Learn - Repeat training with Accreditations 101

Mandatory learning, such as GDPR, Fire Safety, or Anti-bribery training, often has to be repeated to keep everyone's knowledge and skills up to date and ensure the organisation stays safe and legal - and that's where Accreditations come in. 

In this article, we'll explain how Accreditations work, and guide you through the process of creating and managing Accreditations in Learn LMS.

We'll explain how Accreditations work then walk through the end-to-end steps to set up repeat training:

• Create a Course, assign to your people
• Create the Accreditation, link to Lesson(s) and Group(s)
• Set up Accreditation expiry reminders
• Report learner compliance

How Accreditations work

The key detail here is that Accreditations are linked to Lessons, so in the below steps, you'll learn how to set up an Accreditation so that learners have to repeat a Lesson every X days/Months/Years.

Lessons with an Accreditation attached are assigned to learners just like any other Lesson - they are assigned to a Course, and the Course is assigned to your Groups of Users. Learners will complete the Course as normal, and it will move to 'Courses I've done'.

However, when the Accreditation expires, the Course containing the Lesson will move from 'Courses I've done' back to 'Courses I have to do'. A repeat symbol will show on the Course card to indicate that one or more Lessons within the Course need to be repeated.  

That cycle is repeated for as long as the learner has to repeat the learning.

Take a look at the User/Manager view of Accreditations to see how your people will see Accreditations.

Create a Course, and assign it to your people 

Before creating an Accreditation that ensures learning is repeated, you need to create a Course, 
assign the Lesson that needs to be repeated to the Course, and share the Course as either mandatory or optional learning.

Let's imagine you're interested in setting up an Accreditation for a mandatory 'Fire warden' Course. There would probably be a Group called 'Fire wardens'. All your Fire wardens would be a member of this Group, and the Fire wardens Course would be assigned to that Group. 

Follow the steps below to create and assign a Course as mandatory for a Group:

1. Create a Course
2. Assign Lesson(s) to the Course
3. Assign the Course to Groups of Users

When the above steps are complete, the 'Fire Warden' Course will appear in 'Courses I have to do' for everyone in the 'Fire Wardens' Group. It will remain there until all the Lessons are completed, at which point it will move to 'Courses I've done'.  

Here's how that would look:

Create the Accreditation, link to Lesson(s) and Group(s) 

Now let's assume that those Fire Wardens need to repeat the training every X years. That means you'll need to create an Accreditation and link to it the learning that must be completed in order to achieve the Accreditation, and the people who have to achieve and repeat the learning.

Follow the steps below:

1. Create the Accreditation
2. Specify the Lesson(s) that must be completed in order to achieve the Accreditation*
3. Specify the Group(s) of Users who must complete and repeat the learning**

*The Lesson that must be repeated in this example will be the Lesson in the 'Fire wardens' Course
**The Group of Users who must complete and repeat the learning will be the Fire Wardens Group - the same one that the Course is assigned to. 

The above steps are covered in Create an Accreditation for repeat training. 

Here's how that would look:

Note that if a user is removed from the Fire Wardens Group, they will no longer be assigned the Accreditation and will not be prompted to repeat the learning.

To set up Accredited learning for multi-lesson Courses so that only specific Lessons are repeated, view the article 'Setting accreditations/repeat learning in multi-lesson Courses'.

Set up Accreditation expiry reminders

Expiry reminders are optional, but recommended. If configured, you can choose when they are sent to Users and their Manager. You may wish to schedule expiry reminders to be sent at the same time the Course moves from 'Courses I've done', back to 'Courses I have to do' (as specified in the 'Tell learners' field, populated when the Accreditation is created).

There are two email templates for Accreditation expiry reminders:

• CheckAccreditationsTargetUser: Sent to a User when an accreditation is about to expire
• CheckAccreditations: Sent to a manager or notification Group when an accreditation is about to expire

It's possible to edit an email template and switch on/off an email template if it is not required. For full detail about notifications, view Notifications and Messages 101. 

Report learner compliance

You'll likely need reports to track/forecast future compliance rates. Here's how.

If you're using all-new reporting and analytics with Power BI

Take a look at the Learning Progress report:

• See how your people are progressing against their course assignments
• View learning progress for mandatory or elective learning assignments - or both
• See the 'big picture' of training that must be completed each month for the coming year

View the Accreditation analysis report:

• See a breakdown of completion progress for continuous and fixed accreditations
• See the ‘big picture’ of accreditations that will expire each month for the coming year
• Follow a ‘one-click’ route to see Users with a status of complete, expired, not started or suspended

If you're using Business Objects

There are two Accreditation reports to consider:

• 'Accreditations detail report' - shows the complete details for all accreditation attempts
• 'Accreditations trajectory' - shows a timeline trajectory of how many accreditations are due to be regained by users on a month-by-month basis

Check out our other 101 articles

• LMS roles and responsibilities
• Build and share learning
• Accreditations
• Instructor-led training
• Notifications and messages
• Continuous Personal Development (CPD)

Get deeper learning in The Academy

View 'Repeat training with Accreditations' for information on how to use Accreditations to set learning to repeat with whatever frequency you need. 

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