Introduction
The usage of additional fields empowers Superadmins and Power Users to enrich learning plans, courses and sessions with tailored descriptors, facilitating nuanced content organization and streamlined learner experiences. Additional fields add the granularity required to effectively showcase content to learners.
The additional fields configuration area is shared among sessions, courses and learning plans.
Additional fields can be configured for learning plans, courses, and sessions. They can be displayed in catalogs, in the Course description widget, and on session pages. Additional fields improve content filtering and classification in these areas and in the platform’s global search.
Note: Only text and free text additional fields are included in global search results
Requirements and limitations
- You can configure up to 50 additional fields. This limit is shared across learning plans, courses, and sessions.
Use case scenario
Introduce additional fields to track reasons for extending due dates on required courses. For example, if a learner is unable to meet a deadline due to being on leave, this reason can be recorded in a dedicated field. This ensures that all deadline modifications are clearly justified and easily traceable.
Creating additional fields
In order to create a new additional field for learning plans, courses or sessions, access your platform as a Superadmin or Power User with granted permissions. From the Navigation menu, find the Content and delivery (folder icon), then
- Click on Courses. On the main Courses page, move to the Additional fields tab, at top of the course table.
- Click on Learning plans. From the Learning plans page, move to the Additional fields tab, on top of the learning plans table.
Independently from where you access the Additional fields tab, this area lists all the additional fields already created in your platform. Each field’s row in the list displays the field name, category, whether the field is visible to users or mandatory for the content, and if it is used for learning plans, courses or sessions.
To create a new field, press the plus button in the top right corner of the page and select New additional field. In the slideout panel, begin by selecting whether the field will be used for learning plans, courses, both courses and learning plans or sessions.
In the Field type section, select the type of additional field you want to create:
- Text field: use a text field to input and store short to medium-length textual information for the content such as supplementary comments or notes providing additional context or instructions for your learners. You can configure the field to define a maximum character limit and apply validation criteria, such as accepted character types, to ensure data consistency. These validations automatically verify the accuracy of the input at the time of entry, preventing inconsistencies and enhancing reporting and analysis effectiveness.
- Dropdown field: configure a dropdown field to offer the possibility to select predefined options from a dropdown menu. You can configure up to 300 elements per dropdown.
- Date: use dates to manage time-sensitive information other than those already available in the platform.
- Free text field: use this field type to input longer, unstructured text entries. This field offers flexibility in capturing detailed information without constraints on text length or format.
- Iframe: this feature allows for the integration of multimedia content or external applications seamlessly, enhancing the richness and interactivity of the learning experience without leaving the platform. Iframe additional fields are only available for courses, not for learning plans and sessions.
Now, give a name to the field. You can translate the content of this field, into multiple languages by enabling the Translate fields toggle in the top part of the panel, selecting the translation destination language and adding the translated text in the name field. For dropdown fields, fill in the description of the elements shown in the dropdown, and translate them using the same process, if needed.
In the Field Settings section, set whether the field is mandatory and visible to users.
When a field is mandatory, it must be filled when a learning plan, a course or a session is created. This option is not available for iframe additional fields. If a field is set as mandatory after the content creation, it will not be possible to edit any existing content property without filling in the mandatory field.
When a field is visible to users, it will be shown:
- in catalogs.
- in the Course description widget (if used for courses), if the course player starting view is configured with the option to land directly on the course player page (one-page view).
- on the course page, under Additional Information, if the course player starting view is configured with the option to show the course overview page.
- on the sessions' overview page, under Additional Information, after the user is enrolled in the session.
If the Visible to the users option is enabled, you can configure whether the additional field will be used as a filter to look for courses and learning plans in catalogs. When this option is enabled, you can additionally set whether:
- the field will be listed as a filter on the Course catalog page only if at least one of the published courses in the catalogs is associated with it, otherwise, it is not displayed. This rule does not apply to iframe additional fields, as they are always displayed.
