Which to use: Custom Channel, Journey, Assignment, or Learning Program?

Percipio offers four options with comparable ways to provide content and guide learners: custom channels, custom journeys, assignments and learning programs. Each one has unique characteristics that, when used appropriately for your situation, makes the learner experience the best it can be and provides easy reporting and tracking for the administrator. See a detailed description of each, along with a business example, to help you decide which one to use.

Detailed Descriptions and Examples

Use a custom channel when you want to group content of the same topic together and have it appear in the library for learners to discover. Items in a custom channel can be a combination of both Skillsoft content and custom content. You cannot add channels to an assignment and a learner cannot complete a channel. Administrators cannot track completion against a channel.

Example: The Akara company wants to organize together some Skillsoft Customer Service books and courses with some custom courses, links, and job aids for easy discovery. By grouping this selected content into one custom channel, learners can easily discover relevant customer service content from the Percipio library. In addition, managers can easily find and choose relevant content for employees who need improvement in that topic area.

Use a custom journey when you want to provide a prescribed learning path to onboard, upskill, or reskill your workers. Choose how your learners experience the custom journey, in the Simple or Classic style. A custom journey is considered an individual content item appearing in the Percipio library. A journey can comprise many learning content items organized into tracks, where each track represents a milestone for the learner. A learner completes a journey by finishing all learning content in every track within the journey. You can track and report on learner progress in a journey. Journeys can be added to an assignment.

Example: You want to offer learners within your company who are individual contributors the opportunity for advancement into management. After talking with some of your new managers, you discover that if they had training in key areas prior to becoming a manager, they would have been more effective sooner than they were. Because this is an upskilling opportunity, you decide to pull all materials together in a custom journey that learners can complete over time to advance their career:
  • Before you Begin Your Manager Journey: Optional content consisting of a video message from a senior manager, a description of the program, and a self assessment.
  • Required content: One track containing coaching content; a second track containing information on budgeting; a third track containing content on managing difficult people, and fourth track containing content on proprietary systems at your company.
  • Supporting Resources: Optional content containing some manager books, quick start guides on proprietary systems, and company policies.

Use an assignment when you want a specific group of learners to take a particular learning within a specified time frame. A learner sees an assignment on their Percipio home page. An assignment can contain one or many items and be presented in a prescribed manner. An assignment cannot contain optional items. All items in an assignment must be finished in order for the assignment to be complete. Journeys can be added as a content item to an assignment. Administrators can track progress of an assignment.

Example: After analyzing existing data, the customer service managers at Akara decide they need to improve customer satisfaction scores. Part of the program they devise is to train representatives on how to handle difficult customers. They find two courses, two videos, and a TED Talk that they want to assign to all representatives. They agree all items should be completed within 30 days.

Use a learning program when you want a group of learners called a cohort to move through a learning experience together. Learning programs give you the opportunity to use a fixed set of content for multiple cohorts. Each cohort can have a different due date or no due date at all. You can require learners to take a learning program, invite them to join if they want, or allow them to discover it on their own and self enroll. You can add any type of content to a learning program, except a channel, and provide a link to a collaboration space such as MS Teams or Slack so learners can collaborate and learn together.

You can track the progress of each cohort separately through the learning program and send customized notifications to each cohort.

Example: You want to set up a program so employees who have a strong potential for leadership are cultivated for future roles. Every quarter, you will ask your current management team to nominate one to two individuals from their departments who would be a good fit for the program. Nominations will be reviewed and 10 employees will be chosen to complete the program that quarter. Each quarter will see a new set of employees, called a cohort, be invited to join the program. Each employee within the cohort can choose to enroll in the program or defer it to a future quarter. Each cohort will have its own collaboration space with instructions and discussion questions for completing all the content in the learning program. Each cohort will have 90 days to complete the program and you will report progress back to the employees' managers.

Quick Glance

Consider the following conditions to determine which solution is best for your current situation.

Condition Custom channel Custom journey Assignment Learning programs
Records or tracks completion   X X X
Allows changes to content after publishing X

X

How changes impact learners

   
Allows reporting on learners who have not completed content   X* X X
Allows targeted audience selection X X X X
Allows for learner self discovery (search or browse library) X X   X
Allows optional content X X X** X**
Prescribes content to learners   X X X
Allows a due date   X* X X
Allows for no due date X X   X
Allows a different due date for different groups of users       X
Can require learners to take content in a particular order   X X X
Can require learners to restart a course they already took it in order to complete     X  
Offers email notification reminders     X X
Allows learners to earn a badge   X    
Allows learners to earn a completion certificate   X   X
Allows learners to rate it X X    
Allows learners to provide feedback via a survey       X

* You can add a custom journey to an assignment or learning program to force a due date and allow for tracking.

**If you add a custom journey that has optional content to an assignment or learning program, the learner does not have to complete the optional content to achieve a completion.