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Hey folks,

New docebo implementation here, and I’m going to be “that customer”. We rushed (due to various internal politics) to purchase a solution to replace our archaic system, and Docebo seemed to meet all the requirements after evaluating Adobe, Northpass and some others. We did not have time for a POC, in which I would have discovered a lot of the pitfalls of the solution.

In general, administration is a breeze vs the tool we had before. The central repository, managing updates to courses when accessing a course is great and a huge improvement to what we had. But, we’ve fast found out that you need to be an HTML and CSS expert to be able to do anything like what was presented to us on a sales call, or is advertised. The platform is super inflexible from a UI perspective - simple things - like being locked in to these horrible lists of icons for a page without having an option to select your own which is on-brand, or better yet, not show it at all:
 

(And yes, we have hacked it away with CSS - but I shouldn't need to).

But I digress, I have a bigger axe to grind 🤣

I have been super disappointed with the widgets, in disbelief almost. There is almost no flexibility with categorizing and displaying content. Like, the widgets in the current state would have been adequate for a SaaS platform a decade ago. I have implemented a ton of SaaS apps with some sort of widget system, and I am shocked with options available in Docebo. Simple example, why does there have to be a search bar for each catalog? If I have a catalog with 4 or 5 items, I don't need a search box. Why is the name of the catalog the only option to be displayed to the end user. Catalogs are both for administration and end-user consumption. We have separate catalogs for instructor-led training across our personas. I simply want to show it as “Live instructor training”, but I am bound to the name of the catalog rather than having the widget allowing me to name it differently. So now I have to do something silly like “Live instructor training - Customers”, “Live instructor training - Employees”, “Live instructor training - Customers”. Why does the display name also become the way you are bound to manage it?

Also, widgets on a page ARE IN DIFFERENT SIZES. What good is allowing rows and columns when you can’t even align dis-similar widgets?

Anyway, on to my current gripe:

We have a lot of content that spans multiple personas. We have employees, partners and customers in the system, and lot of training relevant to all. I am simply looking to be able to categorize content that applies to all of these personas, where its not possible to place them into individual catalog as we will end up with too many catalogs to manage, and then, struggle to name those catalogs because you know, you can’t change the name shown to the end user.

Such a system does not seem to exist. Our implementation vendor has suggested:

  1. Using skills - I don't want this for partners, I don't want them to “see” their skills, I simply want a way to recommend bespoke training courses based on some metadata that is not bound by a catalog
  2. Using channels - enables some level of social learning, I don't want that for all personas
  3. Changing the order in a catalog - 😵

Is there any other way to meet our requirement? I really don't understand why there is no tag widgets that curates content on tags, this seems like a no-brainer? You use AI to auto tag content, why cant I surface content using those tags on a page.

I hope being a new user, I have my facts wrong :)

Anyway, sorry this is a rant, but I just expected more from the leader in the LMS space.

Hi ​@dandre - can you put your audiences into groups? Catalog widgets have a neat capability. You can show to the appropriate group just their assigned catalog with a single widget.

By the way with some CSS - you can remove the search bar…page by page as necessary.

Hi ​@dandre - can you put your audiences into groups? Catalog widgets have a neat capability. You can show to the appropriate group just their assigned catalog with a single widget.

Groups are possible and might solve some of the requirement, but I can’t see that capability you mention. The widget options don’t appear to have group options, or are you saying the catalog is assigned to the group, and based on their group membership they will see specific catalogs?

By the way with some CSS - you can remove the search bar…page by page as necessary.

I can also ride a Bicycle from New York to LA, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

Sorry for my sarcasm 😉. I’m frustrated as that should be checkbox on the widget, not requiring developer-level CSS capabilities. I know enough about CSS to be dangerous. I did not expect to require CSS skills on my team to perform basic customization.

Hi - For catalogs, you can grant specific groups permissions to see these when you create the catalog itself.  Then, if you create a page that pulls multiple catalogs in, your learners will only see the catalogs they have permissions to see - this is where groups can help.  For example, let’s say you create a page, and it contains 3 catalogs.  Then you have a learner who is part of a group, and that group has access to only 2 of the 3 catalogs on that page.  When that learner navigates to your catalog page, they should only see the two catalogs they have been granted permissions to see.  

Hope that helps!

By the way with some CSS - you can remove the search bar…page by page as necessary.

I can also ride a Bicycle from New York to LA, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

Sorry for my sarcasm 😉. I’m frustrated as that should be checkbox on the widget, not requiring developer-level CSS capabilities. I know enough about CSS to be dangerous. I did not expect to require CSS skills on my team to perform basic customization.

I agree with this frustration.  I took a peek at the ad you linked, and all of their examples are super heavily coded.  It’s great that it’s possible, but it shouldn’t be required or should have heavy disclaimers.  One thing that I’ve noticed is that Docebo is very quick to suggest/highlight parterships with their associate businesses who specialize in doing this coding and customizing Docebo for you, but of course that is at additional cost with yet another contract.

After a lot of trial and error and research, I’ve been able to get our system to a state that I’m happy with over time. It looks like the reply above gave a good rundown on how you can display certain catalogs only to certain groups - utilizing Additional Fields in the Users area to assist with your groups if you need extra data to create them will be your friend.

Although it shouldn’t be necessary, I will also say I have found a lot of very helpful CSS/HTML coding posted here in the community that has helped tremendously with resolving a few of my painpoints.  I have tons of posts bookmarked on certain coding or processes that have already been “resolved/solved” by end-users of the system, and have been really grateful that those individuals shared the fruits of their labor! 

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