Email Notifications for Virtual Sessions in new ILT course type


Userlevel 7
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We have been holding off using the new ILT course type for virtual sessions as the email notifications do not contain the necessary short codes that carry the virtual session info, details, etc.. Is anyone using them for this purpose right now? What are you doing to communicate details of the virtual session to your users?


27 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +4

We have been using the new VILT sessions and our notifications are working well. We tend to keep notifications simple, so they include the date/time it is scheduled for, a calendar invite and a link back to the course in our platform. This pushes them back in the platform and allows them to view any details they may want or need.  

Our notifications are triggered when they enroll in the session, 1 day prior to the session and 1 hour prior. This format works well for us and each just simply includes the course link. 

I’m attaching a screenshot of part of our notification for you to see. This is the first notification they would get when they enroll into the session. (The one complaint I have is how the Course Name, Session Name and Event Name all have to display, that’s not necessary for us, but no work around we have found there. 

 

Userlevel 5
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We have been using the new VILT sessions and using the existing notification. We include quite a bit more information than Stephanie does as we have a lot of eCommerce courses. The reminders work for now as well since we are still not conducting any classroom training. 

We find that it works well for our learners but not for our instructors since they are not enrolled in the sessions.  

We are still trying to find a workaround to notify them of their assignments automatically until a notification enhancement arrives which remedies some of the missing pieces. So if anyone has solved that one, I would be very interested in how.

We hope the notification enhancements are delivered before we are delivering in a classroom again so we don’t have to create separate courses based on venues again. This was one of the big wins with this new functionality for us.

jmk

Userlevel 7
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@jmkachidurian agree the notifications need some updating as they are still using the ‘old’ classroom template. I would be very interested to see how Docebo will handle the 2 different types of delivery methods in a single email...especially if you create a session with a physical classroom event + a virtual event. So far I haven’t had much luck using the short codes...for example, if you create a placeholder for the ‘location’ which is normally tied to physical classroom locations and you only create a virtual event, the email arrives with that short code showing with no data as, “[session_location]

Userlevel 7
Badge +4

We have been using the new VILT sessions and using the existing notification. We include quite a bit more information than Stephanie does as we have a lot of eCommerce courses. The reminders work for now as well since we are still not conducting any classroom training. 

We find that it works well for our learners but not for our instructors since they are not enrolled in the sessions.  

We are still trying to find a workaround to notify them of their assignments automatically until a notification enhancement arrives which remedies some of the missing pieces. So if anyone has solved that one, I would be very interested in how.

We hope the notification enhancements are delivered before we are delivering in a classroom again so we don’t have to create separate courses based on venues again. This was one of the big wins with this new functionality for us.

jmk

Do you list your instructors at the course or session level? I created a separate page for my instructors to go to (It’s titled My Instructor Page on their menu), I added widgets with their upcoming sessions as well as their assignments/tests that are  ready to grade. It allows them to go and check as they are in the platform and stay in control of the assignments/tests that are ready to grade. 

It has been working really well for us. Here is a screenshot of the page. I don’t have anything to grade at this time but you get the point!

Userlevel 5
Badge +2

 

We have been using the new VILT sessions and using the existing notification. We include quite a bit more information than Stephanie does as we have a lot of eCommerce courses. The reminders work for now as well since we are still not conducting any classroom training. 

We find that it works well for our learners but not for our instructors since they are not enrolled in the sessions.  

We are still trying to find a workaround to notify them of their assignments automatically until a notification enhancement arrives which remedies some of the missing pieces. So if anyone has solved that one, I would be very interested in how.

We hope the notification enhancements are delivered before we are delivering in a classroom again so we don’t have to create separate courses based on venues again. This was one of the big wins with this new functionality for us.

jmk

Stephanie Dreiling wrote:

Do you list your instructors at the course or session level? I created a separate page for my instructors to go to (It’s titled My Instructor Page on their menu), I added widgets with their upcoming sessions as well as their assignments/tests that are  ready to grade. It allows them to go and check as they are in the platform and stay in control of the assignments/tests that are ready to grade. 

It has been working really well for us. Here is a screenshot of the page. I don’t have anything to grade at this time but you get the point!

Stephanie D. 

 

This is something we have implemented as well Stephanie, and it’s a great idea.  My challenge is that our instructors are also PSO consultants and we need need to block their Outlook calendars for their training commitments. So far that’s a manual process unless we enroll them as learners and as instructors which eats a seat in the session. We are adjusting the seat counts to accommodate as we did before.

Userlevel 4
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We are experiencing the same notification issue relative to a course having both virtual and classroom sessions. We’ve just opened up some classroom training for the fall. Is creating two courses the only solution to having unique notifications for these sessions? 

Thank you,

Userlevel 6
Badge +2

Hi Irnlab

We are having some issues as well with the new ILT course type and have submitted support tickets on them. We were informed that the behavior of the new ILT course with regarding to the meeting join links and options for the notification’s shortcodes will include all of the functionality that is available for webinar type courses before the webinar course type is deprecated. The updates will be made available as well as public facing communications about those product updates. 

