Scheduling observation checklists – Docebo Help & Support

Introduction

Observation checklists are a simple, built-in, and quick-to-configure tool that allows you to observe and document how learners and team members perform their tasks. To learn how to create checklists, read the article: Creating observation checklists on Docebo Help.

Checklists can be triggered by specific events (such as course completion) or scheduled manually.

To schedule a checklist, follow these steps:

From the Navigation menu, find the Content and delivery (folder icon) and access the Observation checklists page.
Create a checklist or edit one. If the checklist has already been scheduled, all existing schedules will be listed in the Schedules tab but you can schedule your checklist from any tab.
Click the Schedule checklist clock icon in the top right corner of the page. The Schedule checklist right panel will open, divided in the following three steps.

Step 1: Select the users to check

In the first step, define which users will be checked. You can select:

Users assigned to a group
Users associated with a branch
Individual users (up to 10)

After making your choice, select the corresponding group(s), branch(es), or user(s).

Please note! When you select a branch, its sub-branches are not automatically selected. If you want to select one or more sub-branches, you need to click the arrow button on the right side of the branch row and manually select the sub-branches you want to add.

Select Next to go to the second step.

Step 2: Set the checklist observers

Choose the checklist observers (users that will complete the checklist). You can choose among the following options:

Self observer: The observers will be the same as the users to check selected in the first step.
Other observers: One or more users (managers and/or other platform users) will complete the checklist concerning the users selected in the first step.
- Managers: Select one or more manager types among the ones you have created in the platform.
- Custom users: Select a custom list of users as the checklist observers. They can either be users belonging to a group, users associated with a branch or single users (up to 10 users).

A notification prompting the observers to fill out their checklist will appear in their Notifications area. They can then complete the checklists from the My checklists built-in page This page is not displayed by default. Make sure it is found in the user menu.

Managers designated as observers of checklists involving their team members can also complete the checklist from the My team page.

Please note the following points:

An observer can only answer items that have not yet been filled in by other observers.
Observers can modify their own answers before the checklist is sent.
Observers can submit the checklist once it is fully answered.

Step 3: Set the checklist approvers

You can optionally enable checklist approval. This means that a checklist completed by observers will have to be checked by one or more approvers. To enable checklist approval, select the corresponding checkbox.

A checklist approver can be:

The observer’s manager. Select the manager type from the drop-down.
A custom list of users. They can be users belonging to a group, users associated with a branch or single users (up to 10 users).

Approvers will receive a notification prompting them to approve or reject the checklist. If the approvers reject the checklist, it will be sent back to the observers for them to modify their answers. In case of approval, the observers will also be notified.

Once one single approver has approved or rejected a checklist, it is marked as complete and locked even if other approvers have not reviewed it. Even if multiple approvers are set, only one is required to approve or reject the checklist.

Note: When you select users to check, checklist observers and checklist approvers from a group or branch, the selection applies only to users who are members at the time of the assignment. Users added later are not included automatically. To include them, assign them individually to the checklist.

Warning! Do not delete the users that interact with checklists (such as the observer or the approver) or the checklist might no longer be visible to the users who have to fill it in.

Step 4 : Set the checklist’s time frame

Set the checklist availability period among the following options:

Anytime: This option keeps the checklist available from the Start date. Observers can submit it multiple times. The start date can be the current day.
Schedule a time frame: The checklist will be available between the start and end date you set here and will reappear every X days, weeks, or months as set in the 'Repeats' field" (or will not repeat at all). The start date can be the current day.
Based on course completion: The checklist will be available once, after the selected course is completed. Start typing the name of course and select it.

If you need your users or managers to complete a checklist in conjunction with a specific event (when they complete a course), select the Based on course completion option and then type the course name in the text field below. When selecting this activation mode, please consider the following:

Once the schedule is activated, the platform looks for the courses completed in the last 24 hours and sends the checklist to the users who completed those courses in that time frame. This means that if the schedule is created at 10:00 AM, the checklist will be sent to all of the users who completed a course after 10:01 AM of the previous day.
If the user is unenrolled from the course linked to the checklist either by a Superadmin or a Power User (with granted permissions), or because the user is renewing the certification linked to the course, the checklist will be automatically re-scheduled and re-sent when the user re-completes the course.

Once finished, press Confirm.

Schedules tab options

Status column

This column refers to the progress of the checklist schedule, not the completion of the checklist itself.

A schedule is marked as Planned when it is set to start in the future
It changes to In progress once it becomes active
When the schedule ends, it is removed from the table.

You can view a schedule’s status at any time from the Observation checklists dashboard.

Please note that if you modify the timeframe of a scheduled checklist, a new entry is created in the dashboard for any observer who had already started completing the checklist.

Editing schedules

Click the ellipsis menu at the end of the checklist row and select Edit from the dropdown menu.

If you edit a checklist and then reschedule it, the users who have completed the checklist and sent it for approval will keep seeing the old version until approval is granted.

Deleting schedules

Click the ellipsis menu at the end of the checklist row and select Delete from the dropdown menu.

You can delete any checklists that have been assigned to users but are still incomplete.

Notes on checklist schedule

When you schedule a checklist, the platform default time zone is not applied. As a result, if you set the checklist to start on the same day, the date shown in the Checklist validity column may differ.
Your checklist may become available to users up to three hours after it is scheduled.
The time frame you set acts as a soft deadline, meaning that the observers you selected in the previous configuration step can still complete their checklists after the end date.
Checklists configured with the Anytime schedule type remain permanently available from their start date and can be submitted multiple times. After a user completes the Checklist, the completed version moves to the Completed list, but the checklist still remains in To Do because it can be resubmitted.
You can easily identify users who submitted their checklists late by checking the warning in the Checklist validity column of the schedules table in the Schedule tab.
If you create and schedule a checklist without any items, it will not be assigned and sent to any users.