Training - Activity Offerings

Owned by Seth Petry-Johnson
Last updated: Dec 08, 2022
13 min read

Introduces the "Activity Offerings" module and how it can be used to manage “self-proctored exams”, which are examinations that the credentialing program delivers itself rather than partnering with a partner like PSI or Prometric.

Curriculum index: Training Curriculum

Last updated: Oct 18, 2022 for 11.0.12

Overview

This module introduces the Activity Offerings feature and demonstrates how to configure it.

If you are a Heuristics employee, you should go through training in your local development environment or in a personalized training instance so that you can reset to a known, clean starting point as needed.

If you are referencing the public training site at http://training.learningbuilder.com, you may run into discrepancies caused by an outdated starting point, or because of changes made by other users. Please contact us for assistance if that website does not match this documentation.

You may want to periodically refer back to the product docs at Activity Offerings during this module.

Setting the stage…

The TRAINING system features the American Society of Office Dogs (ASOD), a credentialing program that awards specialty credentials to canines with a demonstrated ability to behave in an office environment.

As part of the Office Dog certification process, good boys and girls are asked to demonstrate their competence at tasks like sitting, staying, and not grabbing food off of people’s desks.

These are not tasks that can be easily assessed by computer based testing, so the ASOD cannot partner with organizations such as PSI or Prometric to perform these assessments. Human candidates need to be evaluated in human spaces, and doggos need to be evaluated in doggo spaces.

Therefore, the ASOD has decided to “self-proctor” their exams. They will hold “obedience evaluations” on a set schedule, and would-be Office Dogs will sign up for a specific examination as part of their credential application process.

Business rules for this scenario

  1. The ASOD will publish specific dates, times, and locations of their examinations.

  2. Obedience examinations will be delivered by a Proctor working for the ASOD. At the end of each examination, the proctor will submit an attendance report.

  3. To submit the Certified Office Dog application, applicants must register for, complete, and pass an obedience examination.

Definition of terms

Term

Definition

Term

Definition

Exam Window

The ASOD will offer a series of examinations every quarter. They refer to this as the “window”, e.g. “take your exam within the Spring window”.

Exam Sitting

This refers to a specific examination date within a window. For instance, the ASOD might offer sittings on the 1st Saturday of the month.

Exam Activity

Each exam window will be represented by a unique Activity Definition in LearningBuilder. See below for more details.

Exam Offering

Each exam sitting will be represented by an Activity Offering in LearningBuilder. See below for more deatils.

Step 1: Create a Provider Role to “own” the offerings

In LearningBuilder, each “offering” is owned by a Provider. Conceptually, the Provider is the organization that is responsible for “delivering” the offering to Practitioners.

In this example, the American Society of Office Dogs is going to self-proctor its own examinations. This means that the ASOD needs to have a Provider Role.

1

Create a new Role

As an Admin, go to Admin → Roles and create a new “Obedience Exam Provider” Role.
Note: you may have to use the admin@heuristics.net account ; Arlene Admin will not work for this

  • Role Type = “Member”

  • Member Type = “Organization” (this Role is assigned to the organization that delivers the offerings)

  • Status List = “Practitioner Status” (largely irrelevant for this module)

You can leave everything else at defaults, or make reasonable selections for required fields.

Creating a new Role to own the Offerings
2

Assign the Grant Role and Edit Role Workflows

The Role Workflows aren’t important for this scenario, so you can reuse existing Workflow definitions.

You don’t need to create new WFs for this training. Just use ones that already exist.

To reuse an existing Workflow, go to Admin → Workflows and edit the Role - Generic: Grant” Workflow, and then associate it with the new Role.

Do the same thing for the “Role - Generic: Edit” Role too.

3

Assign the necessary Offering permissions

Go to Admin → Roles → Permissions and grant the following permissions:

4

Grant this new Role to the “American Society of Office Dogs” user account

In this scenario, the ASOD is the only organization that will offer the obedience examinations, so it’s the only organization that needs the new Role.

Use Admin → Members to search for asod@example.com and then grant it the Exam Provider Role.

Step 2: Create an Activity representing the exam window

In an Offerings implementation, there must be at least one Activity Definition that represents the “thing that will be offered”. In this scenario, that “thing” is an obedience examination.

Lots of different use cases exist, but for this scenario we are assuming that the ASOD will create a unique Activity Definition per “exam window” that they will hold.

First, we need to create a new Activity Type, and then we will create an Activity Definition for the first of those exam windows.

1

Create a new Create Offering Workflow

Go to Admin → Workflows and create a new Create Offering Workflow.

This will be used when the ASOD adds a specific instance (or offering) of an obedience examination.

This Workflow defines the data that will be collected when the ASOD creates a new examination offering. Configure a data entry Step as shown below.

Don’t forget to mark the Workflow as “enabled” when you’re done!

2

Create a new Activity Type

As an Admin, go to Admin → Activities → Activity Types and create a new Activity Type.

  • Title: “Obedience Examination”

  • Create Activity Workflow: Leave this blank for now

  • Complete Activity: Choose “Generic Activity Type” (this Activity will never get added directly to a Practitioner’s Learning Plan, so it doesn’t really matter what you pick)

In the “Offerings” section, configure the following:

  • Offerings can be created by…: Choose the new “Obedience Exam Provider” Role you created

  • Seat assignment procedure: Choose the default option

  • Offerings can be owned by: “Only the Organization that owns the Activity”

  • Create Offering Workflow: Choose the new Workflow you just created

3

Create a new Create Activity Workflow

Go to Admin → Workflows and create a new Create Activity Workflow. This will be used when the ASOD creates the Activity that represents the examination itself.

