents management, complaints management and workflow, events, news, alerts, forms and more.

The success of the College’s site deployment presented an opportunity to take advantage of the CMS’s extensive flexibility in a number of special regulatory projects related to continuing education and member re-certification, in particular, the deployment of e-Portfolio™ and the Practice Enhancements Tool. The Enginess-designed Practice Enhancement Tool was developed as a web-based feature with a unique data model designed to meet the stringent regulatory requirements and operational process set forth by the Ontario Ministry of Health and RCDSO. The solution required a 100% accuracy in the delivery of data needed to comply with regulations and meet organizational standards. The e-Portfolio™ solution, developed to facilitate the transition from a paper-based member profile process to an online web-based system, gives members the ability to login and manage their profile from any location by accessing its intuitive web-based interface. The Enginess-designed e-Portfolio™ solution complies with strict regulatory rules set forth by the RCDSO around how dentists and dental specialists conduct continuing education activities. It features courses and events organized by activity type and further segmented by category offering.

Next in line was the College’s online Professional Assessment Tool needed to comply with recently enacted government regulations. Enginess created an online system to allow members to demonstrate their competency in key areas of practice. While easy to conceptualize, developing such a tool presented in actuality a complex technical undertaking, combining both stringent functionality with engaging experiential criteria – 100% accuracy, speed and total administrative configuration and control, with intuitive and inviting interface, ease of use, speed and responsiveness. Enginess’ solution needed to meet the Government’s rigorous business requirements and the College’s own rules, while also meeting well-documented end-user expectations. The result is a system that to date, has processed over 9000 members and continues to be a strategic part of the RCDSO mandate. Enginess’ consultants and technologists leveraged the versatility of the Advantage® Platform to allow the RCDSO to meet its commitments quickly and cost effectively.


Business Impact SummaryMembers are now able to track and manage their progress and profile, view point status, filter and search for relevant content, view course details, upload proof of attendance, as well as print or request their transcripts, ensuring good standing with both the College and the Ontario Ministry of Health.

The e-Portfolio™ solution gives the RCDSO Quality Assurance department complete control through a robust set of content tools, allowing them to manage courses, events and other application content, all in an easy to use intuitive backend.

The work of Enginess with the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario illustrates a great example of a staged business transformation program, where the journey may begin with task-specific initiatives producing strategic insights that led to the uncovering of new opportunities to more broadly apply digital transformation solutions on an enterprise-wide level.

The Enginess business consultants and technical experts brought to bear their knowledge and varied skill set to allow RCDSO to transform its operations and become a digital leader that is able to meet its commitments more quickly, more efficiently and cost effectively. The result is a digital strategy and system that has become an integral part of RCDSO’s day-to-day operations.