EKP 6.0 New Features Summary - training.easa.europa.eu · EKP 6.0 New Features 4 EKP 6.0 New...

EKP 6.0 New Features Summary

8 Feb 2010

Version 1.0

EKP 6.0 New Features 2

Table of Contents

EKP 6.0 New Features Summary ....................................................................... 1

EKP 6.0 Release Overview ................................................................................. 3

EKP 6.0 New Features Summary ....................................................................... 4

Key New Functionality ....................................................................................... 6 Feature: User Groups ......................................................................................................... 6 Feature: Module Attributes Enhancements ...................................................................... 12 Feature: Drag and Drop Question Type............................................................................ 15 Feature: Rich Text Editor in the Question Editor .............................................................. 17 Feature: Quick Poll on the Home Page ............................................................................ 18 Feature: Organization-Based Scheduled Distributed Reporting ....................................... 20 Feature: Daily Attendance Reporting ................................................................................ 21

General Enhancements .................................................................................... 22 iCalendar Links in Knowledge Center ............................................................................... 22 Program-associated Courses Listings .............................................................................. 23 Exam Search Function ...................................................................................................... 24 Titles for Each Course Session ......................................................................................... 25 Ability to See Multiple Sessions/locations in R212 and R219 .......................................... 26 Ability to Switch Off KnowledgeCenter for Individual Courses ......................................... 26 Ability to Email Users Who Have Indicated Course Interest ............................................. 27 New Report R412 – Indicated Interest List ....................................................................... 27 New Report R601 – Certificate Awards Due to Expire ..................................................... 28 New Report R602 – Participants Not Certified ................................................................. 29 Extra Details added to Report R112 ................................................................................. 29 PDF Payment Receipts ..................................................................................................... 30 Enhanced Learning Program Billing ................................................................................. 32 System Configuration Option to Check/Remind Students of Missing Exam Answers ..... 33 System Configuration Option to Enforce Approval For External Training Records .......... 34 System Configuration Option to Hide Course Interactions Display in Transcript ............. 34 System Configuration Option to Provide iCalendar Attachments for Multiple Sessions ... 34 System Configuration Option to Add Course Description to iCalendar Enrollment Notification ........................................................................................................................ 34


EKP 6.0 Release Overview

The Enterprise Knowledge Platform Release 6.0 has as its primary goal more visual reporting

and simplified user interactions, but also includes a number of other specific customer-

requested improvements.

The purpose of this document is to provide a summary-level introduction to the key

enhancements. This guide is not a tutorial, although a brief bit of background explanation is

provided for each of the features discussed here so that you can better appreciate how this

might impact your organization. As a compliment to this introduction, we will be providing

Adobe Captivate-based courses on the NetDimensions WIKI to walk users through these

new features, so please check the support site for additional information.


EKP 6.0 New Features Summary

Key New Functionality � User Groups

� Module Attributes Enhancements

� Drag and Drop Question Type

� Rich Text Editor in the Question Editor

� Quick Poll for the Home Page

� Organization-Based Scheduled Distributed Reporting (in Follow-up to Initial Release)

� Daily Attendance Sheet for Multi-day Classroom Training (in Follow-up to Initial

Release)

General Improvements � iCalendar Links in Knowledge Center

� Program-associated Courses Listings

� Exam Search Function

� Titles for Each Course Session

� Ability to See Multiple Sessions/locations in R212 and R219

� Ability to Switch Off KnowledgeCenter for Individual Courses

� Ability to Email Users Have Indicated Course Interest

� New Report R412 – Indicated Interest List

� New Report R601 – Certificate Awards Due to Expire


� New Report R602 – Participants Not Certified

� Extra Details added to Report R112

� PDF Payment Receipts

� Enhanced Learning Program Billing

� Catalog Assignment CSV Loader

� Option to Check/Remind Students of Missing Exam Answers

� Option to Enforce Approval For External Training Records

� Option to Hide Course Interactions Display in Transcript

� Option to Provide iCalendar Attachments for Multiple Sessions

� Option to Add Course Description to iCalendar Enrollment Notification


Key New Functionality

Feature: User Groups

A User Group, as name suggests, is just a group of users who may have some common goals

or attributes. Classification of users into groups provides extra flexibility apart from roles,

organization and custom user attributes in selecting a user or users for various purposes.

