Disclaimer: Some content in this article shows details only available with the new course page. As a Superadmin, you can activate the preview of the new course page for your user only, test it, and then activate it for all users. Learn more on the transition to the new course page.

Introduction

You can create a learning plan to assign to individual users, organization chart branches or groups. Learning plans consist of a list of courses that the user must follow in a specific order. These plans can be customized to allow specific enrollment rules, course purchases, certifications, and much more. Let's see how.

Learn More on DoceboU

Want to learn more about learning plans? Have a look at the dedicated course, Managing Learning Plans (opens in a new tab) on Docebo U!

Use Case Scenarios

As a Superadmin, you may want your learners to complete a group of courses in sequential order, meaning that they will need to complete Course A prior to Course B, and then B before Course C and so on. It is imperative that learners advance in the learning plan by completing courses according to the sequence you set. Use learning plans to set prerequisites and keep courses locked until the completion of other courses.

Configuring Global Settings for Learning Plans

Begin by configuring the settings for all learning plans. Log in as the Superadmin, then access the Admin Menu from the gear icon in the top right corner of the page. Click on Advanced Settings in the Settings section and move to the Learning Plan section.

In the Redirect Behavior section, you can select the option to redirect the learner back to the Learning Plan page after completing any course inside a learning plan. When this option is enabled, the redirection does not work if the last training material in the course is played in fullscreen mode. Should this happen, the learner will be redirected to the course page and not to the learning plan page. Press Save to confirm your selection.

Creating a Learning Plan

To create a learning plan, access the Admin Menu, then press the Learning Plans item in the E-Learning section. This page lists the learning plans already configured in your platform. Click on New Learning Plan to start creating a new learning plan. The pop-up box used to create the learning plan is divided into three tabs: Details, Settings, and Share.

Details Tab

Use the Details tab to set the learning plan name and description. 

Set the learning plan name so that it is simple and clear. Learners should instantly understand the topic of the learning plan upon reading its name. Make sure that the name of the learning plan is not made up of special characters only, as they may corrupt the learning plan URL format.

The learning plan description helps users to have a better idea of what they will learn in the plan. You can configure the description thanks to the available formatting options, as well as include links and images. 

As an option, set the learning plan short description and code. While the learning plan code is not visible to learners and has administration functions, the short description is displayed under the title of the learning plan on the learning plan page. You can use it to add extra context to the title when needed.

Accessibility Hint: When adding images to the learning plan description, enter an alternative text when uploading the image, in the Image Description field. The alternative text makes sense of that image when it can't be viewed for some reason ensuring that users with visual impairments can comprehend the context.

In the Thumbnail section, set a thumbnail for the learning plan, so that it will be visible in the learning plan card displayed on various learner pages. Find out more about managing thumbnails.

If the new course page is active, select the Enable custom settings for the header layout option to configure a custom learning plan header for the learning plan page in catalogs, independently from the default header layout set in the Course Catalog Page section of the Configure Branding and Look menu. The available options are:

• Solid Color Layout: Use a solid color, for example, to emphasize your brand colors. Enter the color HEX code in the Color Code area, or select a color using the color wheel. Please note that the selected color is always shaded with black.
• Cover Image Layout: Selecting an image for the learning plan header offers a high impact on the learning plan page. Find out more about managing header images for courses.
• Basic Page Layout: Select this option for a minimal and clean header layout with no images and colors.

Settings Tab

Move now to the Settings tab and select whether you want to show the learning plan in catalogs. If you select this option, then a fourth tab, E-Commerce, will populate to configure the price of the learning plan, as well as its selling options.

You can set the days of validity of the learning plan, allowing users to access it for only a specific number of days after they enrolled in it, or after they accessed it for the first time. Select one of the available options, depending on your preferences:

• After first course access. The number of days is calculated from the first time a user accesses any course in the learning plan.
• After Being Enrolled in the Learning Plan. The number of days is calculated from the user’s enrollment date. If a user is waiting to be approved in the learning plan (due to a pending E-Commerce payment or waiting for the Superadmin approval), the validity period starts from the date the enrollment is approved.

If Discover, Coach & Share is enabled in your platform, you can publish the learning plan in any of the platform channels, but remember that learners will see it only if they have visibility permissions for those channels.

Finally, assign certificates, certifications, and credits to your learning plan, if desired. Users will be able to download their certificates either from the My Activity page, Learning Plan tab, or from the learning plan page. Certifications are only available on the My Activity page, Certification tab.

Please Note! Certificates for learning plans are issued only when a user has completed ALL of the courses within a learning plan. This also applies if a learner is only enrolled in a few, but not all, of the courses within a learning plan. Also note that when removing the association between a learning plan and a certificate, all of the users who obtained the certificate by completing the learning plan will lose the certificate. Be careful when performing this action.

Share Tab

Move to the Share tab, where you can flag the option to enable enrollment links for the learning plan. This means that you can create a link from within the platform to share with your users outside of the platform. When users click on this link from an external website, they will automatically be enrolled in the learning plan. Learn more about enrollment links.

E-Commerce Tab

If you have selected the Show this learning plan in the course catalog option in the Settings tab, then you can also configure the settings in the E-Commerce tab.

Select the Put this learning plan on sale option to activate the selling options of the learning plan. You can then set the price of the learning plan as well as determine if the learning plan must be bought in full or if courses can be bought individually. In the latter case, the final price will be the sum of every single course selected. More information about E-Commerce in your platform.