- the field's value will be searchable from the "Search within results" field of catalogs.
Note: Learning plan additional fields are not visible to the end user.
When finished, press Confirm.
Managing additional fields
Once you create an additional field, it is listed on the Additional fields tab of the Course page and on the Additional fields tab of the Learning plans page. By default, the table is filtered to show additional fields for courses and learning plans. Click on Resources at the top of the table and select ILT Sessions to see the additional fields set for sessions.
Click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the additional field row to edit, duplicate, or delete the field.
When you edit a field, you can modify any of the original values that you inserted when creating the field, but you cannot modify the field type. For course additional fields only, when editing the field, you can expand its usage to learning plans. Please note that this action cannot be undone.
When duplicating a field, all of the values of the original field will be pre-populated in the slideout panel for the new field, and you can modify any of them (including the field type). Click Confirm to create the new field.
When you delete a field, you will lose all tracking data related to that field in your platform.
Filling in additional fields to learning plans
To fill in additional fields for a learning plan, first create at least one additional field for learning plans. Then open the Learning plans menu, then click on the description of the learning plan you are interested in and, while in the Properties tab move to the Learning plan additional fields section. This tab is not visible when there is no additional field set for learning plans.
This section lists all of the additional fields you have created with the Learning plans and the Courses and learning plans options. Fill out the fields you want to show for the selected plan and fill in the relevant information. The mandatory additional fields are identified as Required, meaning that if you do not fill them, you cannot create the learning plan or save your changes.
Filling in additional fields to courses
To fill in additional fields for a course, first create at least one additional field for courses. Then, click on the course description in the table of the Courses page, move to the Properties tab, and finally to the Course additional fields section. This tab is not visible when there is no additional field set for courses.
This section lists all of the additional fields you have created with the Courses and the Courses and learning plans options. Fill out the fields you want to show for the selected course and fill in the relevant information. The mandatory additional fields are identified as Required. If you do not fill them, you cannot create the course or save your changes.
If you do not fill the additional field values in this area, they will not be visible in the course catalog and in the course table, when the dedicated column is enabled. When you are finished, press Save changes.
Filling in additional fields to sessions
Once you have created session additional fields, you can fill in those additional fields for sessions so that are different from the course additional fields. To assign additional fields to sessions, click on the course description in the table of the Course page, move to the Session tab, click on the session description and move to the Properties tab, and then to Details.
This section lists all of the available additional fields for sessions. Fill out the fields you want to show for the session and insert the relevant information. The mandatory additional fields are identified as Required. If you do not fill them, you cannot create the session or save your changes.
When you have finished, press Save changes.
Learners will see the session’s additional fields near the top of the session page. When viewing the session in a course catalog (as well as in the course player), the additional fields are shown in the Sessions tab on the course’s info page.
Showing additional fields in the Course description widget
Additional fields can optionally be displayed in the Course description widget. To do so, click on the course description in the table of the Course page, move to the Training material tab and activate the widget as described in the knowledge base article on the course layout.
Once the widget is activated, press the gear icon in the widget area, then press Settings from the dropdown menu. Now, under the option to show the course description, insert the additional fields that you want to show in the widget into the corresponding text box. When you are finished, press Save changes.
Creating iframe additional fields
To create an Iframe additional field, select the Iframe option in the Field type section when creating a new additional field. Then, enter the field name, iframe URL, iframe height, salt secret, and Oauth2 client.
Since some sources of external content may have security mechanisms, you must utilize an OAuth client you set up in a previous step and add a Salt secret for the iframe. Then, select the OAuth client from the dropdown menu, if necessary. By providing the salt secret, you are adding a checksum to the data, ensuring that the credentials for this access are maintained securely. More information on salt secrets (opens in a new tab).
As for the other additional fields, set whether it is visible to users. Press Confirm to confirm the field creation.
Please Note! Iframe additional fields cannot be set as mandatory fields.