For example you may want to select a group of users for auto enrollment or for permissions

management.

Supported User Group Functionality

In EKP 6.0 you can:

• Create a user group by selecting users directly or by selecting users based on their

role, organization and user attributes;

• Edit a user group;

• Narrow down on user/users selection based on user group using the User Selector

window;

• Narrow down on user/users who have permissions using Permissions Selector

window;

• Auto/ group enroll based on user groups;

• Control access to roles that can create a user group;

Role Access Control

Access control for roles now has a new option called "User Groups" under the "User

Manager Feature" section. You can navigate to this screen by clicking on "Manage>>User

Manager>>Role Access Control" and select the role you wish to update. Following is a

sample screen shot.


Here are the implications of each setting option:

Selection Implication

Unrestricted Provided "User Manager" and "Manage Menu" options do not

have "No Access" selected, the users in this role will be able to

create, update and delete user groups and control permissions

and memberships of a user group

Read Only Provided "User Manager" and "Manage Menu" options do not

have "No Access" selected, the users in this role will be able view

the list of user groups and their memberships. They will not be

able to view the permissions of a user group

No Access No Access

Creating User Groups

Assuming a user role has unrestricted access, they are able to create new user groups by

navigating to the "User Groups" screen via "Manage>>User Manager" links and clicking on

the "Create New User Group" button. Editing of a group is initiated by clicking on the

group name.


Configuring Automatic Refreshing of User Groups

EKP allows you to create user groups based on certain criteria like organizations, roles and

user attribute. This means that the system should re-evaluate when any of this property of

the user changes. For example the system should re-evaluate if the user should be in a

particular user group if the user switches organization or role.

To achieve this functionality EKP runs a scheduled batch job that re-evaluates memberships

of all the user groups. The frequency of this batch job can be controlled from the System

Configuration screen as shown below.


User Group Selector

The User Group Selector is a new selector component that can assist in searching available

user groups and selecting one or many user groups (based on the use context constraints).

User Selector

The User selector has been modified to allow narrowing the user search based on user

groups.


Permission Selector

The Permission Selector has been modified in order to grant permissions based on group

membership.

Auto Enrollments

Auto Enrollment can now be applied to a user group.


Feature: Module Attributes Enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to the Module Attributes functionality within

EKP to provide greater control to over how they may be presented to users and

administrators in key parts of the system, especially in training records, transcript printing,

and course descriptions.

Firstly, a module attribute can now be explicitly defined as implementing one of four

particular data types:

� Free-text - the default existing type with which any value may be input

� Drop-down - the existing type where there is a fixed set of values for the module

attribute

� Numeric - a new type where only numbers may be input for the module attribute on

the learning object, e.g. 5, 3.15, -5.4

� Checkbox - a new type where the user simply checks or un-checks the checkbox as a

way of setting the module attribute on a learning object

A module attribute may be changed from one type to another, with the following

restrictions and consequences:

Changing from Drop-down to Free Text

The drop-down attribute value on the learning object will be changed to the drop-down

value code as free text. The possible module attribute values configured for the former

drop-down module attribute will be deleted.

Changing from Drop-down to Numeric

Not Allowed

Changing from Drop-down to Checkbox


Not Allowed

Changing from Free Text to Drop-down

Existing Free Text values on learning objects will be used to generate a set of possible

module attribute values for the new drop-down module attribute.

Changing from Free Text to Numeric

All Free Text values on learning objects will be checked to make sure they are either blank

or numeric values before the change is allowed to take place.

