Overview

Please note the business platform uses the term 'skill', and the academia platform uses the term 'competency'. The terms 'skill' and 'competency' are interchangeable in this article. 

Installing Skills development

1. Click Admin from the primary navigation menu.
   
2. Click App center from the fly-out menu.
   
3. Click Install on the Skills development tile in the Skills development section.
   

Note that the Skills and Mastery app must be installed in order to use the Skills development app. For more information, visit the Mastery article.

Goals dashboard widget

Based on the set up of your platform, the Goals widget also includes a Recommendations tab, which lists recommended courses and groups to learners.

1. Learners can hover over the Why text on a recommended goal tile to see why a particular course or group was recommended to them.
   

As an administrator, if you access a user's Goals tab, you will see multiple options:

1. Click + Add to select a Job or Skills based goal to assign to a user.
   
1. This functionality is covered in greater detail later in this article.
2. Select an existing goal and click Remove to remove a goal for a user.
   
3. Select an existing goal and click Pause to pause a goal for a user.
   

Note that for Academia platform users, the tab will display as the Competencies tab. 

1. Click the drop-down arrow next to the number of skills listed for in a skill set.
   

Note that you can also access this information by clicking the Mastery tab on the profile navigation menu.

Configuring Skills development

To configure Skills development settings:

1. Click Admin from the primary navigation menu.
   
2. Click Skills from the fly-out menu.

Goals tab

The Goals tab allows you to enable two different types of goal. The following goal options are available:

1. Select the Master the skills associated with a particular job checkbox to allow goal setting based on jobs.
   
2. Select the Master a set of skills checkbox to allow goal setting based on a set of skills.
   

1. Click The Scope of each Q&A forum drop-down.
   
2. Select from the following options:
   
1. None: The Q&A forum feature will be disabled for all goals.
   
2. Organization: Each organization gets its own copy of a Q&A forum, and learners in each organization will only see postings from other learners in their organization for a particular goal.
   
3. Business: All users in your business that are a part of the goal will be able to see and respond to postings in the goal's Q&A forum.
   
4. Network: This option only appears if your site is part of a network, and this setting allows all learners in your network to see and respond to postings in a particular goal's Q&A forum.
   

Recommendations

To configure skill recommendation settings:

1. Click Admin from the primary navigation menu.
   
2. Click Skills from the fly-out menu.
   
3. Click the Recommendations tab.
   
4. Select the Courses associated with relevant skills checkbox to turn on course recommendations.
   
5. Select the Groups associated with relevant skills checkbox to turn on group recommendations.
   

The recommendation engine works by following these rules:

By default, the recommendations engine runs every hour and recomputes a user's recommendations based on the latest user data. 

Completion

The Completion tab allows you to set up site-wide automation actions that are triggered when a particular type of goal is reached.

1. Awards: Award badge, Award certificate, Award coupon, Award points.
   
2. Integrations: Webhook, xAPI
   
1. Additional integration options vary based on the set-up of your platform.
   
3. Membership: Add to group, Enroll in course, Remove from group.
   
4. Other: Add tag, Add to-do item, Archive, Remove tag, and Send custom notification.
   

Adding goals for learners

There are two ways to add goals for learners on the platform. Learners can directly add their own goals, or administrators and managers can add goals for learners.

Goals added by learners

1. Locate the Goals widget on their home page dashboard.
   
1. If a learner doesn't currently have any goals, the Goals widget will be located in the general Widgets section of the dashboard, as shown in the screenshot below.

To add a goal, learners:

1. Click the three dot  icon in the upper-right corner of the widget.
   
2. Click Add.
   

The Add goal pop-up displays.

1. Depending on the set-up of your platform, learners can select between Job goals and Skills goals.
   

If learners select Skills, the Use skills from a library pop-up displays. If learners select Job, the Add job pop-up will display.

1. Learners select the skill set(s) they want to set as goals.
   
1. Learners can use the Search bar to quickly locate relevant skill sets.
   
2. If learners select multiple skill sets, each skill set will be added as a separate goal.
2. Learners click Submit.
   

The Goals widget will display as a carousel of goals, with a tile for each active goal.

1. Additional tabs will be available if the learner has paused or completed goals.
   
2. The Recommendations tab will also display if recommendations are enabled on your platform.
   

1. Learners click on a goal tile.

The goal Dashboard displays. The goal dashboard displays all of the skills associated with the skill set.

1. The learner's progress and mastery of each skill is listed, including the number of data points for the skill, the user's rating, and mastery status.
   
2. The Mastered and Ratings widgets in the right panel display charts and details about the user's overall progress toward the goal skill set. 
   

