This article discusses programs in QA. In enterprise accounts, administrators and team managers can assign programs to teams and individual members.

This document contains the following sections:

What are Programs

Programs automate the process of assigning training to your team members. Programs are one of the Skills Readiness Solution Tools and you can use them by themselves or together with job roles to optimize your training automation.

Step 1: Training goal

When you create a program, you choose the training goal. The training goal determines how the system assigns the training content. For example, your program might automatically assign training to everyone with a given job role or it might assign onboarding training whenever a new member joins a team.

As long as the program is running, it continues to assign training to members who match the criteria you set up.

The training due date depends on the duration of the training content and the date the program assigned it to the member. For example, you could create a program to assign a one-week training to all members of the Backend Developers team. As soon as you create the program, it assigns the training to everyone on the team with a due date of one week from today. If new people join the Backend Developers team a month later, the program also assigns the training to them with a due date of one week after they joined the team.

Depending on the training goal, you can choose the content to assign or you can choose Smart Skills to train and let the program choose the content automatically. In this case, you choose the number of stars you want your team members to score on the Smart Skill once they complete the program. You get more time-savings from creating a program that chooses content automatically.

Step 2: Skills and content

After you've configured the program goal, you choose whether to base the training content on Smart Skills or choose content from the training library.

For skills-based programs, you choose one or more Smart Skills you want to train, as well as the level of proficiency you want your members to have in that skill by the time they complete the program. If you choose the Training for a Job Role goal, the Smart Skills and proficiency level come from the job role you set up. See Career Paths and Job Roles for more information.

For content-based programs, on the other hand, you choose content from the training library to assign. Everyone assigned this program completes the same training without the opportunity to customize the level of difficulty based on the members' current skill level.

That's why skills-based programs offer more opportunities for time savings: When you create a skills-based program, the platform first administers a Smart Assessment to the members. The members' performance on the Smart Assessment indicates whether they can skip some of the beginning-level content on the way to achieving the level of proficiency you indicated.

The training content related to Smart Skills is available only through skills-based programs. You cannot find this content in the training library to assign through other means. You cannot assign custom content using a skills-based program.

A skills-based program cannot train on custom-skills that you create when you set up your job roles. You must train custom skills using content-based programs.

Step 3: Additional Settings

When the platform assigns a program to a team member, it chooses the due date based on the assignment date. That means that multiple team members who are assigned the same program may have different due dates if their start dates were different. A single team member can have multiple programs assigned at the same time.

Training Goals Details

The training goal that you choose for a program is the most important choice in how the program behaves. The choices are:

Team Onboarding
Team Training
Company Onboarding
Training for a Job Role
Custom Smart Rule

The goal you choose determines how the system assigns the program, as described in the following sections.

Company Onboarding Program

When you choose Company Onboarding as the training goal for a program, the system automatically assigns the program to a member as soon as they join your QA account.

Note: At this time, the platform does not have a way to differentiate new employees who join your account from long-time employees who join your account.

Training for a Job Role Program

When you choose Training for a Job Role as the training goal for a program, the system assigns your program to each user who has been assigned the job role that you specify. Note that this type of program contains training for people with this job role and not for people working toward this job role. This type of program can be useful for assigning training to everyone who performs a certain role, such as training about new additions to an existing platform.

Team Onboarding Program

When you choose Team Onboarding as the training goal for a program, the system automatically assigns the program to a member as soon as they join a team. As the name suggests, a program with this training goal is useful for teaching new members of a team the basics of working on that team, such as standard procedures, introductions to the tools you use, and references for whom to contact for help.

Team Training Program

When you choose Team Training as the training goal for a program, the system assigns the training to the existing members of the team. As long as the program runs, the platform also assigns the training to anyone who joins the program going forward.

Custom Goal Program

When you choose Custom Goal as the training goal for a program, you simply assign the program content to individuals.

How to Create a Program

Use the following steps to create a program. You must be an administrator to complete this procedure.

From the dashboard, click the building icon in the top toolbar. Choose the Training tab, and then Programs.

The Programs screen appears.
Click Create new Program.
The Define your training goal screen appears.
Choose the training goal. The steps that follow depend on which training goal you choose:
- Company Onboarding: Enter the title of the program.
- Team Training: Select one or more teams. Enter the title of the program.
  The platform will assign the program to all current members of the team as well as anyone who joins the team going forward. Note: The platform does not automatically assign the training to members of subteams. Click the arrow next to the team name if you want to select subteams.
- Team Onboarding: Select one or more teams.Enter the title of the program.
  The platform will automatically assign the program to anyone who joins this team going forward. Note: The platform does not automatically assign the training to members of subteams. Click the arrow next to the team name if you want to select subteams.
- Training for a job role: Select the job role. Enter the title of the program.
  The platform will automatically assign the program to anyone who is assigned this job role as well as future members who are assigned this job role. Note: If you choose this option, the platform can automatically select content in the next step. See Using Programs with Careers.
- Custom goal: Enter the title of the program.
Click Continue.
The Define the content screen appears.
Click Select from the Content Library and choose one or more pieces of training. Click the Update program content button to close the training window.
Click Continue.
The Additional settings screen appears.
Choose how long you want your team members to work on this program each week. Alternatively, you can click the Fixed Duration tab to choose how long the team members have to finish the material.
(Optional) You can click Advanced settings to access the Expiration date field. If you select an expiration date, the platform archives the program after that date.
Review the information you input for the program, and click Confirm and Deploy.

How to Update a Program

You cannot update the content of a program after you deploy it. If you need to change the content of a program, you must delete the program and create a new one. However, you can use the following steps to update a program's title, description, and duration. You must be an administrator to perform this procedure.

From the Programs screen, click the name of the program you want to change.
The View Program screen appears.
Click the button with the three dots on the right side of the screen. Select Edit Program from the menu that appears.
The Edit Program screen appears.
Update the values you want to change and click Save.
The platform updates the program for every member currently assigned the program as well as new assignments of the program going forward.

How to Duplicate a Program

You can duplicate a program to assign the same training content as part of a program with a different goal. You can duplicate archives programs, which includes programs where the expiration date has passed.

To duplicate a program, open the program and click the button with the three dots near the top-right part of the screen. Choose Duplicate program from the menu that appears.

How to Delete a Program

If you want to stop the platform from assigning a program to members who meet the assignment criteria, you must delete the program. Deleting the program removes it from all members' assignments. If you want to change the content of a program, you must delete it and create a new program.

Use the following steps to delete a program. You must be an admin to perform this procedure.

From the Programs screen, select the check box next to the name of the program you want to delete.
A Delete option appears above the list of programs.
Click Delete.

You can also delete a program from the View Program screen. Open the program you want to delete and click the button with the three dots. Select Delete Program from the menu that appears.