Introduction

As a Superadmin, you may be in charge of managing the skills of your people. This means monitoring your users' upskilling needs and looking for content aimed at helping them in reaching their goals while keeping them motivated. This constant activity is time-consuming, above all when you are also managing the platform and its content.

The aim of skills management is to help you in automating some of the tasks that are part of the constant skills management process, providing you with a pre-built catalog of skills and the possibility of creating your own skills from scratch, involving users in identifying their skills and making the platform processes collect and select the right content for the right users.

This article is a guide on how to manage your skills through Docebo Learn. As an option, you can also manage skills by integrating an external talent management platform or human resources information system.

Activating skills

Note that all skill-related features are only available if the Skills app is active in your platform. To activate it, reach out to Docebo via the Help center, or by contacting your Account manager (if your plan includes this option).

Managing AI-based channels

The skills management feature relies on AI-based channels. If you are using this feature, make sure that at least the My skills channel or another AI-based channel is activated. To do so, log into the platform as the Superadmin, access the Admin Menu from the gear icon in the top right corner, then press the Channels item in the E-Learning section. In the list of channels on this page, find the My Skills channel and press the checkmark in the channel’s row corresponding to the Published column, switching it to green to activate it. As an alternative, you can create your own custom-AI based channel and publish it.

Once you press the checkmark, read the message in the pop-up box, then press Activate. When the My skills channel or another AI-based channel is activated, all of your users with visibility on it will be prompted to fill out their skills upon their next login to the platform, either from their My skills page in their profile or from their Skills dashboard page. If neither the My Skills channel nor any other AI-based channel is published, these pages will not be visible to users.

When the My skills channel is activated from the Channels management area, a new channel will be made available for your learners (given that you assign them visibility to the channel). This channel can be accessed both from the All channels page, or from the My skills built-in page that is automatically added to all of your active menus in the platform upon activating the My skills channel. Learn more on how to manage the visibility of the My skills page as any other page in the platform.

You can configure the My skills channel as any other AI-based channel in the platform, with different options depending on whether you have activated the Discover, Coach & Share module. Learn more on configuring AI-based channels with Discover, Coach & Share and on configuring channels without Discover, Coach & Share.

The skills management page

In the Skills management page you will find two tabs: Skill sets and Platform catalog.

The Skill sets tab lists the sets of skills available in your platform. The table shows each skill set’s name, its visibility, the number of skills assigned to it, the catalog it comes from (Docebo catalog or your own platform catalog), the number of AI-based channels it is assigned to, and whether the skill set is published or not. 

You can customize the table layout in order to show only the columns that are relevant to you. To do so, click on the Columns management icon on top of the table and select the columns you would like to include in the table view. You can drag and drop the columns in the list to sort them according to your needs.

You can filter the content by clicking on the filter icon on top of the table to see the complete filter list and operate your selection. Filters are applied in real time. In addition, you can use the free text search area to look for skill sets, and sort columns by clicking on the column header. Please note that not all of the columns can be sorted.

The Platform catalog tab lists all of the skills that you have chosen to have on your platform. The table shows each skill’s name and unique ID, its source (whether it comes from the Docebo catalog or from your own platform catalog), and the number of skill sets, users, and the amount of content it is assigned to. 

You can customize the table layout in order to show only the columns that are relevant to you. To do so, click on the Columns management icon on top of the table and select the columns you would like to include in the table view. You can drag and drop the columns in the list to sort them according to your needs.

You can filter the content by clicking on the filter icon on top of the table to see the complete filter list and operate your selection. Filters are applied in real time. In addition, you can use the free text search area to look for skills, and sort columns by clicking on the column header.

The skills in your Platform catalog can be created from scratch (custom skills) or picked from the Docebo skills catalog. Docebo skills is a comprehensive catalog of skills, divided into categories, covering most of the user jobs available in the major industries. 

By default, the full Docebo skills catalog is available as the set of skills called All skills in the Skill sets tab.

Creating and managing skills

You can populate your Platform catalog by creating new skills from scratch or by adding skills from the Docebo catalog.

To create or add a skill, select the Plus button in the top right corner of the Skills management page, then press Create new skill. In the right panel that opens, in the Skill type section, you can choose whether to create a custom skill from scratch or to pick one among the Docebo skills. 