The goal dashboard also provides learners with multiple goal related actions:

1. Learners click Remove goal to remove the goal from their active goal list.
   
2. Learners click Pause goal to pause the goal and remove it from their active goal list. The goal will remain in their paused goal list, so they can re-activate it at a later date.
   
3. Learners can click the Q&A forum button (if enabled) on the goal menu to post or reply to questions regarding the goal.
   
4. Learners can also view recommended courses or groups based on the goal in the Recommendations widget in the right panel. 
   

Enabling managers to add goals

Managers can also add goals to any user they manage, as long as the functionality is enabled. To enable managers to add goals to users they manage:

1. Click Admin from the primary navigation menu.
   
2. Click Policies from the fly-out menu.
   
3. Click the Managers tab.
   
4. Select the Enroll learners into courses and paths checkbox.  
   

Goals added by administrators

Administrators and managers (if enabled) can add goals directly to a learner's profile. To add a goal for a learner:

1. Access the user's profile page.
   
2. Click the Goals tab.
   
3. Click + Add.
   

The Add goal pop-up displays.

1. Depending on the set-up of your platform, select between a Job goal or a Skills goal.

If you select Skills, the Use skills from a library pop-up displays. If you select Job, the Add job pop-up will display.

1. Select the skill set(s) you want to add as a goal for the learner.
   
1. Use the Search bar to quickly locate relevant skill sets.
   
2. If you select multiple skill sets, each skill set will be added as a separate goal.
2. Click Submit.

The skill set will be added to the learner's profile. To view all users who are actively pursuing a skill or job goal, have paused the skill or job goal, or who have completed the skill or job goal:

1. Click a skill or job goal from a user's profile.
   
2. Click the Users tab.  
   
1. Tabs for Active, Paused, and Completed users will display (if applicable).
   

Adding skills to a job

1. Click Users from the primary navigation menu.
   
2. Click Job titles on the fly-out menu. 
   

The Job titles tab displays, with the current list of jobs that have been set up on your platform.

1. Click + Add to add a new job to the list.
   

1. Click an existing job title.
   

The Job page displays. 

1. Click the Skills tab.
   

1. Click the + Add skills button.
   
2. Select the skill set(s) you want to add to the job.
   
3. Click Submit.

Adding skills to a group

1. Access the group.
   
2. Click Admin from the group navigation menu.
   
3. Click Skills from the fly-out menu.

1. Click + Add skills.
   
2. Select New to create new skills or Library to select from existing skills.
   
3. Select the skill set(s) you want to add to the group.
   
4. Click Submit.

Configuring Mastery settings

1. Click Admin from the primary navigation menu.
   
2. Click Mastery from the fly-out menu. 
   

The Default mastery configuration settings display. The default mastery configuration is used for the calculation of mastery values shown in the dashboard Mastery widget and in a learner's profile Mastery area. 

1. Mastery display: Administrators can choose between Numeric display or a Name display. This impacts how skill ratings display to learners.
   
2. Mastery calculation: This setting allows administrators to set how skill mastery ratings are calculated. The available options are:
   
1. Best: If the skill has multiple ratings, the best one is used for the mastery rating.
   
2. Most recent:  If the skill has multiple ratings, the most recent rating is used.
   
3. Average: If the skill has multiple ratings, the average of the ratings is used.
   
4. Decaying average: This option includes all ratings, but weighs recent skill ratings more than previous ones.
   
3. Mastery threshold for a single measurement: This setting allows administrators to set a threshold that must be met for a mastery rating. This setting is disabled by default. If you enable this setting, the following settings becomes available: 
1. Mastery achieved when the following number of measurements meets or exceeds the threshold: This setting is tied to the mastery threshold rating for a single measurement and allows administrators to specify the number of measurements that must meet or pass the threshold before the learner is considered to achieve mastery.
   
1.  In the example shown below, an individual skill is deemed to have been mastered when there have been at least two assessment values of greater than 70% for the skill.
4. Progress calculation: This setting allows you to determine how the total progress towards skill development is calculated.
   
1. Average of competency percentages: This option will set progress as an average of the percentages of each skill in the goal. This means that a goal is only considered completed once all of its skills have reached a 100% rating.
2. Percent of competencies mastered: This options will set progress as the percent of skills in the goal that have been mastered. This means that if 90% of the skills associated with a goal are mastered, the progress towards the entire goal is displayed as "90%", and the goal will be considered completed once all its competencies have been mastered. This is the recommended setting.

1. Click Edit.
   
2. Adjust the settings based on your business or school's standards.
   
3. Click Save.

To learn more about Mastery settings, visit the Mastery article.