Catalog Vs Noncatalog Learning Items
Any item configured in Oracle Learning Cloud and accessible to learners is considered a learning item such as Courses, Offerings, Specialization etc. These learning items are categorized into different buckets known as catalogs, which you can access after following below navigation.
Navigation : My Client Groups » Learning » Learning Catalogs
What that also means is that there is a catalog of courses which learners can browse and enroll in at any time. But consider a scenario where you are interested in learning Social Media Marketing, but you don’t find that course in the course catalog. What can you do now? Oracle Learning Cloud provides you with the option to request a course that is not available in the catalog.
In this article we will go through the steps that you can follow to request a noncatalog learning item.
Employee : Request a Noncatalog Learning
Navigation : Me » Learning » My Learning
After clicking on Learning app ensure you have elected My Learning tab
Click on the Actions button and select option Request Noncatalog Learning. This will take you to Request Learning page. You will see following three sections
- Learning Item Details
- Learning Record Details
- Related Materials
In the Learning Item Details section, enter details as follows
- Title: Social Media Marketing
- URL: <You can provide URL that either gives more information about this course or admin can connect to procure the course such as http://iavinash.com >
- Description: Social Media Marketing is a dynamic and influential digital marketing strategy focused on utilizing social media platforms to connect with target audiences, build brand awareness, drive website traffic, and promote products or services.
- Effort in Hours: 5
- Cost: <If you know the cost of the course you can enter or leave blank>
- Currency: <select currency if you enter cost>
In the Learning Record Details section enter details as follows
- Start on or After : 1st day of the next month.
- Target Completion By : Last day of the current year.
- Justification : In today’s digital age, social media has become a critical marketing channel. Learning social media marketing will equip us with valuable skills to effectively promote our products/services, engage with customers, and stay competitive in the market.
In the Related Materials section, you can optionally attach any document that can provide more information about noncatalog learning item that you are requesting. Once done, scroll up and click on Submit button.
Employee can check the same in in the Learning History tab. Status of the course will be shown as Enrollment Pending as it will go to line manager for approval. If a learning administrator checks the assignment status it will be in Requested status.
Approve Noncatalog Learning Request
Once a noncatalog item is requested it goes to the line manager for approval. Manager can click on the bell notification to approve the request. of they can also follow below navigation
Navigation : My Team » Learning » My Team tab
Click on the filters option and expand filter “Learning Item Type” and select option “Noncatalog Item”
This will bring list of all employees who have requested Noncatalog items. Click on the employee name then system will show all noncatalog items requested by that employee. You will find the item this employee has requested with enrollment status Requested.
Click on the More Actions button (three dots) and click on View Approval Task option, this will open a new tab when you can see course details and approve/reject the request. Let’s assume managers approves the same.
After approval if you search the employee again with same filter options used earlier, you will notice that status is changed to Pending Fulfillment.
We have some other tasks pending from Learning Administrator to make this learning items available for the requester, but as we are already logged in as Learner Manager, let’s also see how a manager can request noncatalog items for their team.
Manager : Request a Noncatalog Learning
Navigation : My Team » Learning » Explore tab
When you are on Explore for My Team page, click on the Request Noncatalog Learning button, which is available at the upper right corner. This will take you to Request Noncatalog Learning for My Team page.
In the Assignment Details section enter details as follows:
- Assignment Type : Voluntary Assignment
- Start on or After : 1st day of the next month.
- Due by : Last day of the year.
- Justification : Email marketing is a proven method for directly engaging with our customers. By mastering this course, our team can better connect with our audience, share valuable content, and build stronger customer relationships.
Click on Continue, which will take you to Learning Items Details section, enter details as follows
- Title: Email Marketing
- URL: <You can provide URL that either gives more information about this course or admin can visit to procure the course such as http://iavinash.com >
- Description: Email Marketing is a specialized course that delves into the strategies and techniques for harnessing the power of email as a marketing tool. Participants will learn how to create compelling email campaigns, build and manage subscriber lists, optimize email content for engagement, and measure campaign success.