Please note! Skill descriptions, whether for custom skills or pre-existing descriptions for Docebo skills, are visible to Superadmins, to managers suggesting skills to team members, and to learners in their Skills dashboard, if this is enabled. Learn more about configuring My team and the Skills dashboard.

If you choose to create a new skill, you will be asked to enter a name and a description. If you choose to add a skill among the Docebo Skills, you can choose to select one or more skills from this catalog as well as filter them by category and/or job.

When you’re done, press the Confirm button at the bottom of the page. 

Congratulations, your skill has been created successfully! Once the skill has been created, it will be visible in the Platform catalog. 

To edit, assign or delete a skill, find the skill you want to edit, assign or delete and click the ellipsis button at the end of the skill’s row and select the corresponding option. 

You can assign or delete more than one skill at the same time selecting them by checking the checkboxes next to their name, then clicking on Choose action in the bottom right corner of the page, and selecting the Delete button. 

Please note: if you delete a skill from the Platform catalog, it will be removed from all content and users it is assigned to. Therefore, users who had selected that skill will lose all content related to it.

Creating and managing sets of skills

The Skill sets tab lists all of the sets of skills already configured in your platform. 

The All skills set is available by default in your platform and collects all of the skills from the Docebo catalog. You cannot edit its content, but you can manage its details and its visibility as described later in this section. Moreover, you will find some predefined skill sets that cover the most common areas, serving as an example for the skill sets you can create for your company and as a starting point. You can manage these sets as any other set of skills you have manually created. 

To create a new set, click on the Plus button in the top right corner and then on Create new skill set. In the right panel, enter a name for your set and press Create and edit to access the set configuration area. 

The set configuration area is divided into two tabs: Properties and Skills. 

The Properties tab is divided into two sections: General and  Visibility. Use the General tab to manage the set name and description. The Skill assignment field is not editable and it is always set to Platform when a set of skills is manually created, as the only skill set assigned to the Docebo catalog is the All skills set.

The Aggregator channels area displays the channel where the platform will constantly load the content needed to upskill your users.

Here you can assign AI-based channels to the selected skill set: to do this click the Assign AI-based channels button, select the channels you want to assign from the right panel, then click Assign.

Remember that it is also possible to assign different skill sets to an AI-based channel from the Channel management page when creating and editing a channel.

Move to the Visibility tab to set whether the skill set will be available to all users included in groups and branches, or only for the users of selected groups and/or branches. It is not possible to assign a set of skills to a single user. 

Only the users included in groups and/or branches can take advantage of this feature.

The Assigned skills area lists the skills associated to the set. From here, you can assign or unassign skills to the set. In order to add skills to the set, choosing them from the Platform Catalog, click the Plus icon and then on the Add skills from platform catalog button in the top right corner. You can search for specific skills. Select the skills you want to add to the set by flagging the checkboxes next to the skill names and click on Confirm to finalize the operation.

You can also create a new skill to associate to the set or pick one from the Docebo skills. To do so, after clicking on the Plus icon, select Create new skill. Please see the previous chapter to learn more on creating new skills.

The skills assigned to a set are listed in the Skills tab. In order to unassign a skill from a set, click on the barred folder icon at the end of the skill row. When you unassign a skill from a skill set, the users who have assigned themselves that skill will lose all of the content related to that skill.

You can unassign more skills from a set at the same time selecting them by checking the checkboxes next to their name, then clicking on Choose action in the bottom right corner of the page and selecting Unassign from skill set. 

Please note: If you unassign a skill from a skill set, the users who selected that skill will continue to have it associated with their profile.

The Users and Content counters show respectively the number of users who have assigned themselves the skill and the number of pieces of content (both formal courses and assets) assigned to the skill. 

When ready, click on Save changes to confirm the changes you have operated to the skill set. When a set of skills is created, it is listed in the Skills management page, and its status is Unpublished, meaning that it will not be available for the platform users. Remember to change the status to Published in the publishing bar to make it available in your platform.

At any time, you can edit or delete the set of skills by clicking on the ellipsis menu at the end of the set row and selecting the corresponding option. 

Deleting a skill set

In order to delete a skill set, while in the Skills management page, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the set row and select the corresponding option.

When you delete a skill set, the users who have selected the skills included in the set will lose the association to the skill, as well as the content related to the skill in the My skills channel page. 

Assigning skills to courses and assets

In your platform, you can assign skills to courses and assets to help learners find the right content for them, to improve skill-based recommendations, and to improve content searchability. You can either assign skills manually or let the platform's artificial intelligence automatically assign skills for you.

