Managing programs

LearningZone Program management allows you to create learning paths for learners where you can define dependencies and control the order and flow of the competencies and courses your learners complete.

A program includes completion dates and time limits for your learners to complete each stage of the program. There is also the ability to set up customised messages and reminders that are sent to learners and managers as part of the program.

Program management allows you to enrol learners based on their organisation, position, management hierarchy, or audience, and set different completion criteria for each group if required. Learners can also be enrolled individually.

Program management also handles the requirement for courses to reoccur on a set cycle, such as yearly. This is great for handling compliance training that staff may be required to complete every year.

Create a program

Select Coursesfrom the Site administration
Select Manage programs.
Select Add a new programto set up a new program.
Complete theDetails section (see below).
Select Save changes and the Program Overview tab displays. You have now created your program; the next step is to add the program content and program assignment.

Details

When creating a new program there are a number of details you will be required to add, these are:

Edit a program

Once a program has been setup it is still possible to make changes by editing the program.

From the Administrationblock follow the path Site administration > Courses > Manage programs.
In the table find the program you wish to edit.
Select the Settingsicon, or alternatively select the program to open it, then select Edit program details.

Whilst editng a program you can amend the details, add content, assign learners, and manage messages. More about how to do each of these can be found below.

Add program content

Program content can include any course or competency on your LearningZone site.

Content is added in sets. The sets represent the order in which learners complete the learning. A set can contain:

A competency and assigned course(s)
Course(s)
Recurring course(s)

Time frames and conditions can be established for each set.

To add content to your program, follow these steps:

Go to the Content
Select what you would like to add from the Add a new dropdown menu and select Add. Follow the instructions below for the content type you choose to add

Give your set a name and complete the settings relevant settings (see below for more information).
You can have one or more course sets. If you have more than one, you can choose the rule between them:
- Or:Learners can either complete the learning in the first course set or the second course set. The learning of both course sets is available at the same time.
- Then:Learners must complete the first course set before being given access to the second course set.
- And:If both course sets need to be completed.

Follow steps 2-4 above as required if you need to add additional content.

Select Save changes and confirm them to add your program content.The content has now been added to your program and you are ready to set the learner assignments.

If a learner has already completed a course in the program content, it will be treated as such. The program enrols the leaner into the course and then checks for completion; the program itself has no effect on the completion record.

Course settings

These are the available settings when adding a course set.

Competency settings

These are the available settings when adding a competency.

Recurring course set

These are the available settings when adding a competency.

Assign learners

Program assignment allows you to select the learners who need to complete the program. You can select users by organisation, position, audience, management hierarchy, or individually. Once you have assigned learners to the program, the system automatically takes care of course enrolment.

To assign learners to your program, go to the Assignments tab, select what you would like to add from the Add a new dropdown menu and select Add. Follow the instructions below for the assignment type you choose to add.

Learning will be made available immediately to new users once they've self-registered. Audience membership as well as audience-based enrolled learning (i.e. course enrolment and certification/program assignment) will occur before new users first log into the platform.

For existing users, audience membership and enrolment will occur when the relevant cron runs.

Set the due date for each group / individual you have assigned to the program. When setting the completion criteria you have two options:

Complete by:allows you to set a fixed completion date.
Complete within:allows you to set a completion date relative to an event. The events include:
- The date the learner first logged in.
- Position assignment date.
- Job assignment date.
- The date the learner completed another program.
- The date a learner completed another course.
- The date record in a profile field.
- The date they were assigned the current program.

Select Set fixed completion date or Set time relative to event to save your completion criteria, then select Save changes and confirm your changes. Once saved, a confirmation message appears at the top of the screen. Your program assignments are now set.

Users are assigned to the program when the program user assignment scheduled task is run.

For assigned users that have been given a time exception, the program due date is not updated.

If a learner has been previously marked as having completed the program and subsequently new courses are added, or the path is changed to "then", a learner will not need to go back and do these additional courses because as their program completion mark remains.

Add program messages

You can create and customise automated messages which are emailed to users assigned to a program. You can also add an optional message for managers depending on the message type selected.

Create a program message by editing your certification and selecting the Messages The enrolment message and exception report message is added by default for every program.
Select the message type from the Add a new drop down menu and select Add.
Add a subject line and message body.
Select Send notice to managerif you want to send a message to the manager of a learner at the same time the learner message is sent. If a learner has multiple job assignments with more than one manager, the message will be sent to all managers.
Add a subject line and message body for the manager notice.

If a subject is not provided i.e. the field is left blank, the manager subject is populated with the default language strings for each message type.

Select Save changesto save your message. You will be prompted to confirm your changes or you can choose to continue editing.

(This video is taken from the Program and certifications course in the LearningZone Academy, where you can access more resources and learning materials - including other videos).

Message types

Variable substitution

You can insert variables into the subject and / or body of a message so that they will be replaced with real values when the message is sent. Variables should be inserted exactly as shown.

Capabilities that can edit

It is possible to assign a variety of editing permissions within the program functionality. Anyone with one or more of the following capabilities will see an Edit program details button whenever they view a program. By clicking on this they will then see the Overview tab, followed by additional tabs based on the capabilities they have assigned to them as follows:

LearningZone/program:configuredetails:For the Edit tab.
LearningZone/program:configurecontent:For the Content tab.
LearningZone/program:configuremessages:For the Messages tab.
LearningZone/program:configureassignments:For the Assignments tab.
LearningZone/program:handleexceptions:For the Exceptions tab (this applies even if there are no exceptions currently).
LearningZone/program:editcompletion:For the Completion tab (the completion editor must be enabled in site cofig).

Program overview report

Within the report builder it is possible to use the Program overview report source to create reports combining the status of individual completions in programs as well as the courses within those programs. This allows you to configure your own reports of based on the user, program and course information in the report source. The default columns for the report are:

Program Short Name
User's Organisation Name(s)
User's Position Name(s)
User's Fullname
Due Date
Program Status
Progress
Course Short Name
Course Status
Final Grade

There is also a default Search field filter that allows you to choose a particular program from the dropdown menu to view data on. Many additional filters, such as User Fullname, Status, and Due Date, can be added to reports to narrow down the completion records shown in the reports.

To find out more about how to set up and edit a report using the program overview report source see the Managing user reports section of the Managing reports help documentation.