Skills and skill level sets: create, manage, and delete

Introduction

Offering the option of creating courses and training plans with a skill-based approach, the skills framework in LMS365 is an additional way, besides certificates, to reward learners after they've completed a course or training plan. Also, the skills framework can be used to track which skills learners have acquired.

Upon course or training plan completion, users will be awarded one or more relevant skills of a certain level. Users will see which skills can be achieved by completing a course or training plan. The learning responsible, on the other hand, can use the LMS365 Skills Framework to estimate users' current skills and plan their further development.

In this article, we provide you with an overview of the skills and skill level sets features. We'll cover the prerequisites to employ the LMS365 Skills Framework, how to create and manage skills and skill level sets, and how to filter and search for skills.

 

 

How skills and skill level sets work

Required role: catalog admin. Course admins can configure skills for the course as well but after the course is created.

When creating or editing a course or training plan, you can enable the Skill option to award users one or more skills of a certain level when they've completed the training. 

Here is an example of how skills and skill level sets can work in practice:

Your organization starts to use LMS365. To train all employees in using the platform, you create a course called "Introduction to LMS365". For this course, you create and use the skill "LMS365 User" and scale the skill level as "Beginner". Upon completion of this course, users will be awarded the skill "LMS365 User \ Beginner".

Next, you need a certain group of employees to learn how to create and manage training in LMS365. You enroll this group of employees in the course "Creating and managing trainings in LMS365" and award users the same skill "LMS365 User" for completing the course but set the skill level as "Advanced". Upon completion of this course, users will be awarded the skill "LMS365 User \ Advanced".

 

 

You can configure skills achieved by completing a course or training plan to be valid for a certain period of time. You can also revoke the skills users have achieved.

Consult this guide for more details on how to configure skills for courses, and this guide to see how skills are configured for training plans. 

 

Manage skills

Required role: catalog admin.

Skills are set on a course catalog level.

To manage skills, navigate to the LMS365 Admin Center. On the left-side panel, under the Skills Framework, select Manage Skills. 

 

 

 

Create a skill

Required role: catalog admin.

To create and add a new skill to a catalog, follow these steps:

1. In the LMS Admins Center, go to Catalog settings > Skills Framework.

2. Choose Manage Skills and select Add skill. The Add skill panel opens.

 

 

3. Fill in the fields in the Add skill panel.

• Name. The field is required. Specify the name of the skill that the user will receive. The skill name is displayed on the training plan page under Skills and on My training Dashboard under the Certificates and Skills section.

   

  
  
  

• Skill Level Set. From the drop-down list, select a skill level set, and hereby what different levels you'd like to be available for the skill. The Default skill level set is selected automatically. This skill level set includes the levels: Unassigned, Poor, Below Average, Average, Above Average, and Outstanding.
  If you'd like to add a different skill level set with different levels, either select it from the drop-down list or create a new one in the Skill Level Set section.
  
  
• The Categories and Tags fields are optional. You can add categories and tags for improved search among other skills.

   

  

 

4. Select Save to add a new skill to the catalog. Find more information about how to award users a skill upon completing a training via the Skill option enabled in this link.

 

Sort and search for skills

Required role: catalog admin.

On the Manage Skills page, you can:

• Sort skills using order by Name. Per default, skills are ordered alphabetically by name.
  
• In the Search field, type in the skill name, category, or tag to filter skills accordingly.
  
• Select the view (eye) icon to see a list of courses and training plans that use the skill.

   

  

 

If the skill doesn't have an eye icon, it can be due to the following reasons:

• The skill isn't used in training or isn't awarded to a user.
• The skill was in use by a course or training plan and was awarded to a user, but the training was deleted. In this case, you can track the received skill with the training from the user's transcript.
• The skill was awarded to a user by a catalog admin without this user being enrolled in specific training.

 

Delete a skill from a catalog

To delete a skill from a catalog:

1. Navigate to the LMS365 Admin Center > Catalog settings > Skills Framework > Manage Skills. 

2. Select the relevant skill > from the Edit Skill panel, under Actions select Delete Skill.

3. In the confirmation dialog window, select OK to proceed with the action or Cancel to cancel the action.

 

 

Remove a skill from training

If you decide to stop awarding users a skill upon completion of a course or training plan, you can remove the skill from the training.

There are two ways to remove a skill from a course or training plan.

 

a) While editing the training, you can remove a skill from it:

1. In the Training Management of the LMS365 Admin Center, select the relevant training.

2. From the Course/Training Plan Management panel, select Manage Course/Training Plan Settings.

3. From the Setting section, in the Skills field of the Skill option, delete the skills you want to remove using the cross icon next to the relevant skills. If the removed skill was the only skill in the course or training plan, you need to select another skill to be able to save the changes as the Skills field is required and can't be left empty. To completely remove the Skill option from the course or training plan, toggle the Skill option Off and save the changes.

 

 

b) From the Skills Framework in the LMS365 Admin Center, you can remove a skill from several courses and/or training plans at once:

1. In the LMS365 Admins Center, go to the Skills Framework section > Manage Skills.

2. On the Manage Skills page, select the eye icon next to the relevant skill to see all training this skill is used in.

3. Select the cross icon near the courses and/or training plans you want to remove the skill from.

 

 

4. In the confirmation dialog window, select OK to remove the skill or Cancel to cancel the action.

As soon as you remove the skill from the training, learners won't be awarded it anymore upon training completion, even if the user was enrolled in the training with a Not started or In progress training, when the skill was removed from the course.

However, the previously granted skills of this training remain unchanged in the user's records.