- Effort in Hours: 4
- Cost: <If you know the cost of the course you can enter or leave blank>
- Currency: <select currency if you enter cost>
Click on Continue button, which will take you to Select Learners section. You will see your entire team reporting to you. Click on the checkbox against learner you want to assign the course (or select all learners by clicking on the checkbox close to button Add Learners) Once learner(s) are selected click on Add Learners button, a flag “Added” will be displayed against that learner name.
Note : Do select employee who requested Social Media Marketing earlier as we will use them later in this article.
Click on Continue button, which will take you to Selected Learners section. This is more like a review page, where you can verify you have selected right learners. Once satisfied, scroll up and click on Submit button.
This will run a process in the background to assign noncatalog items, wait for the process to complete for all learners.
The learning assignment status for all these learners would be in Requested status as we have seen earlier. Manager of the person who requested noncatalog item for their team need to login and approve. But you don’t have to do that, in the next section of this article we will see how you can bypass approval.
Learning Administrator Verifies Noncatalog Items
Navigation : My Client Groups » Learning » Learners » Learning Assignments
Learning Assignments page sows the assignment status of a learner for a particular learning item. While you are on Learning Assignments page perform following steps to extract all noncatalog items.
- Click on Assignment Status field, which is currently set to Active.
- Change it to All to select all assignment statuses.
- As we already know who has requested for noncatalog items, enter that person name in the Name Filed.
- Click on Search button.
You will see assignment status of that person against all learning items. Hopefully the first two would be noncatalog items we had requested earlier. You can verify it by seeing column Learning Item Type, also these learning items would be non-clickable at this point of time.
- Status of the first item Email Marketing would be in Request status.
- Status of the second item Social Media Marketing would be in Pending Fulfillment status.
However, it is not always true that you will know who has requested noncatalog learning items, therefore you need a way which will bring all noncatalog learning items and not just for a specific person. To get this, follow below steps.
- On Learning Assignments page, click on Advanced button.
- Click on Add Fields button.
- Select Learning Item Type.
- Click on Learning Item Type field and select option Noncatalog Item.
- Ensure Assignment Status field still has value All
- Remove any value from Name or any other fields.
- Click on Search field.
You will now have lost of all noncatalog items requested by different learners with their status.
Learn to Change Assignment Status
- Locate employee who was assigned Email Marketing, by manager and has status Requested.
- While that employee is selected, click on Change Status button
- Select option Bypass and Approve.
- Click OK on the warning message – The selected learning request will be approved.
- Status of the assignment will be changed to Pending Fullfillments.
With this both these items have status Pending Fulfillment.
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
But is this sufficient? Does this mean that employees can go back and see the courses? Course will not magically appear for them, so what is next we have to do? Let’s explore
Configure Course for the Fulfillment
Navigation : My Client Groups » Learning » Learning Catalog » Courses
The next steps for the learning administrator is to configures those courses. You can follow required steps to configure a course and keep following two courses ready (if possible, do configure them as they are used later while configuring specialization.)
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
Once done also attach offerings and activities with these courses.
Make Noncatalog Items Available for Learners
Navigation : My Client Groups » Learning » Learners » Learning Assignments
After configuring learning items, come back to Learning Assignments page and use same filter options described earlier to search noncatalog learning items.
- Click on learning item title Email Marketing.
- Click on Change Status button.
- Select option Activate Assignment. This will open a new page Activate Assignment
On Activate Assignment page, click on Change hyperlink next to Learning Item Email Marketing. This will let you Browse All Learning Items. Search for the learning item (course) Email Marketing you configured earlier, click on Add Item. Once done, click on Activate Assignment button.
You can follow same steps for another learning item Social Media Marketing, but this time search and assign Offering, you have configured for Social Media Marketing.
Verify Noncatalog Learning Assignments
Login as employees who has earlier requested for noncatalog learning items and go to learning history tab. You will find both courses are assigned to employee, just check what is the status of those courses. You will find difference in their assignment status. Do you know why? If you know, let us know in the comment section..