Changing from Free Text to Checkbox

Not Allowed

Changing from Numeric to Free-Text

The numeric values on learning objects will become Free Text

Changing from Numeric to Drop-down

Not Allowed

Changing from Numeric to Checkbox

Not Allowed

Changing from Checkbox to Free-Text

Not Allowed

Changing from Checkbox to Numeric

Not Allowed

Changing from Checkbox to Drop-down

Not Allowed


A module attribute can be configured to display in one or more of these locations:

• Course Description - i.e. in the catalog course description

• Records/Transcripts - i.e. when viewing records and transcripts

• Enrolled Learning Modules - i.e. when viewing Enrolled Modules

• Print Records/Transcript Report - i.e. when viewing or printing individual training

records

For a numeric module attribute, it's possible to specify whether it ought to be summed up

during transcript printing,

To make the module attributes more flexible in a multi-lingual site, there is an optional

Label Key property which can be used to help provide different display text for each module

attribute depending on the user's language. For example, if the Label Key is set to

'moduleattr.cle_hours', then EKP will look in the appropriate custom.properties resource

bundle file for a translation. This 'Label Key' property exists both on the module attribute

and on each drop-down value, if the attribute is of the drop-down type. If the label is not

found, it displays as is on the screen.


Feature: Drag and Drop Question Type

This new question type allows users to create an interactive question.

Setting up the question

Creating a Drag and Drop question is performed in the Question Editor as illustrated in the

screen snapshots below.

Select images from Repository Manager for the background and draggables


Define area of correct answer for each draggables (Click on "Edit Hot Area" -> Click on the

background image and drag out the hot area -> Click "Set Hot Area" to record the selected

area)

Reviewing the question

A draggable is marked as correct if it is...

A draggable is marked as wrong if ...


Feature: Rich Text Editor in the Question Editor

To allow users to set up an exam question that includes basic HTML formatting, a WYSIWYG

editor has been introduced into the Question Editor. To use this, it is first necessary to

enable the WYSIWYG editor through System Configuration. Under the General section,

there is a new option called 'Enable WYSIWYG Editor'. Once the option is checked, you

should be able to see the WYSIWYG editor when editing an exam question.

The following actions can be carried out on the exam question's text: bold, italics, underline

and strike-through. The text can have a different font or font size. Its foreground and

background colors can be changed. Bullet points and lists can also be used. Finally, by

clicking on the HTML icon, you can see the underlying HTML behind the formatted text.

Be aware that if the WYSIWYG editor is enabled, then the content of the main question text

could end up with HTML tags even if no editing has been carried out on the field. The act of

saving the question details will cause the WYSIWYG editor to convert the text to HTML

automatically.


Feature: Quick Poll on the Home Page

EKP now provides the ability to attach a poll to a news article. A poll is simply a survey type

exam containing one multiple choice question. This type of question can be useful gauging

informal opinions from the users.

The poll will be displayed as part of the news article and once the user has answered the

multiple choice question the current poll results are displayed immediately in the form of a

bar chart.

Set-up

On the news article set-up screen, an exam of type 'survey' must be selected and the 'Poll'

checkbox should be checked. The survey must have exactly one section, containing exactly

one question. The question type of the one question must be Multiple Choice. There must

be at least 2 choices set up, allowing for just one answer. There does not need to be a

correct answer as this is a poll. Since the news article's purpose is to deliver a simple poll,


the fields 'Picture URL', 'File Attachment URL', 'Teaser', 'Text' and 'Replace new lines...' will

not be used. No news text will be displayed.

Responding to a Poll

Once set-up correctly, the poll will appear on the Home Page under News. It will not appear

under Career Development. Each user can respond to the poll once only. The current poll

result will be displayed to users who have responded to the poll. The poll result on the

Home Page displays percentages only. The number of responses per question choice can be

viewed via the R304 report. The news article which is associated with the poll will not

appear on the login page or in other places where news articles are expected to appear.


Feature: Organization-Based Scheduled Distributed Reporting

NOTE: This feature will be released in the first update to EKP 6.0, and is not enabled in the

initial release.

