Admin Use of Interest Lists

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This document explores the rights of LMS Instructors, Administrators and Portal Administrators to use the "Interest List" feature as a managerial and data analysis tool. All pages listed under Interests in the Left Navigation Menu help them to either create interests as a technique for mass enrollment, or review students’ expressed interests to produce useful training insights.

The Interest List feature and its extensive tool set were built into LatitudeLearning® to serve four separate, but interrelated functions.

To allow Portal Administrators to auto-enroll an unlimited number of students by Organization, Course, or User with the Add Interest tool. This option, however, has been largely superseded by the Enroll Others - Batch Enroll functionality, which provides the ability to do unlimited enrollment directly into a course without the added step of interest processing.
Employ the Course Series functionality to bundle multiple courses into a logical chain of predecessor and successor coursework. This feature can serve to auto-enroll students into a series of courses that are set to allow interests and do not require any type of approval or prerequisite course completion. However, when a student enrolls in a course that is part of an established Series, but requires approval or prerequisite training, related courses will automatically pull into the “Interest List” section of the student’s homepage.
The most common reason students will add a course to their “Interest List” is because there is no existing classroom offering available to them. When a user is ineligible or otherwise unable to enroll in a desired course, he or she may express an interest in attending in the future. For more information on the student experience, see related document: Student Use of Interest Lists
Administrators and Instructors can use Interest Lists to analyze student demand for classes and determine when or where they should offer a Classroom course next. Demand forecasting can also assist in identifying the population of learners who are interested in similar training topics, or the areas in which training programs should be expanded based on student interest.

Note: These features can work in different ways based on your course and system settings.

For an overview on configuring courses to allow interest lists or managing approval-required interest requests, please see related document: Manage Approvals for Enrollment, Course Interest, and User Self Registration

MASS ENROLLMENT FEATURE

Add Interest

NOTE: The LMS has been enhanced to allow unlimited enrollment without going through the interest list. The option to use Add Interest for mass enrollment still exists and therefore, still documented below. We recommend using Enroll Others - Batch Enrollment as the preferred unlimited enrollment method moving forward.

For reference while the option still displays on the menu, you can mass enroll others using Add Interests as follows:

From the Left Navigation Menu, select Interests > Add Interest.
Use the dynamic filtering tool to scope enrollment by User, Course, or Organization. Your selection in the “Filter by” field determines the data fields and resulting user lists to which Interest records will be added.
- Filter by User: This option allows you to add interest records for one user in multiple courses at a time. To complete the form, enter a single username or click Select a User to search for and select a single user. Then, click Select Courses to search for and select one or more courses in which you want the user enrolled. Click Continue to run the automated “Interest Eligibility” check.
  
  The next page will inform you of any eligibility conflicts preventing course enrollment, and allows you to select the Location in which the user should complete training. Click Submit to complete the “Add Interest” process with the final course list.
- Filter by Course: If enrolling by course, click Select a Course to search for and select a single course. In the “User” field, enter a list of usernames separated by commas or click Select a User to generate a user list for submission. Click Continue to run the automated “Interest Eligibility” check for each user listed.
  
  The next page will inform you of any eligibility conflicts preventing course enrollment, and allows you to select the Location in which the user should complete training. Click Submit to complete the “Add Interest” process with the final user list.
- Filter by Organization: First, click Select a Course to search for and select a single course. Then use the hierarchical organization filters to select the Organization in which you want to enroll all associated users -- Location, Division, Business Unit, or even the entire Company. Note that you can filter on user Position assignment as well.
  
  Prior to generating interest records, the LMS will show you the target number of users to be enrolled within the selected organization, and ask for final confirmation. Click OK to complete the process. Once confirmed, the LMS will generate all interest records, placing them into the queue for standard eligibility and conflict checking, and eventually processing them.

NOTE: When self-paced learning activities (eLearning, Assessment, Self-Study delivery types) are set to Allow Interest, and instructor-led courses (Classroom, Virtual Classroom) have offerings setup to allow Auto-enrollment, all these processes will result in automated enrollment for fully eligible students. The interest processor for Self-paced courses runs constantly, so auto-enrollment happens as soon as the records move through the queue. For Classroom Offerings, the interest processor runs in an overnight scheduled job, so auto-enrollments are held until that process is completed each day.