So I am not sure when this will happen, but Docebo is working on them.

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@Swatson thanks for sharing...as far as I know, they mentioned that Webinar course type would be deprecated by July 2021 but that could change...Good to know they are working on getting ILT to parity with Webinar course type

@Swatson thanks for sharing...as far as I know, they mentioned that Webinar course type would be deprecated by July 2021 but that could change...Good to know they are working on getting ILT to parity with Webinar course type

A couple weeks ago, my CSM said they are pushing the deprecation to the end of the year because they acknowledge there is more work to do on the ILT/Webinar migration (short codes, API, etc). I hope that is the case! 

Userlevel 7
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@Swatson that would be great if it does take them that long to work out the kinks. Thanks 

Userlevel 2

Stephanie mentioned that

Our notifications are triggered when they enroll in the session, 1 day prior to the session and 1 hour prior. This format works well for us and each just simply includes the course link. 

 

I’m relatively new to Docebo, but when I go in to set up the notification “User enrolled in ILT Session,” the only scheduling option given is “At the time of the event.” 

Is there something I’m missing. Online instruction from Docebo don’t really go into this.

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Hi @wizenup you need to use the notification called, ILT Session Starting...this one gives you the options to schedule it before the event starts.

Userlevel 2

Thanks lrnlab! This is really helpful. I’m also wondering which notification can be sent when they register. The “ILT Session Starting” doesn’t seem to offer that choice.

Thanks again you’re a real hero.

Jamie

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@wizenup it’s called, User Enrolled in ILT Session...essentially you have 1 for users who enroll in a course and 2nd when they enroll (I call it register) in an ILT session. Since many users do both actions at the time, we sometimes opt to only send the “enrolled in ILT session” in lieu of the course enrollment email and adjust the text of the former to confirm their enrollment in both the course and session...in case you’re concerned about spamming your users.

Userlevel 2

I guess the part that’s confusing is when you set this up, it states that it is sent “At the time of the event.” I’ll run a test. In my previous tests, I didn’t get a notification. Thanks again.

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@wizenup keep in mind that different templates have different options. When testing, make sure that the user you are testing with is in fact a user...ex: if you as a super  admin or PU and are testing a notification meant for a user, you will not receive it., You must perform the enrollment as a user in order to receive it. Hope this helps

Userlevel 3

We have been using the new VILT sessions and using the existing notification. We include quite a bit more information than Stephanie does as we have a lot of eCommerce courses. The reminders work for now as well since we are still not conducting any classroom training. 

We find that it works well for our learners but not for our instructors since they are not enrolled in the sessions.  

We are still trying to find a workaround to notify them of their assignments automatically until a notification enhancement arrives which remedies some of the missing pieces. So if anyone has solved that one, I would be very interested in how.

We hope the notification enhancements are delivered before we are delivering in a classroom again so we don’t have to create separate courses based on venues again. This was one of the big wins with this new functionality for us.

jmk

Do you list your instructors at the course or session level? I created a separate page for my instructors to go to (It’s titled My Instructor Page on their menu), I added widgets with their upcoming sessions as well as their assignments/tests that are  ready to grade. It allows them to go and check as they are in the platform and stay in control of the assignments/tests that are ready to grade. 

It has been working really well for us. Here is a screenshot of the page. I don’t have anything to grade at this time but you get the point!

@kferguson  this is really interesting - wonder if we could do something similar for our instructors so they have a page that shows their schedule, etc. something to add to the list to investigate. 

Userlevel 2
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@jmkachidurian jmkachidurian-65  do you have a special menu for the instructors that displays this page to them?

Userlevel 4
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Is anyone successfully able to add a Join link for virtual sessions with the new ILT/VILT configuration?  We have sessions and events set up for users to attend both ILT and VILT, but I am not seeing how to send a notification with the Join link for this new configuration.  Welcoming ideas before we create our next workaround. 

Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Ok I am still struggling with this same thing today.  This is the first time we’ve started having both classroom offerings and virtual offerings on the same course.  (Up until now, it’s been all virtual).  The problem is that if I add short code for location, then those signing up for the virtual session just see [session_location] in the body of the email.  Has there been any fix for this?  Seems like this should have been solved by now.

Userlevel 7
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Hi @maryanneharrison sadly no...this has been an issue since they switched Webinars to ILT.

Userlevel 3
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@lrnlab That is frustrating.  Do you know if there has been an idea submitted around this?

Userlevel 7
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If you have SSO on, you can use the session link short code which brings them to the session in docebo directly and join from there which is Docebo’s prefferrred method for joining for several reasons, but I believe if you don’t have that on you are still out of luck. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

When using SSO, you have the option to also expose the manual login panel so the link should work if you use this option. It works with the course enrollment links.

Userlevel 3
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@Bfarkas Our org does have SSO on, but it doesn’t solve my particular issue.  Because if I use short code to lead them to the virtual session in Docebo, then it’s really a quite useless notification addition for those who are meeting in person.  Those meeting in person need to know the session location and classroom, which just does not work for a virtual session.  They need to make it where a virtual session’s location appears as “virtual” in the short code, or at the least shows “N/A”.

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