As a Superadmin, you can decide whether users and Power Users will be able to see all the skills populating your Platform catalog when assigning skills to courses and assets. In the platform Admin menu, click on Advanced settings in the E-learning section, then reach the Skills management tab. Select the Enable full catalog visibility for users and Power Users option. If the option is not flagged, when assigning skills to courses and assets, users and Power Users will only see the skills they have visibility on.

Assigning skills to courses

As a Superadmin or Power User with granted permissions, you can assign skills to courses. To do so, move to the Course management area of the Admin menu, identify the desired course in the Course management page and click on its description to enter in edit mode. Move to the Properties tab, Details vertical tab, Assigned skills area.

From here, you can either manually add skills to the course, or import the skills assigned to another course of the platform. You can associate up to 50 skills per course.

• Add skills manually. In order to add skills manually, click Assign skills, then select the relevant skills from the right panel. Use the panel filters to drill down skills according to your needs. Click Confirm to complete your action.
• Import skills from another course. Click on Import from course and select the course from which you want to import skills in the right panel that will open. Click Confirm to proceed.

Please note: If your Platform catalog is empty, when adding skills manually you will pick them directly from the Docebo skills. If the Platform catalog is populated, the Show only platform catalog skills filter will be automatically flagged, so that you will only see the skills you have added to your catalog.
Also note: Power Users will only be able to assign skills to the courses they manage.

Assigning skills to assets

Asset-type content will only be available if Discover, Coach & Share is active in your platform.

In order to assign skills to an asset, after uploading it with the Share content functionality, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the asset area in the Share content page and click Edit asset.

Move to the Skills area and type the name of the skills you wish to assign to the asset. You can assign up to 50 skills to each asset and 15 to each course. Remember that if you type a synonym of the main skill, the main skill is always suggested.

Furthermore, artificial intelligence will analyze informal learning content, identifying key phrases and automatically suggesting skills, meaning that your skills can be either entered manually or can be automatically calculated by the artificial intelligence and subsequently chosen. This helps make skills easier to be added to your content.

Self-assignment of skills by users

If you have activated the My Skills channel, users will be prompted to select their job, choose their skills and carry out a self-evaluation on them upon their first login. Find out more about users configuring their skills.

Resetting the skills of your users

As a Superadmin, you can reset the skills of your users from the User management page. Identify the profile in which you are interested and click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the row and select the Reset skill profile option. A pop-up will show the name of the user and a recap of the selected skills. Click on Reset to confirm your action. 

You can perform the same action on multiple users by selecting the checkboxes next to their names, then clicking on Choose action in the bottom right corner of the table and selecting Reset skill profiles. Click on Reset to confirm your action.

Please note! When you reset a user’s skills, they will be requested to select their job and configure their skills again upon login. If the users you have selected did not previously select their skills and job, it is not possible for you to reset their skills.

Best practices

Follow these best practices to get the most out of skills management. These guidelines are designed to streamline the process, enhance the relevance of recommendations, and ensure that users receive the appropriate content tailored to their skill development needs:

• Use the “All skills” set if you don’t want to configure your own skills in the platform. This set contains all of the Docebo skills catalog of over 10,000 skills, based on ESCO (opens in a new tab) and constantly updated to meet customers’ needs
• If you prefer using your custom skills, only a selection of Docebo skills, or a combination of both, we recommend you follow these steps:

1. 1. Unpublish the “All skills” set so that your learners don’t receive suggestions for skills that are not relevant to your organization
   2. Create your own skill sets and populate them with new custom skills or with the Docebo skills that fit your needs. Make sure that your skill sets are published and that you have granted visibility to the relevant groups or branches of users.
   3. Assign the relevant skills to your courses and assets. You can do this manually as explained in this article, or you can let the platform AI assign your skills automatically.
   4. Make sure that users have visibility on content by setting visibility options for catalogs and channels
   5. You can try logging in as a learner to check what suggestions they receive based on the skills and content they actually have visibility on

• Use AI-based channels focusing on specific sets of skills or on skill targets to provide learners with more relevant and precisely targeted content.

Tips and tricks

As they log into the platform, your users may see a pop-up window inviting them to try out skill targets. If you are not using skills, you can disable this message by deactivating the Enable Skills overview and Skills dashboard option in the Advanced settings of your platform. Refer to the article Setting up My team as a Superadmin for more information.