 

Award and revoke skills

When you create or edit training, you can configure skills settings, including setting a fixed date, or a certain amount of time after completion of the course or training plan, in which the skill will be revoked. Is the Skill option is enabled, the skill is automatically awarded to users who has completed this training.

Additionally, you can award and revoke skills to/from specific users in the following ways:

 

From the Users page

Required role: catalog admin.

• • You can award skills to a user even if the user isn't enrolled in a training that awards this skill.
  • You can revoke skills from users.
  • From the View Learner's Progress, you can manually complete a course or training plan for a user. This user will automatically be awarded a skill if the training has the Skill option enabled. 
  • From the View Learner's Progress, you can manually delete a learner's training progress. The skills awarded for this training will change status from Valid to Planned.

 

From the Line Manager Dashboard

Required role: line manager.

• • You can award skills to a user even if the user isn't enrolled in a course or training plan that awards this skill.
  • You can revoke skills of users.
    
    

From the Course/Training Plan Progress panel

Required role: catalog admin or course admin.

• If you manually complete a course or training plan for a user, this user will automatically be awarded one or more skills if this training has the Skill option enabled.
• If you manually delete a learner's training progress, the skills awarded for this training will change status from Valid to Planned.

 

Manage skill level sets

Add a skill level set

Required role: catalog admin.

Skill level sets are sets of levels that are used to define the degree of skills that can be achieved by users- for example: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Each skill will have a specific skill level set attached that will define at which levels this skill can be acquired. 

In the LMS365 Admin Center, you can add, edit, and delete skill level sets.

You can add multiple skill level sets to a catalog. However, there can only be one Default skill level set. The default skill level set will be used for all skills, unless a different skill level set is selected by the admin. 

To add a new skill level set to a catalog, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the LMS365 Admin Center. 

2. From the left-side panel, under Catalog settings > Skills Framework, select Manage Skill Level Sets. 

3. Choose Add skill level set and complete the fields on the Add skill level set panel.

• Name. Enter the name of the skill level set. This name will only be visible in the LMS365 Admin Center while catalog and course admins are creating or managing skill level sets or adding a skill level set to a skill. This field is required.
  
  
• Is Default. Define if the skill level set should be the default one in a catalog. Toggle it to the On position to set the skill level set as the default skill level set. There can only be one default skill level set in a catalog.
  The skill level set with the Is Default toggle enabled is marked with Yes in the Default column on the Manage Skill Level Sets page and is used as a default one for the current catalog until changed.
  
  
• Levels. Define the number of the levels and the names of the levels for the skill level set. To add a new level, select Add level. To delete an extra level, select the cross icon near the relevant field.
  By default, there are three levels per skill level set. The minimum number of levels in a skill level set is one.
  Provide a name to each level of the skill level set. For example, you decide to have three levels in a skill level set: beginner, middle, advanced, and expert. Enter these names in the fields.
  

  The level name goes along with the skill name and is visible to learners and admins. Learners will see it on course and training plan home pages, for training that awards a skill with this skill level set, and on My Training Dashboard under the Certificates and Skills section.

   

  
  
  

  To define the order of the levels in the set, drag them in the required order. The same order of the levels will be displayed when selecting the skill level along with the skill.

  When a catalog or course admin is applying the skill and its levels during course or training plan creation or editing, the skill levels will be displayed in the defined order of the skill level set.

 

4. Save the created skill level set. To discard and close the window, select the close icon at the top right corner.

 

Edit a skill level set

Required role: catalog admin.

To edit a skill level set, follow these steps:

1. Go to the LMS365 Admin Center > Catalog settings > Skills Framework > Manage Skill Level Sets. 

2. From the Manage Skill Level Sets page, select the skill level set you want to edit.

3. From the Edit skill level set panel, introduce the required changes in the relevant fields: change the skill level set name or the level names, add new levels, or delete existing ones, reorder the levels.

 

 

Delete a skill level set

Required role: catalog admin.

To delete a skill level set, follow these steps:

1. Go to the LMS365 Admin Center > Catalog settings > Skills Framework > Manage Skill Level Sets. 

2. From the Manage Skill Level Sets page, select the skill level set you want to delete.

3. On the Edit skill level set panel, under Actions, select Delete skill level set.

In the confirmation dialogue box, select OK to continue the process. Select Cancel to cancel the deletion.

 

 

Track and report on skills

How admins can see users' skills

LMS365 allows both admins and learners to keep track of skills and their status.

Reports on skills can track and downloaded by admins in multiple ways:

1. In the LMS365 Admin Center, via the Users page Microsoft 365 global admin and catalog admin can:

• Track a specific user's skills and download the report in a PDF file by going to the LMS365 Admin Center > Users > select the relevant user> and View Learner's Transcript. Find more information on viewing a user’s transcript here.

• Filter users according to their achieved skills and download the result. For more information, see this guide on how to filter users on the Users page.

2. From the Line Manager Dashboard, line managers can:

• Track a specific user's skills and download the report in a PDF file. Find more information in this guide.
• Filter users according to the skills they've achieved and download the result. Find more information in this guide.

 

How users can see their skills

Users can see their planned, valid, and revoked skills in multiple ways:

1. From My Training Dashboard:

• In the Overview section.
• In the Certificates and Skills section.
• In the Transcript section.

2. On course and training plan home pages, users will see the skills awarded by the course or training plan in question in the Skills section. If users have already completed the course or training plan, they'll see the skills they've achieved when they completed the training.

3. On the course catalog page, they can search for and filter training according to the skills the training awarded on completion.