External Learning

External learning activity is learning that happens outside of Percipio. A site admin can access and import external learning items for all learners. Managers and learning administrators can access and import external learning items only for learners in audiences that they own. Other roles can import external learning if they have the permission.

Access and download external learning

To access external learning activity for your site:

  1. From the left navigation bar, select Learning > External Learning. The External learning page displays showing two tabs.
    • The External Learning tab shows items entered by learners who added their own external learning activity on their Learning Activity page or that you or your Skillsoft account team imported through the bulk import process.
    • The Bulk import tab shows recent imports of external learning you did.
  2. Select Download external learning to get a CSV file of all items.

Bulk import external learning items

If you have many external items to enter at once, you can use the bulk import process:

  1. From the left navigation bar, select Learning > External Learning.
  2. Select Bulk import external learning.
  3. Select Download template.
  4. Open the downloaded template. For each external learning item for each learner add a new row and complete all relevant columns. You must complete the following mandatory columns:
    • When bulk importing, chose one of External User ID, Login Name, or Email address as the unique identifier for the user.
    • Asset title
    • Category type
    • Completion date
    • Total learning hours (seconds)
    • Source name
    • Asset type
    • Status
  5. Save the template as a CSV file. The maximum file size that you can upload is 80 MB.
  6. Select Next check CSV file.
  7. Upload your CSV file and review the preliminary results.
  8. Based on the preliminary results:
    • If less than 80% of the records pass, you won't be able to proceed. Fix any errors and re-upload.
    • When more than 80% of the records pass, select Next: import learning. Only those records that passed will upload. It may take up to 24 hours to see the learning records display on the External learning tab and in the downloaded report.

Bulk update external learning items

If you have many external items to update at once, you can use the bulk import process:

  1. From the left navigation bar, select Learning > External Learning.
  2. Select Download external learning to get a CSV file of all items.
  3. Open the downloaded CSV. For each external learning item that you need to update for each learner, change all relevant columns except the External ID.
  4. Select Bulk import external learning.
  5. Select Next check CSV file.
  6. Upload your CSV file and review the preliminary results.
  7. Based on the preliminary results:
    • If less than 80% of the records pass, you won't be able to proceed. Fix any errors and re-upload.
    • When more than 80% of the records pass, select Next: import learning. Only those records that passed will upload. It may take up to 24 hours to see the learning records display on the External learning tab and in the downloaded report.

Delete external learning

You can delete any individual external learning record you added via bulk import. To delete a record:

  1. From the left navigation bar, select Learning > External Learning.
  2. Locate the record in the list.
  3. From the actions menu on the right, select Delete learning record.
  4. Confirm that you want to delete the record. The table gets updated within 24 hours.

Columns

The following columns are currently available in the CSV template. Items with an asterisk are required when completing the template for bulk import.

  • *EXTERNAL USER ID: The ID used to identify a user inside Percipio. This must be a unique value within an organization. If you do not specify a User ID the system uses the login name by default. If SAML is activated, the SAML ID is used for the User ID. When bulk importing, chose one of External User ID, Login Name, or Email address as the unique identifier for the user.
  • *LOGIN NAME: The value entered in the Login name attribute for the user. When bulk importing, chose one of External User ID, Login Name, or Email address as the unique identifier for the user.
  • First Name: First name of the user.
  • Last Name: Last name of the user.
  • *EMAIL ADDRESS: The value entered in the Email address user attribute; the user's email address. When bulk importing, chose one of External User ID, Login Name, or Email address as the unique identifier for the user.
  • EXTERNAL ASSET ID: A unique identifier for the item added as external learning.
  • *ASSET TITLE: The title of the external learning item as entered by the learner or via the bulk import process.
  • ASSET DESCRIPTION: The description of the external learning item as entered by the learner or via the bulk import process.
  • *SOURCE: The source of the content item. Source is who owns the intellectual property; it is not the platform where the item resides, such as YouTube or SharePoint. Skillsoft uses source to distinguish brands and partner content like Wintellect and GoFluent. If you have the permission to manage content types and source values enabled, you can add new values to this field. If that permission is not enabled, you must pick from existing values for this field.
  • *CATEGORY TYPE: The category type is a universally recognized classification that defines how the content will be consumed by the learner. Skillsoft uses the types: videos, courses, labs, live events, books, audio books, etc. We suggest you use these as a starting point, but also define some of your own such as web articles, presentations, and quarterly meetings. See Working with Content for a complete list of available asset types.
  • ASSET URL: The URL of the external learning item as entered by the learner or via the bulk import process.
  • ASSET LANGUAGE: The language of the external learning item as entered by the learner or via the bulk import process.
  • ASSET CURATION TAG: An historical piece of data from an import that identifies the subject matter.
  • FIRST ACCESS DATE: The first date that the learner accessed the content. When you download the report as a CSV file, this field shows the date and time. Time is formatted in UTC. For example, October 4, 2023 is formatted as 2023-10-04T06:30:00.000Z.
  • LAST ACCESS DATE: The last date that the user accessed the content. When you download the report as a CSV file, this field shows the date and time. Time is formatted in UTC. For example, October 4, 2023 is formatted as 2023-10-04T06:30:00.000Z.
  • *COMPLETION DATE: The date the user completed the external learning. Use the format yyyy-mm-dd.
  • SCORE: The score of the external learning item as entered by the learner or via the bulk import process.
  • TIMES ACCESSED: An historical piece of data from an import showing how many times the learner accessed the piece of content.
  • *TOTAL LEARNING HOURS (SECONDS): The duration (in seconds) of time the user spent within learning assets.
  • INFO URL: An historical piece of data from an import identifying a supporting URL.
  • *ASSET TYPE: The type of asset. Asset types may include courses, videos, books, audiobooks, audio summaries, book summaries, scheduled content, assessment, and linked content. If you have the permission to manage content types and source values enabled, you can add new values to this field. If that permission is not enabled, you must pick from existing values for this field.
  • *STATUS: The completion status of the content. Valid values are case sensitive: Not Started, Started, Completed.

These additional columns are available on the External learning tab:

  • CONTENT TYPE: Equivalent to asset type.
  • CONTENT TITLE: Equivalent to asset title.
  • EXTERNAL LEARNING HOURS: Equivalent to total learning hours (seconds).
  • SELF REPORTED FLAG: Indicates that the learner added the item themselves.
  • ENTRY METHOD: Indicates how the external learning item was added to Percipio either either self reported indicating that the learner entered the item from their Activity page, or imported indicating you added the item via bulk import.
  • CREATED DATE: The date the external learning item was added to Percipio.
  • CREATED BY: The UUID of the person who created the external learning item.

These additional columns are available when you download the external learning report:

  • EXTERNAL LEARNING UUID: A unique identifier for the external learning item generated by Percipo.
  • ORG UUID: A unique identifier for your Percipio site.
  • USER UUID: This is a universally unique identifier that is automatically assigned by the system for each account.
  • ACTUAL DURATION: An historical piece of data from an import showing how long it took for the user to complete the asset.
  • CREATED AT: Equivalent to created date.