SharePoint Tip of the Month

April 2009: Implementing a SharePoint Learning Management System

A pressing challenge for many organizations is the planning, delivery and tracking of employee training. With judicious use of custom workflows and SharePoint’s native lists, libraries, views and alert functionality, organizations can leverage their SharePoint investment to implement an elegant Learning Management System (LMS).

Courses and Classes

SharePoint custom lists are used to track courses. Then for each course, each instance of the course is tracked in a related Class list. The Class list tracks start and end dates, time, location, instructor and number of seats available.

Curriculum

The courses an employee is required to take – the curriculum – is based on what courses are specified as required for that employee and how often the course must be repeated. The system allows individuals within the organization to be specified as “Required” to take a specific course, and the “Frequency” required for the course. The system is integrated with the Active Directory profile defined for the employee. A course can be specified as required based on Department, Sub Department and/or Job Title (this can be modified based on the needs of the organization). For example, when the course is set up, it can be specified that this training is required for all employees in the Warehouse Department. By setting this in the course definition, all employees in the Warehouse department will now see this course in their “My Required Training” view.

The system also captures and tracks whether this training is required to be taken one time only, or whether the employee needs to take this course every year, every two years, etc. Based on these parameters, the system determines what classes are displayed in the “My Required Training” for each employee.

Training Workflow

A training record and associated workflow tasks are created when the employee chooses to enroll in a class. Workflow routes a task to the employee’s supervisor for approval before the enrollment in the class is finalized. Once the enrollment is completed, the course is displayed in the employee’s “My Pending Training” view.

Training Workflow also allows a Supervisor to enroll a direct report for training as needed.

When an employee is enrolled in a class, the system decrements the “number of seats available” counter, ensuring that a class is not oversubscribed.

Finally, once the class is taken by the employee, the employee must “Acknowledge” that they have completed the training, which completes the workflow and also saves the course as part of the employee’s training record.

When tasks have not been completed in the time specified, the system generates alerts to the appropriate individuals. The system also generates reminders for upcoming classes.

For more information on Abel Solutions’ implementation of the SharePoint Learning Management System, please contact kabel@abelsolutions.com.