Link this Workflow to the newly created Activity Type.

Create a simple data entry Step to collect information about the examination, as shown below:

Don’t forget to mark the Workflow as “enabled” when you’re done!

4

Create the new Exam Activity

Log in as the American Society of Office Dogs and go to Provider → Activities

Create a new Activity as shown below.

  • Activity Type: Select the newly created “Obedience Examination” type

  • Activity Name: “Obedience Examination - Summer 2023”

Fill out the Create Activity Workflow and publish the new Activity.

Step 3: Create Offerings (exam sittings)

We now have an Activity Definition representing an exam window. The next step is to create one or more Offerings that represent the specific dates and times that the examinations will be held.

1

Manage Offerings from the Activity List page

Log in as the American Society of Office Dogs and go to Provider → Activities.

Filter the list by Activity Type and you should see the Activity we just created in the prior step.

If the Activity Type supports Offerings, there will be a column called Offerings that shows the number of Offerings that have been created for that activity.

2

Create a new Offering

None exist yet, so click on that link (circled above) to go to the Manage Offerings page for the “Obedience Examination - Summer 2023” Activity.

Click the “Add Offering” button and give it a title like “Ohio (Summer 2023)”. Then fill out the Create Offering Workflow as shown:

3

Create more Offerings (optional)

If you want, you can create more Offerings as well. If you want to do the bare minimum, you can move on with just the one.

Step 4: Allow applicants to sign up for an exam sitting

We now have an Activity representing the exam window, and an Activity Offering representing an exam sitting on a specific date/time.

But how do people (or doggos) actually sign up for a sitting? That’s where the Seat Assignment attribute comes into play. It allows a Learning Plan Instance or Activity Instance to “request” one of the “seats” in the Offering.

We will be setting up this scenario:

To implement this we will need an Activity Definition to control the process by which an applicant signs up and takes an exam.

1

Create a new Activity Type

Go to Admin → Activities → Activity Types and create a new Activity Type

  • Title: “Take Obedience Exam”

  • Create Activity Workflow: Leave blank, will create this next

  • Complete Activity Workflow: Leave blank, will create this next

2

Create a new Create Activity Workflow

Create a new Create Activity Workflow for the new Activity Type.

 

3

Add an “Activity Filter” to the Create Activity Workflow

You can configure the Create Activity however you want, but it must contain an Activity Filter Attribute.

4

Create a new Complete Activity Workflow

You will also need to create a Complete Activity Workflow that controls how the Applicant will sign up for a specific exam sitting.

 

5

Add a “Seat Assignment” to the Complete Activity Workflow

As part of the Complete Activity Workflow, we will want the applicant to choose a specific exam sitting (Offering) that they want to attend.

The Seat Assignment Attribute is designed for that purpose. It will display a list of available Offerings and allow the applicant to choose a specific one.

To do that, add a Seat Assignment Attribute to a Workflow Step and configure it as shown:

6

Create a new “Take Obedience Exam” Activity

Create a new Activity of the new type you just created, owned by the ASOD Provider.

Configure the “Activity Filter” like this:

  • Restrict by Activity Type: Choose the Activity Type representing the exam itself, e.g. the one you created in Step 2 of this document

  • Restrict by Activity Date: For now, do not filter by date

Step 5: Modify the Office Dog application to require an examination

We’ve now set up an Activity that represents taking an exam and configured a Seat Assignment Attribute on it.

The next step is to modify a Learning Plan to actually use this new Activity. This is where everything finally comes together in a UI!

1

Add a new Task Group to hold the exam Activities

Go to Admin → Credentials → Certified Office Dog → Certified Office Dog Application and create a new Task Group for the examination.

  • Title: “Obedience Exam”

  • Allow Practitioners to add Activities: No

  • Allow Others to add Activities: Yes

  • Completion Requirements: Complete Any 1 Activity

2

Add a pre-added exam task

Add a pre-added Activity to the Learning Plan representing the exam sitting.

Step 6: Try it out!

We’re now ready to see the fruits of all of your labor pay off!

1

Start a new Office Dog application

Log in as a user that does not have an in-progress Office Dog application and then start a new Office Dog application. You should see a placeholder for the exam sitting.

2

Schedule an exam sitting

Click the “Schedule Exam” button to launch the Complete Activity Workflow for the “Take Obedience Exam” Activity.

This Workflow contains the Seat Assignment attribute, which looks like this:

Make a selection and submit the Workflow popup.

3

View the Offering as the ASOD

Log back in as the ASOD provider account (asod@example.com) and go to Provider → Activity Offerings.

Here you will see a list of all Offerings linked to the ASOD account, as well as a summary of their capacity. You should see at least 1 confirmed seat based on the selection you just made as an applicant.

Click on the “eyeball” icon and you’ll see a list of all attendees for a specific Offering.

Step 7: Allow proctors to report exam results

  1. Allow Proctors to report results

  2. Add a Step to the Create Offering Workflow so that Proctors can submit some final summary data before closing out the Offering