This feature involves a number of new capabilities that facilitate bulk organization-oriented

compliance reporting, including:

New properties for each organization/department. Specifically, you can now assign:

A specific manager for the department/organization unit;

A list of report recipients for the department/organization unit;

The ability to schedule a compliance report which has as its arguments the department

names and compliance requirements (e.g. a Learning Program name, for example). Initially,

the compliance report information will include percentage complete data for individual

staff, although the plan is to add other (selectable) metrics as future enhancements.

EKP will AUTOMATICALLY setup scheduled reports that will:

Run the compliance report for all organization units specified (which may hundreds);

Execute the report for the designated manager for each organization unit; the report will

only include information specific to the staff within the department;

Email the report(s) to the relevant recipient list associated with each organization unit at

the designated schedule setting.

The purpose of this mechanism is to enable organizations that require frequent status

review of critical compliance information by department managers to setup a defined status

delivery process ONCE and have it executed on a mass scale with minimal administrative

effort.

Current EKP handling of a similar reporting requirement would require individual setup and

scheduling (plus on-going administration) of each report for each organization unit

manager, which is very tedious administratively – the new process will enable EKP to do the

tedious work automatically in a single step.


Feature: Daily Attendance Reporting

NOTE: This feature will be released in the first update to EKP 6.0, and is not enabled in the

initial release.

Currently, EKP manages attendance at the course level. For some organizations it is

important to track attendance at the day-to-day level, as well as audit who marks

attendance for each student, as there are regulatory requirements or government re-

imbursements or credits dependent upon such detailed information.

This new mechanism caters to this requirement with new screens to mark attendance at

the individual daily session level, as well as provides new reporting to show the captured

information.


General Enhancements

There are numerous routine enhancements to EKP which are not mentioned (general page

layout improvements, consistency, additional information shown, etc.) which are not

covered in this document. For the more notable general enhancements, a brief description

is provided for each item.

iCalendar Links in Knowledge Center

iCalendar links are now listed in the Knowledge Center. These behave in the same way as

the links which appear in the Catalog Description page for a course, allowing iCalendar files

to be downloaded.


Program-associated Courses Listings

When editing a course it is often useful to be aware of which Learning Programs will be

affected.

A new feature allows this information to be easily viewed and filtered for a particular

session of the course through the "Associated Programs Listing".


Exam Search Function

Exams can now be searched with both keywords and exam pool in Exam Manager.


Titles for Each Course Session

In the past sessions were identified by their date/time and location. This lead to situations

where it was confusing which session should be selected as the date could be "To be

determined" and the location could be "Various" for multiple sessions.

A session title is now introduced so that an administrator can specify a title which is then

used when selecting the session to assign to a Learning Program and when selecting a

session using the Module/Session Selector. The title is currently not used in other locations,

but could be added in the future.


Ability to See Multiple Sessions/locations in R212 and R219

In the report R212 - Instructor Resource Usage Report, sub-sessions will now be listed

separately so that different sub-session times and venues may be displayed.

In the report R219 - Payment Advice for Each Participant Based on a Specific Learning

Module/Session, the times and venue for each sub-session is now displayed.

Ability to Switch Off KnowledgeCenter for Individual Courses

Previously, it was only possible to disable the Knowledge Center at a system level. A new

option has been added to the Catalog Editor so that the Knowledge Center may be switched

off on an individual course basis. This is useful for courses for which the Knowledge Center

is not relevant. The new option can be found under Knowledge Center Setup:


Ability to Email Users Who Have Indicated Course Interest

Users have been able indicate an interest in taking a course but there was no easy way to

contact the group to inform them that, for example, a session has been scheduled and they

should enroll. As of 6.0, there is now a link on the Indicated Interest List page that allows

the course administrator to quickly e-mail the whole group with any news regarding the

course in which they have indicated an interest.

New Report R412 – Indicated Interest List

Previously, course administrators would have to open the Indicated Interest List for a

specific course in the Catalog Editor to see if any users had indicated an interest in the

course. As of 6.0, administrators can run a report to list users who have indicated an

interest in any course with the option of specifying a time range and/or limiting the report

to certain courses. A sample report screen shot is shown on the next page:


New Report R601 – Certificate Awards Due to Expire


New Report R602 – Participants Not Certified

Extra Details added to Report R112

This report has been enhanced to allow a number of competencies to be included in the

report and some additional user information columns have also been added.