Deleting a Learning Plan

Assigning Courses to a Learning Plan

Enrolling Users in a Learning Plan

After creating a learning plan, you then need to enroll users in it. When you enroll users in a learning plan, you automatically enroll them in all of the courses composing the learning plan. To do so, select the Enroll Users icon in a learning plan's row (in the list of learning plans on the management page), then press Assign Users in the learning plan’s page. In the pop-up box, you can select individual users, groups, or branches. Press Confirm to complete the process.

Please Note! When you are selecting branches of users of your organization chart to enroll in a learning plan, please note that in order to make it easier and faster to select branches, you will see a text input field to type in branch names rather than a list of branches to select if you have more than 1,000 branches in your platform.

If you added the learning plan to a course catalog, users will be able to buy the learning plan or enroll themselves in it (depending on the settings of the course catalog and the learning plan itself).

If you, as a Superadmin, enroll yourself into the learning plan, while in Learner View, you will have to satisfy the same prerequisites as learners to unlock the courses in the learning plan. If, for example, a course in the learning plan is unlocked only after completing another course, you will have to complete the course set as a prerequisite to proceed with the training and complete the learning plan, as any other learner. You can still manage locked courses from the Course Management area of the Admin Menu.

Please Note! Enrolling a user to a learning plan bypasses the following course settings in the Advanced Properties of the course (Catalog Options tab): Self-enrollments are available during a specific time period (Course Self-Enrollment section) and Pending Admin Approval (Course Enrollment Policy section). These two settings will not be applicable to users enrolled in a learning plan.

Setting an Enrollment Validity Period for the Learning Plan

After enrolling users in the learning plan, you can set their enrollment validity period. This can be useful when you have set the days of validity option of the learning plan so that users can access it for only a specific number of days after they enrolled in it, or after they accessed the first course in the learning plan (as described in the Creating a Learning Plan chapter of this article).

To do so, identify the learning plan on the Learning Plan main page and click on the Enroll Users icon in the learning plan row to access the list of enrolled users. Click on the menu button at the end of the user's row and select Edit Enrollment. In the Edit Enrollment pop-up, set an enrollment validity period for the selected user.

After clicking the menu button, use the Reset Date Range for Access action to reset the current enrollment validity period according to the configuration of the Days of Validity option in the Settings tab of the learning plan configuration panel:

• If you have not set the days of validity, the enrollment validity period will be cleared
• If you have configured the days of validity, the enrollment validity period will be reset according to the number of days you have configured

Please note that if you set an enrollment validity period for a learning plan or for the users enrolled in the learning plan, the same enrollment validity period will apply to all of the courses included in the learning plan. If a user tries to access a course when the enrollment validity period expires, they will not be able to do so. If a course belongs to more than one learning plan, and the user enrollment validity period expires in one of the learning plans, the course will be blocked for the user in that specific learning plan, but will still be available for the user in other learning plans applying different enrollment validity periods.

Unenrolling Users from a Learning Plan

In order to unenroll a user from a learning plan, click on the enroll users icon in the learning plan row to access the list of enrolled users. Click now on the X icon in the row of the user you want to unenroll.

In the pop-up box, set whether you wish to unenroll the user also from the courses included in the learning plan. Remember that users will not be unenrolled from the courses shared with other learning plans. When selecting this option, you will then be able to choose whether to keep the user enrolled in the courses with completed and/or in progress status.

Also, the tracking of the training materials included in the courses will not be reset upon unenrollment. If the user is enrolled back in the course, the completion status of its training materials will be restored.

Press Confirm to complete the operation. Depending on the number of unenrollments, a background job may be started.

Power Users and Learning Plans

When working with Power Users, please consider the following scenarios:

• When Power Users are assigned to all courses, they will keep full visibility also on the learning plans they have created
• When Power users are assigned to all courses and learning plans in visible catalogs, they will keep full visibility also on the courses and the learning plans they have created, even if they belong to catalogs they don’t have visibility on
• When a Power User has Edit permissions on learning plans and Can only enroll learners permissions for enrollments, if they add one or more courses to an existing learning plan, only the users assigned to the Power Users will be automatically enrolled in the course. Power Users cannot enroll users not directly assigned to them as resources, not even through learning plans.

Notifications

If you want your users and managers to immediately know when certain events have occurred, make sure that the Notifications app is active in your platform, and that you have correctly created and configured the following notifications:

Please Note! Users and managers will only receive notifications if the Notification App is active in the platform and if you as the Superadmin have properly set up the notifications listed above.

Best Practices

• Use a learning plan when:
  • You need to generate blended training
  • You have a huge course to divide into smaller ones
  • You want your learners to complete courses in sequential order
• For a better experience, it is recommended that:
  • You keep the learning plan description as short as possible, in order to be more focused on the list of courses in the learning plan's first page
  • You create a training material (e.g. HTML page) containing an introduction of the learning plan in the first course and a training material containing a conclusion in the last course
  • You set prerequisites in a clear and understandable way for the user, especially if a classroom and an e-learning course are included in the learning plan
  • If courses are configured for sale with the E-Commerce app and are also part of a learning plan that is not for sale, users will be able to access those courses without purchase if they access them via a learning plan.
• Manage different certifications within the same Learning Plan: If desired, it is possible to create a Learning Plan with different certifications assigned to it. In order to do that, assign the certifications created with the Certification and Retraining app to the courses included in the Learning Plan, not at the Learning Plan level. For example, you can set up a Learning Plan including an e-learning course with an annual renewal and a classroom course with a three-year renewal.
• Manage Learning Plans in multiple languages: If your learners speak different languages (such as French Canadian and Canadian English), you may want to create a learning plan where every course is proposed in all of the languages you need to support. You can work this out by setting equivalences between courses to enable learners to take one course, in whichever language they prefer, and progress through the learning plan, independently from the selected language.