Question

Learning plan, course validity periods, and expiration notifications

  • 20 April 2022
  • 9 replies
  • 702 views

Userlevel 3

Hey everyone,

 

We launched back in February with a single learning plan and have added a number of individual offerings since then, but we have found it a bit difficult to motivate learners who dropped off at various courses in the learning plan to continue. 

 

The situation with individual courses is a bit better since I set soft validity periods by enrollment date and have an enrollment notification + 3 reminders go out based on x days before expiration.

 

Another group at my company is interested in using a Learning Plan as a container for a curriculum, but I have concerns about notifications since learning plans mass enroll users in associated courses. A fixed expiration date for a course is a non-starter since we will be adding new-hires over time. An validity period based on enrollment date seems like the best option as long as I add the original period to each subsequent course so 

  • Course 1 expires in 15 days
  • Course 2 expires in 30 days
  • Course 3 expires in 45 days
  • Course 4 expires in 60 days

In order for that scenario to work, I need to at least have shells created for all the courses offered so the first batch of users receive the appropriate validity period rather than adding Course 4 15 days in and allowing everyone enrolled then to get a full 60 days to take it rather than 45 after first counting the 15. 

 

Am I overthinking this process? How do you handle individual course expiration reminders for courses in a learning plan?


9 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

HI @hchewni you are on the right track with the validity dates and notifications. Have you thought about using pages to expose what courses users have in progress and perhaps motivate them the way? The Newsletter app can also be used as a general reminder to your audience and is pretty easy to use.

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

@hchewni - good afternoon. Keep in mind that working with validity dates? Has its nuances with learning plans. They will eventually conk out...locking themselves and the content in them.

@lrnlab’s approach of serving up a page to collect everything that a person should do will probably yield a better outcome if you dont want the content to eventually lock itself down.

Its not a phenomenal approach - as you can find yourself going down the space of many pages...but you can improve on that with delivering a “group/catalog sensitive catalog widget” on a page for reuse.

A little more food for thought.

Userlevel 3

@dklinger I’m aware of the issues with validity dates on learning plans themselves which is why I am likely going to set growing expiration dates on each subsequent course in the LP so I can configure a soft-lockout per course.

 

@lrnlab @dklinger right now we’re using a simple landing page using a Channels widget that displays the built-in Continue to watch and learnNew invitation and subscriptions, and My learning activity history channels along with a couple of others with some content. We have a catalog and my courses and learning plans pages off of the user menu. I haven’t utilized the catalog very much yet since >90% of our courses have been required for different groups of people and we don’t yet have many optional courses. 

 

Overall I have liked the channels homepage approach, but I think the three built-ins I mentioned outgrow their usefulness as you continue adding courses. I think my Spring project will be to create a nicer homepage/dashboard experience showing a learner their current courses with little else so they can easily see what they haven’t completed. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@hchewni I think that’s a good approach...many of our clients set up page and call it done...I think pages should e viewed as dynamic and should change/be updated from time to time...Sometimes just to keep fresh and other times to make room for what your users are asking for, etc. It’s not a set its and forget type of deal. I also like linking pages to other pages so you can make room for a more impactful homepage when needed.

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

@hchewni I think that’s a good approach...many of our clients set up page and call it done...I think pages should e viewed as dynamic and should change/be updated from time to time...Sometimes just to keep fresh and other times to make room for what your users are asking for, etc. It’s not a set its and forget type of deal. I also like linking pages to other pages so you can make room for a more impactful homepage when needed.

I think a challenge can be the messaging around this. Unless we change our model and improve on it and find the appropriate notifications / triggers to keep nudging people on those pages.

Userlevel 4
Badge +1

I still am left wondering about what to do with Learning Plans and notifications. We want to have notifications sent to users when their time is running out to finish a learning plan. But, cutting them off at a certain date seems harsh.

Is there a way to have a soft validity date based on enrollment for a learning plan?

Why doesn’t the learning plan validity dates work the same as the course validity dates?

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

@randallsim- it is the current state is what it comes down to.

We just did a compliance run and configured no validity surrounding our learning plans but have enabled a digest for user has yet to complete a course letting people know that they are not done with it. We set it up for manual pushes and they can be scoped to specific groups and to specific learning plans...so fingers crossed. We do have courses with soft deadlines as well so our managers will see them “light up” in their My Team “View”.

That is not the same - but will get us through the rain of this compliance cycle. In theory, you can set a few to be manual to hit your “escalations”

I hear that improvements to notifications and learning plans will surely come along soon enough. I believe LPs are first...that doesnt mean the validity thing is going to be improved though.

We wish to create a new hire orientation learning plan containing courses for Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 and Week 4 but using “days of validity” doesn’t seem to work four our “drip” or “trickle” idea. Expiration dates on learning plans also effects the users access to every course within the learning plan.

I have been concerned with using visibility at course levels also since we don’t want the user experience to create a bunch of troubleshooting tickets as to “why is there a lock on this course” and then forcing manual work to extend or have to adjust the locked course on specific users via the enrollment page.

It seems relying on emails reminders after learner hasn’t completed course after x#days will inundate the users but will help. Is this the right track to follow for the best user experience and least amount of manual work on the admin?

I wish there was a simple notification reminder for incomplete learning plans.

 

The only workaround I am trying for this is to NOT set an expiration date and set up 15 and 30 day course reminder notification

15 day remind pings them if they haven’t completed the first course in the LP and includes the LP Enrollment Link.

30 day reminder pings them if they have completed ALL the courses in the LP, and includes the LP Enrollment Link.

 

In the notification, I removed the [COURSE NAME] Token and adjusted the message as follows:

Learning Plan Reminder

Foundations: Learning Plan for New Managers

 

Hello [first_name],

This is a friendly reminder that by now, you should have completed your Foundations: Learning Plan for New Managers as you onboard into your new role. This learning plan will help you learn about managing at our company, and set you up for success as you grow! As you’re nearly a month into your position, you should be finalizing the learning journey complete! Make sure you’ve completed this learning plan within 30 days of your promotion or start date.

If you’ve already completed your learning plan, you’re right on track and you can disregard this reminder.

You can access this learning plan by using the Single Sign-On available on the gray "Acquia Employees Click Here" button 

Sincerely,

 

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