Course Settings that Control Add Interest and Auto-Enrollment Behaviors

The Interest List feature can be used in a multitude of ways, based on how you have configured your LMS courses. Here are the important settings that allow “Add Interest” and “Auto-enrollment” processes to function:

Allow Use of Interest Lists: Must be set to Yes. If set to No, administrators will not be allowed to generate interest records for the course.
Auto Enrollment: This setting only applies to Classroom Offering configuration.
o  No Action -- Interest records can be added for the course, but students will not be auto-enrolled in the offering.
o  Auto-Enrollment -- Students can be auto-enrolled in the offering based on their course interest.
o  Notification Only -- Students with expressed interest in a Classroom course will receive an email notification when a new class offering has been created. Users are still expected to enroll themselves in the offering. Note: Another element that is required in order to make Classroom Offerings auto-enroll enabled is to ensure the selected Facility record has Auto-enrollment set.
Approval Required: Because Add Interest is an administrative tool, all approvals are assumed. Even when set to “Yes”, student enrollment will not require approval.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite rules function as a “hard stop” to the enrollment process. Courses with rules applied will be added to the selected user’s interest list, where they will stay until that student meets all prerequisites, and therefore passes an enrollment eligibility check. Only then will the system auto-enroll the user in said course.

LMS Settings that Control Interest and Auto-Enrollment Behaviors

These settings are found under Site Management > LMS Information in the Goals Configuration section.

a) Automate Interests from Certification Goals: Enabling this feature will automatically place all courses from assigned Certification goals (when using a Primary "All Of" Rule) on a student's Interest List. It does not work for Primary rules set to “One Of” or Generic rules using “Not” exceptions.

Before turning on this option, it is important to have a strong understanding of the following aspects of LMS Certification Management functionality:

Interest Lists
Goal Assignment (via manual Set Goal, Goal Rules, or automated Goal Transitions)
Generic and Primary Rules
Position Codes and Position Groups

If you do not thoroughly understand these concepts, enabling this option could create mass enrollment situations with the following issues:

If the course's listed Certification Completion rules do not have prerequisites, this feature could place all courses in the assigned certification goal on the student’s interest list at the same time and lead to auto-enrollment all required courses. Courses on the interest list cause auto-enrollment if there are no impediments such as unmet prerequisites or pending approvals.
The process could enroll ALL of your users in ALL of your courses in the following instances:
1. If you have nested certifications (e.g. one certification is a requirement for another certification), but you still use Goal Transitions and they are not properly set up.
2. If your Position Groups are too broad.

b) Automate Interests from Course Goals: Enable to automatically add interests for Course Goal assignments. This can enable automatic enrollments based on interest list processing if no impediments to enrollment are found, such as a requirement for manager approval or pending prerequisites.

DATA ANALYSIS

To view the distribution of student interests over Courses and Locations, select Interests > Review Interests Summary or Review Interests Graph. Assuming that your LMS Facilities and Locales have been properly managed, both Review Interest tools allow you to query, sort, view details, and print Interest List records with the same search function. The difference is in the results, one being displayed in a Summary format in the other in a Graph.

First, use the radio button to select whether you want search by Facility or Locale.
Then use the linked pickers, drop-down menus, or LMS codes to enter all other search criteria. As always, an asterisk [*] indicates a required field.
Click Search to display results.

Note: When searching by Locale, you must select a Business Unit in order to populate your options in the Training Locale field. See the screenshot below for an example.

If more than one Locale is listed, you must select only one value, highlighting it as your desired search criteria. If you do not select any values from the list, the search process will produce an error, citing “missing” data in the required field. Using the [Ctrl + Click] action to highlight more than one value will also result in a system error.

Review Interests Summary

The Review Interests Summary option allows administrators to filter and look into the details of course interest records. In the search results list, you can sort by clicking on the column headers, or drill into more detailed information by clicking on the Course Title, Interest Counts or Location Counts.

Click Print on any screen to view a printable version of the Review Interest page.

Review Interests Graph

To view distribution of student interests in a graphical format, enter your search criteria by Facility or Locale, and click Search.

Results will open in a new tab, displaying a bar graph with the number of Interests and Locations, per Course. Use the toolbar at the top of this page to Zoom, Print results, or Download as a PDF file.