Certification and Updating Modules

[Kodiak100]

I'd like to know what will happened in Prime when we have some employees complete a certification and then I have to change some of the training materials that are part of the certification.

If the certification is set for recertification every 12 months, will that be disturbed in any way?

Ideally, I'd like to be able to establish completion of the initial certification and then have the flexibility to update the underlying training as needed WITHOUT impacting the recurring certification date.

Anyone tried this and know what happens?

[Allen_Partridge]

Update files inside the cert or update course modules previously assigned as part of the certification?

[Kodiak100]

I would like to update the course modules previously assigned as part of the certification.

We have a lot of existing certifications tracked manually and I need some way to migrate this information to Prime. My thought was to "game" the system by having a one question test module that I could use in place of the much longer test modules we have for new hires to take.

During the migration period my thought was to set up the cert with that one question test. Then have everyone complete the certification to establish a new cert date for those we've decided to grandfather. After the migration period I'd replace that one question test with the "real" test for all initial certifications.

Initial testing of this idea hasn't been too promising but we've decided to give it 24 hours because we seen some things take a few hours to percolate through the Prime system. I set up a test cert and had a co-worker complete the certification. Then I swapped out modules in the underlying course and asked her to visit the cert again. The original module was still being loaded by Prime even after I've swapped out the original for another module and waited for the module upload to process.

[Allen_Partridge]

ah.  actually this should work as you expect .  you are just missing a tiny step.

after you upload the new module, go to the course(s) that uses the module.  you will see a little update button.

click to approve adoption of the updated module for that specific course.

allen

[Kodiak100]

Thank you Allen. This is encouraging.

Oddly at the moment, after several hours, we've gone back in as a learner and still see the original version of the course that is associated with the certification. It is as if the server has cached the version of the associated course as it was originally assigned and taken.

My co-worker logged in as an admin and opened the current certification and previewed it as a learner. She sees the version as it has been modified which is not what she sees when logged in as a learner.

I'll sit on this until tomorrow morning to see what happens in the morning. I will update this thread tomorrow.

Peter

[Allen_Partridge]

On the ground again - and back at my computer. Hooray! I double checked updating both the module and the course. Here's the behavior - as I mentioned before.

1. If you update a module (basically you delete the original and update a new one - either an updated version or an entirely new file.) You'll see the  update hyperlink appear in the course. This gives you the option to accept or to ignore the update. I suspect this is the snag for you. See the screenshot...

2. If you update a course - edit course, add or remove modules etc. those updates appear in the cert (or learning program etc.) immediately - all without impacting the recurrence details, enrollments etc.

Let me know if that all makes sense. I'm admittedly a little jet-lagged this morning. 😉

[Kodiak100]

Hello Dr. Partridge, I hope you enjoyed your trip to the Emirates. 🙂

What you are saying makes perfect sense and is how I predicted the system would work. However, I've not been able to demonstrate the expected behavior. We've been testing this behavior this morning and still aren't seeing the expected changes at the certification level. We've made changes to the course that lives within the certification and see those changes when we assign the course to our 'test dummy' but we don't see the same change when we revisit the certification that uses the course.

It is as if once set, we can't edit the content of the certification successfully. I am fully willing to admit this might be operator error on this side of the keyboard. But without spending any more time on this, I've come up with a different solution to this problem.

I am now proposing to have two certifications configured in the system for each skill. One cert will have a single course that contains a one module with the sole purpose of establishing a certification date, completion status, and corresponding 24 month re-cert reminder. We will use this first certification for those employees we need to 'grandfather' into the LMS, based on their existing certifications (obtained before we had Prime). Then we will have a second certification, for the same skill that we will use for new hires so that they get the full training program associated with the skill & course.  Then, 24 months after we've grandfathered existing employees into the system, we will simply assign the full cert to those existing employees who were originally grandfathered into the LMS. Eventually we will be able to do away with that first version used to grandfather certifications.

This method has the added benefit of being able to let new hires work on their certification training at the same time I am working my way through our entire employee list and grandfathering employees in the new certification within Prime. If I used my first method, I'd have to prevent anyone from working on their cert program for the several weeks or months it will take me to complete the audit of our old system.

Prime is young and is still evolving. For a new company just getting started, this is a great program. For a company that is trying to transition from an Excel/Access/ or paper based system, it is proving a challenge to make the transition. If this method seems to be working for us, I will update this thread so that someone else might benefit from the idea.

Peter

[Allen_Partridge]

For those who might be following this thread - Peter and I have continued the conversation and I think that there may be an underlying issue. When updating / editing the course module or the course - updates propogate as expected. But if you try to update the certificate directly - add a course for example, then that update appears to happen in the 'preview as learner' but the certificate curriculum does not appear to update in the view of the actual learner. At least not in the view of a learner already enrolled in that certificate program. We are having a look at it - and i've logged it as a potential bug. Will update this thread when I learn more.

[procompsvc]

Has there been any update. This issue is 9 months old with no update as promised