Lesson learned | why you probably only want to true up with reports out and not tge system of record

Hi,

I figure share a happening and hopefully someone can gain from it. Over the last month we conducted a reasonably straight forward learning campaign with our contingent staff. This was worked out with a newer “data feed” into the system and that was fine for what it is…but traditional data feeds can have a down side.

To educate up? One traditional data feed method involves a flat file being exported out of one system in a right format from a “system of record” to be ingested by an importer in another system. So a flat file being typically generated by a report? Is typically a scheduled output and you then schedule the input (in our case) into the LMS to achieve your mojo…very little is then done by hand as long as you have achieved your integration…for data that is relatively stable? “That works”. But chances are the system downstream is out of sync by most a day….and corrected for with your updated file being sent along…

Recently in that contingent labor campaign from the beginning to the end of it? We lost over 40% of our original population…and with good reason…we are down sizing some operations. If this was our regular workforce? You may think we were draconian measures with massive layoffs occurring.

And so onto the lesson learned…sometimes (especially with newer data feeds?) you need to “grow” into it and adjust as you understand the needs better. We did that with this one data feed..found an error? And corrected for it. We missed a few days of records…so we had to audit the username to rightsize what should be in Docebo…not horrible…right thing to do.

A problem is even though your records are being impacted by these adjustments? I would recommend to have YOU to continue to control your reporting…and actually avoid having people running other reports from your system of record to assist.

So that actually happened - others are now in the mix of reporting out and instead of being helpful? We now have reporting going through a two step process:

a) generating a report from Docebo checking for completions and

b) “rubbing it up” against our actual system of record

The problem with the approach? Is that the system of record and a system downstream is really only in sync for a short frequency if there is a lot change going on and now with everything going on in the learning campaign…we will always be doing this two step process to true up…something that is totally not necessary but now takes twice as long to get reporting out…no good…but now our SMEs trust the level of reporting after this work up..

Lesson learned - if possible? “Pull” your demographic (if your user base is suspected to have issues) from the very last flat file if you suspect something…NOT directly from your system of record…so you don’t have egg on your face…for essentially no reason. You won’t be off by the 20-30 records per day…because you are essentially correcting with your daily feed…the true record for that day.