PDF Payment Receipts

Administrators can now print a PDF receipt for successful payment transactions in Manage

> Payment Manager > Payment History

Below is a sample pdf document produced - the header and footer images are located in

nd/fresco/images/background/invoiceheader.jpg and

nd/fresco/images/background/invoicefooter.jpg respectively and can be replaced with

customized images.


Enhanced Learning Program Billing

For a learning program, new functionality has been added so that rather than charging the

learner the cost specified on the program itself, an additional option has been added to bill

each program module. Once the user has enrolled in one of the program modules, there

will be a separate transaction in the learner's accounts history for each module within the

learning program that has a cost.

Within Cost Information at the program session level (not module properties), if the Charge

Procedure is set to 'Charged Per Registration' then the Program Cost Calculation setting

becomes editable. By default, it is set to 'Use amount specified above'.

If 'Use total cost of modules in program session' is selected, then the learner will be charged

the individual program modules' cost amount (if set). Each module enrollment will create an

account transaction. Additionally, there will be an account transaction for the learning

program itself although the associated cost will be zero.


System Configuration Option to Check/Remind Students of Missing Exam

Answers

When a learner is attempting an exam, there is now the ability to remind the learner to

answer all questions or to enforce all questions to be answered.

A new option called "Check for missing answer(s) before continuing to next page" can be

found in the section "Exams" category within System Configuration.

The default value for this option is "Allow user to skip question(s)".

When the option "All question(s) on page must be answered" is selected and an answer has

not been supplied by the learner, there will be an error message "All question(s) must be

answered before proceeding to the next page" and the learner will not be able to advance

to the next page.

When the option "Allow user to skip question(s)" is selected and an answer has not been

supplied, there will be a warning message "There are unanswered questions on this page.

Do you want to continue?" together with an "OK" and a "Cancel" button. By pressing

"Cancel", the learner stays on the same page while by pressing "OK", the learner moves

onto the next question.

Note that when an exam is in 'Frame Navigation' mode, the checking of missing answers will

be done prior to the test result summary page, upon clicking the 'End Exam' button.

Additionally, there is checking when previewing the exam.


System Configuration Option to Enforce Approval For External Training

Records

By default, users are allowed to add their own external training records entries to the

transcript. If this option, entitled “Enforce Approval for External Training Records Creation

and Updates” in the Records/Transcripts configuration category is enabled, new entries and

updates must go through a manager approval process.

System Configuration Option to Hide Course Interactions Display in

Transcript

Some organizations find the additional “Interactions” detail reported by SCORM courses

and typically displayed in the user’s training records tab to be undesirable, either because it

causes confusion for non-technical audiences or, in the case of courses that implement

exams, shows information regarding question answers the user should not see. With this

option, the interactions information is not shown to the user. The information is still

maintained in the database and may be reported upon.

NOTE: This option has been moved back to EKP 5.6 for some clients.

System Configuration Option to Provide iCalendar Attachments for Multiple

Sessions

The System Configuration >> Mail option entitled “Deliver iCalendar Notifications as Email

Attachment(s)” allows course with multiple sub-sessions to be properly handled with

iCalendar attachments. If on, a single text MIME type email with multiple iCal attachments

is sent. If off, a single email is sent as a Calendar MIME type with one single date range

within the message.

NOTE: This option has been moved back to EKP 5.6 for some clients.

System Configuration Option to Add Course Description to iCalendar

Enrollment Notification

The System Configuration >> Mail option entitled “Add Course Description To iCalendar

Attachment” causes the course description to be added to enrollment notification emails,

thus enabling this information to be inserted into the user’s calendar appointment entry. By

default, this option is OFF.

EKP 6.0 New Features Summary - training.easa.europa.eu · EKP 6.0 New Features 4 EKP 6.0 New...

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