Creating and managing learning plans and certifications

Introduction

Learning plans and certifications (learning programs) are structured sequences of courses (e-learning and Instructor-Led Training (ILT)) designed to support personalized learning paths. They empower you to shape learning experiences tailored to the unique needs and objectives of your people and your organization. Learning programs can be assigned to individual users, branches, or groups.

There are two types of learning programs:

• Learning plans: Sequences of courses without certifications
• Certifications: Sequences of courses that award a certification upon completion. Certifications confirm a learner’s expertise in a specific area.

This article will walk you through the creation and management of learning programs (learning plans and certifications).

Requirements and limitations

We recommend limiting learning plans and certifications to 250 courses. Proper functionality is not guaranteed above this limit.

Use case

Skill development: Learning plans and certifications play a crucial role in facilitating employee skill development. Create personalized learning paths based on individual roles and skill levels including a series of courses ranging from basic to advanced levels. Learners will then follow the pathway you structured and complete assessments, thereby acquiring new skills or enhancing existing ones, in line with the organization's objectives. Managers can track progress, provide support and ensure that learning initiatives are tailored to meet the evolving needs of their teams.

Creating a learning program

To create and manage learning programs (learning plans and certifications), access the Content and delivery menu (folder icon) and select Learning plans and certifications.

On the Learning plans and certifications page, click New/Assign in the top-right corner to open the New learning program right panel, and complete the form:

• Select the type of learning program (Learning plan or Certification). This cannot be changed later.
• Enter the required fields: Title and description.
• Optionally, enter a code and a short description (displayed in the header of the learning program page).
• Proceed to the next step and complete any required additional fields.

If you close the panel before completing the creation of the learning program, the options you configured will be permanently lost.

Accessibility hint: When adding images to the learning program description, enter an alternative text, in the Image description field. The alternative text makes sense of that image when it cannot be viewed, ensuring that users of assistive technologies can comprehend the context.

Managing filters and presets

Filters

The existing learning programs are listed on the main page. Use the following filters to refine the list:

• Learning program type: Learning plan or Certification.
• Course assignment type: With or without assigned courses.
• Enrollment options: With or without enrolled users.
• Publication status: All learning programs, only published ones, or only under maintenance ones.
• Last update date: Filter by update period.
• Creation date: Filter by creation period.
• Certification validity status (for certifications only): Filter by valid, expiring, or expired status

Pre-sets

Use presets to adapt the page view to the learning program type. Select Learning plans or Certifications to show the columns relevant to the select type only.  
 

Setting the learning program properties 

Refer to the article Setting the properties of learning plans and certifications. 

Properties specifically related to certifications are explained in the article Managing  certifications.

Assigning courses to learning programs

From the Learning plans and certifications page:

Access a learning program (learning plan or certification) and go to the Courses tab. This page lists all the courses you have already assigned to the learning program. 

Click Assign/Enrol in the top-right corner of the page and choose Assign courses. Select the courses in the right panel,  and click Assign. 

Configure the assigned courses’ settings as follows:

• Set courses as Mandatory or Optional. A learning program must have at least one mandatory course to be published otherwise it appears as under maintenance. When you assign a course to a learning program, it is marked as mandatory by default.
• Re-order the sequence of courses by dragging and dropping the courses in the list with the Change position command. This option determines how the courses are displayed to users on their learning program’s page. Learners can still complete courses in any order unless prerequisites are configured.

If a learning program is composed of more than 100 courses, the drag-and-drop functionality is disabled, and we suggest uploading them according to your preferred sequence using CSV files.

• Remove the assignment by clicking the ellipsis menu at the end of the course row and selecting Unassign. From the same ellipsis menu, click Jump to course to access the course on the course management page.

When ready, click Save changes at the bottom of the Courses tab to save the learning program’s configuration. 

From the Courses page: 

• Access the Courses page
• Open a course and go to the Learning plans and certifications tab. 
• Click the New/Assign button in the top-right corner. 
• Choose Assign to learning plans and certifications. 
• In the right panel, select learning plans and/or certifications and click Confirm.

The learning plans and certifications are now listed on the Learning plans and certifications tab of the course. 

Using CSV files

To assign courses to a learning program using a CSV file, access a learning program, click the Assign/Enroll button in the top right corner and select Assign courses via CSV. You can only use this functionality when the learning program is under maintenance. When it is published, the functionality is disabled. 

For a successful upload, the CSV file must be properly formatted. Refer to the following table for the accepted values.

Updating the learning program structure and recalculating the completed enrollments from the Learning plans and certifications page

Changing assigned courses from the Learning plans and certifications page may impact completed enrollments.

When a recalculation should happen, a right panel with the following recalculation options opens : 

• Do not recalculate completed enrollments: No changes to the status of the learning program’s completed enrollments. They remain marked as completed, even if learners did not complete the courses you have added to the program.
• Recalculate all completed enrollments: The platform recalculates all completed enrollments of the learning program according to the new structure. Example: a learner has completed a learning program containing two courses. The completion progress is 100%. If you add two other courses to the learning program, the completion  progress will be recalculated and set to 50%.
• Recalculate completed enrollments for specific branches and groups: The status of the completed enrollments will be recalculated according to the new structure only for the learners belonging to the groups and/or branches that you select.

The following items are updated with the recalculation: 

• The last update timestamp
• The learning program’s completion date, which will become the date the learner completes the program with its new structure
• The number of completed courses
• The number of mandatory courses at the time of the learning program completion

Select a recalculation option and click Next to set the publication status of the learning program (Published or Under maintenance). 

The selected recalculation of completed enrollments applies regardless of the publication status. The other enrollment statuses are recalculated only after you publish the learning program. 

