Configurable Training Cycles
Why this change
Previously, your training cycle was calculated based on the renewal period of your subscription. A 12-month subscription starting on January 1 resulted in a training cycle from January 1 to December 31, which could not be changed.
This had two consequences: When your subscription renewed, the current cycle ended, a new one was created, every assigned learner was assigned again and received – usually without prior warning – a notification about the training assignment. And since settings always applied to the currently running cycle, you could not prepare the next one in advance.
We know that this caused significant additional effort, especially for organizations with fixed requirements for conducting and communicating mandatory training. With the new training cycles, we have fundamentally changed this system behavior.
What has changed
- Training cycles are no longer tied to your contract term. You create them and set the start and end dates yourself.
- Subscription renewal no longer creates an automatic training cycle, does not reassign anyone, and sends nothing to your learners.
- A training / course can have more than one cycle, so you can set up a future cycle at any time while the current one is still running.
- Each training cycle receives a name chosen by you, which also appears in reports.
- You decide whether learners receive enrollment notifications and automatic reminders. Both can be completely disabled.
- Auto-Reminder intervals can be freely selected for each cycle, and you can send manual reminders to participants in a cycle who have not yet completed the course at any time yourself.
- The due date is no longer calculated separately and rigidly based on the invitation date, but is always based on the end of the respective cycle.
What you can now decide for yourself
If you want to | What to do |
|---|---|
Keep training communication entirely in your internal channels (no emails from LMS+) | Switch off enrolment notifications and auto-reminders for the cycle. Either can be changed at any point, before or during the cycle. |
Conduct training according to your own compliance calendar instead of contract dates | Set whatever start and end dates suit you. They do not need to line up with your subscription term. |
Prepare the training for next year / your next training round right now | Create the next cycle in advance. It remains as ‘Planned’ until the start date and will not be displayed to enrolled learners until then. |
Run separate cycles of the same training for different groups simultaneously, consecutively, or overlapping | Create multiple cycles for the same training. (A learner can only be in one active cycle per training and not in multiple ones simultaneously.) |
Follow up with learners who have not yet completed at any time | Deside the Automatic-Reminder use the ‘Send reminder’ function in the running cycle. The message only goes to participants who have not yet completed the course. |
What happens to your existing training cycles?
Each of your running training cycles was restored exactly as it was – same term, same learners, same progress. Nothing has changed and nothing was sent to your learners. Therefore, you do not need to do anything.
For a cycle that has already started, the start date remains fixed. However, the end date can now be adjusted forward or backward by you, but not to a date before today.
Next steps
When a training cycle ends, participants without course completion lose access to the training in that cycle – just like before. However, you can then assign a new cycle of the same training to these participants at any time.
What is new is that no new cycle appears automatically. Therefore, create the next cycle before the current one ends. This is possible at any time – you no longer have to wait until the current cycle is almost over.
You can now reconfigure currently running cycles according to your needs: assign your own name, adjust the end date, redesign reminder options.
Creating a training cycle
- Go to Courses and open the All training cycles tab.
- Select Create cycle.
- Choose the course.
- Give the cycle a name. A clear, unique name makes it easier to find in reports later.
- Set the start date. If enrollment notifications are active, they will be sent on this day.
- Set the end date. This replaces the due date, and enrolled learners can no longer open the course as of this date. Certificates and training records remain intact.
- Choose whether learners should receive enrollment notifications.
- Choose whether learners should receive auto-reminders and if so set the reminder interval.
- Select Create cycle.
Then assign the learners to the cycle via the Learners section, just like before. Creating a cycle and assigning learners are separate steps; therefore, a new cycle shows no learners until you add them.
You can adjust your cycles at any time and also delete planned (not yet started) cycles again.
Important to know
- Training cycles no longer repeat automatically. Each cycle is created by you.
- A training cycle applies only to one course. If you conduct three different courses, you also create three cycles, one for each respective course.
- A learner can only be in one active training cycle per course at a time. If you try to assign someone who is already in another active cycle for this training, you will receive a message.
- There is no limit to the number of cycles for a training.
- A started cycle cannot be deleted so that your training history is preserved. To end a cycle prematurely, simply bring the end date forward.
- Enrollment notifications are sent on the start date of the cycle at 08:00 UTC. Anyone assigned afterwards receives the notification immediately upon assignment.
- As long as the enrollment notification is disabled, learners assigned during this period receive nothing. Re-enabling it does not send anything retroactively.
- Manual reminders via the ‘Send reminder’ button can be sent once per hour and cycle.
- Your cycle start and end dates do not have to fall within your contract term. If a subscription becomes inactive, access to the trainings ends, but already created training records and certificates remain intact as before.
Questions
If anything is unclear or if you need help planning your next cycle, please contact our Service Team directly.