What Should I Choose: Custom Channels, Custom Journeys or Assignments?

Sue Orchanian
edited August 6 in Talent Insights
Percipio has so much to offer, sometimes you need to think about which is the best option for what you want to accomplish.  To simplify this, let's understand the available choices.  Percipio offers three options:  custom channels, custom journeys and assignments.  Each one has unique characteristics that, when used appropriately for a given situation, provides the learner with an exceptional user experience.  In addition, it also provides needed reporting and tracking information for the administrator.

When to Use Custom Channels - the best time to use a custom channel is when you want to group content of the same topic together and have it appear in the library hierarchy for learners to discover.  Items in a custom channel can be a combination of both Skillsoft content and custom content.  An important note about custom channels is that they cannot be added to an assignment, and a learner cannot complete a channel.


CUSTOM CHANNEL EXAMPLE:  The Akara company wants to organize together some Skillsoft Customer Service books and courses with some custom courses, links and job aids for easy discovery.  By grouping this collection of content into one custom channel, learners can easily discover relevant content from the Percipio library.


When to Use a Custom Journey - a custom journey is best used when you want to provide a prescribed learning path to upskill or reskill your workers.  A custom journey is considered to be an individual content item which appears in the Percipio library.  It can be made up of many learning content items organized into tracks.  A custom journey is considered completed when all learning content in every track within the journey is finished by the learner.  An administrator is also able to track and report on learner progress in a journey.  Unlike custom channels,  journeys can be added to an assignment.

CUSTOM JOURNEY EXAMPLE:  You want to offer learners within your company who are individual contributors the opportunity for advancement into management.  After talking with some of your new managers, you discover that if they had training in key areas prior to becoming a manager they would have been more effective sooner than they were.  Since this is an upskilling opportunity, you decide to pull all materials together in a custom journey that learners can complete over time to advance in their career.

When to Use an Assignment - Use an assignment when you want a target group of learners to take identified, specific learning within a certain time frame.  A learner will know that they have an assignment since they will see it on their Percipio home page.  An assignment can contain one or many items and can be presented in a prescribed manner.  However, an assignment cannot contain optional items.  All items in an assignment must be finished for the assignment to be marked complete.

ASSIGNMENT EXAMPLE:  After analyzing existing data, the customer service managers at Akara decide they need to improve customer satisfaction scores.  Part of the program they devise is to train representatives on how to handle difficult customers.  They find two courses, two videos, and a TED Talk that they want to assign to all representatives.  They agree all items should be completed within 30 days.

Now that you understand the available choices, you can get started on building an exceptional user experience for your learners.  For more information about when to use a custom channel, custom journey or assignment, click here.

Comments

  • Tiffany
    Tiffany
    GUIDE
    Second Anniversary Name Dropper First Comment
    edited August 2021
    Thanks Sue! Great overview.
  • Julie Parsons
    Julie Parsons
    EXPLORER
    edited October 2021
    What a great post! Starting to work with custom content and our teams now in Percipio - very helpful! thank you!
  • Sue Orchanian
    edited October 2021
    @Julie Parsons  I'm so glad you found this helpful.  I have posted other blogs that you might want to take a look at too.  You might find them interesting as well.