Note: Changing the course assignment from the Courses page does not trigger the recalculation of completed enrollments. . 

Removing courses from a learning program

In addition to  what is described in the previous chapter, removing courses from a learning program may also trigger the following:

• If the removed course was the last mandatory course remaining in the program, the program will be unpublished.
• If the removed course was the last mandatory course a learner had to complete, their enrollment status becomes Completed. The enrollment status of a learner in the removed course is unchanged.

Managing prerequisites 

Regardless of the course sequence, you can configure prerequisites to require learners to complete one or more courses before accessing another one.

To configure prerequisites on the Learning plans and certifications page: Access a learning program, go to the Courses tab and identify the courses requiring prerequisites. 

Click Prerequisites in the corresponding row and configure the following options in the right panel: 

• Choose prerequisites among the courses of the learning program. 
• Set the prerequisite completion options:
  • Learners must complete all of the prerequisites.
  • Learners must complete some of the prerequisites: enter the number of required prerequisites. 
• Optionally, enable the Unlock interval option to set a delay between the completion of the prerequisite and the start of the course requiring prerequisites. Enter a number and set the unit (day, weeks, or months).
• Click Set prerequisites and click Save changes after the right panel closes. 

Notes:

• Months are calculated as 31 days and not as actual calendar months. 
• When you set a prerequisite for a course, it will require the same prerequisites in all of the other learning programs it is assigned to. 
• When a Superadmin enrolls in a learning program and goes to the Learner view, they must fulfill the same prerequisites as other learners to unlock courses. However, Superadmins can keep managing locked courses from the course management page.

Tip: Optional courses can also be set as prerequisites for other courses. This option is useful for learning programs with a large number of courses where not all courses are mandatory. On the contrary, we recommend avoiding this for smaller programs. In this case, you can mark the course as mandatory instead of setting prerequisites. 

Enrolling users in a learning program

Enroll users in the learning program as described in the article Enrolling users in learning plans and certifications.

Assigning and unassigning a learning program to catalogs and channels

To assign learning programs to catalogs and channels: 

• Access a learning program.
• Go to the Catalogs/Channels tab.
• Click Assign/Enroll in the top-right corner of the page.
• Select Assign to catalogs or Assign to channels. 
• In the right panel, select catalogs/channels and click Assign. 

To unassign a learning program from a catalog or channel: 

• Access a learning program.
• Go to the Catalogs/Channels tab.
• Hover your mouse over the catalog or channel row and click Unassign.

To unassign several catalogs/channels from a learning program, select them, click Choose action and select Unassign.

Note: If you assign a learning program to a catalog, users may be able to buy the learning program or enroll themselves (depending on the settings of the catalog and the learning program).

Publishing a learning program

New learning programs are created by default with the Under maintenance status and are not visible to learners.

To publish a learning program:

• Access a learning program.
• Go to the Properties tab. 
• Click the status dropdown at the bottom of the page and select Published. 
• Click Save changes to apply your selection.

To unpublish the learning program, follow the same steps and select Under maintenance.

When you change the publication status of a learning program

• The publication status of its assigned courses is unchanged. 
• The enrollment status of its assigned courses (other than completed)  is updated as explained in the chapter Updating the learning program structure and recalculating the completed enrollments. 

Marking a learning program as completed for users 

A learning program is completed when: 

• All its mandatory courses are completed according to each course’s completion rule.
• You manually change a user’s enrollment status as completed, as described in the article Enrolling users in learning plans and certifications.
• The mandatory courses a learner still needs to complete are deleted from the platform or removed from the learning program.

When the enrollment status of a learner goes to Completed, it cannot be moved back to In progress unless you update the course assignment of the learning program as described in the chapter Updating the learning program structure and recalculating the completed enrollments.

You can also manually trigger the enrollment recalculation. 

From the Enrollments tab of a learning program, open the ellipsis menu in a user’s row and select Recalculate enrollment. 

For learning plans only: Use the POST /learningplan/v1/learningplans/{learning_plan_id}/enrollments/{user_id}/status/recalculate API to run the recalculation process.

If the learning program awards a certificate, the certificate will be issued on the completion date of the last course.

Deleting a learning program

To delete a learning program, go to the Learning plans and certifications main page, open the ellipsis menu at the end of a learning program’s row and select Delete. 

To delete several learning programs at a time: 

Select the checkbox on their row, click Choose action and select Delete at the bottom of the table.

When you delete a learning program, its assigned courses are not deleted and the users are not unenrolled from these courses. Unenrolling users from the courses can only be done manually for individual users from the Enrollments tab of the course configuration page. 

Configuring the global settings of learning programs

The platform Advanced settings include a Learning plans section with the Redirect behavior option. This setting also applies to certifications.

When this option is enabled, learners are redirected to the learning program page after completing a course included in the learning program.

This behavior does not apply when the last training material of the course is displayed in fullscreen mode. Learners are redirected to the course page instead of the learning plan page. 

Power Users and learning programs

When Power Users are assigned All courses as a resource, they can view all learning programs that include those courses.

When Power Users are assigned All courses, learning plans, and certifications in visible catalogs as resources, they can view all learning programs, including those that belong to catalogs they cannot access.

Power Users inherit visibility of the courses included in the learning programs assigned to them as resources.

If Power Users have the Edit permission for learning programs and add a course to a learning program assigned to them as a resource, all learners enrolled in that learning program are automatically enrolled in the added course, even if those learners are not assigned to the Power Users as resources. However, the Power Users cannot view those learners on the Enrollments tab of the learning program.

Notifications

For learners and managers to receive the notifications related to learning programs, you must activate the Notifications app , and create and configure the notifications for learning plans and certifications.