Introduction
Docebo allows you to 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.
This functionality is a core feature of Docebo, available to all clients.
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 on the Settings page, you can flag the option to redirect the learner to the Learning Plan page after completing any course inside a learning plan.
Please note that this only works if the platform is able to identify from which learning plan a user is coming. When you’re finished press Save Changes.
Creating a Learning Plan
To create a learning plan, access the Admin Menu, then press the Learning Plan item in the E-Learning section. On the next page, you’ll see the New Learning Plan button in the action bar at the top of the page, and a list of learning plans below. Press the New Learning Plan button to get started. In the pop-up box, you will see three tabs: Details, Settings, and Share.
- After First Course Access. The number of days is calculated from the first time a user accesses the course or learning plan. For learning plans, this means a user’s first access for any course inside the learning plan.
- After Being Enrolled in the Learning Plan. The number of days is calculated at the time of the user’s enrollment, not after the user’s first access to the course or learning plan. If a user is waiting to be approved into a course or learning plan (due to a pending E-Commerce payment or waiting for Admin approval), the validity period starts from the date of the approved enrollment. If you flag this option, along with the option to also update all enrollments expiration dates where users already started this course, then your platform will perform a massive expiration date recalculation based on enrollment dates, rather than the first-course access date.
If you have flagged the option to set the validity date After Being Enrolled in the Learning Plan, the option to Also update all enrollments expiration dates where users already started this course will be changed to Also update all enrollments expiration dates for users already enrolled in this course.
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.
Assigning Courses to your Learning Plan
In order to assign a course to your learning plan, press the icon in the Courses column in the learning plan’s row (in the list of learning plans on the management page). In the pop-up box, select the courses you want to add to the plan, then press Confirm.
For example, to access a second course, you will have to complete the first one. In the Prerequisites area, you can choose to unlock a course only after the user has completed the previous one. Select the course you would like to be the prerequisite of another course, then press Confirm. You can also define time-based prerequisites (e.g. the third course of the learning plan will be available 3 days after the second course has been completed). Repeat the process for all of the courses included in the plan, as desired.
You are free to add or remove courses from a learning plan at any time, but remember that the learning plan completion percentage will be impacted by this action. For example, if a learning plan is composed of three courses, and the learner completes two of them, the learning plan completion percentage will be 67%. If you add a course to the plan, the completion percentage will be reduced to 50%.
Assigning Users to a Learning Plan
After creating a learning plan, you then need to assign users to it. To do so, select the icon in the Assigned Users column of a learning plan’s row (in the list of learning plans on the management page). In the pop-up box, you can flag individual users, groups, branches, or roles. 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.
To learn more about how users can access and navigate learning plans, refer to this article. If you added the learning plan into 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 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 that when users unenroll from a learning plan, they don’t unenroll from the courses within the learning plan.
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 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
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 Learning Plan level. For example, you can setup a Learning Plan including an e-learning course with annual renewal and a classroom course with three-year renewal.
