I’ve been working with Sally to create a new implementation plan. She and the director have been working on a strategic plan for this LMS.
During this entire process, we’ve learned that trying to administer reporting groups in SkillPort is awkward. Particularly with some of the challenges we have with our enterprise system, ever-changing organizational structure, and conflicting projects.
I had a chance to talk to JoAnne and Nancy at Cornell University. They abandoned their groups within SkillPort and are working to incorporate the information from SkillPort into another LMS. Right now, they are limiting their reporting to the university level. We would like to release reporting to the managers..eventually. Thank you JoAnne and Nancy for your help and information.
From the above information, and from looking at our requirements, we may be better off exporting the information available SkillPort into a DataMart and allowing the managers to report from there. It appears that this may take care of some issues that popped up:
– Security was none too keen that ANYTHING went over into SkillPort beyond an ID and an encrypted password (what we currently have now). Especially since it is hosted rather than owned by us.
– The group administration was too awkward and too manual.
– The I…. M…. project (drink!)is going to take YEARS. We just don’t have that long.
Advantages to this new approach:
– Since the information from the enterprise system we wanted put into SkillPort (such as position codes, group structure, etc) is ALREADY in our DataMart – we wouldn’t have to figure out how to put our enterprise information into a system we have no control over.
– The DataMart already contains some systems that will allow us to run reports on the actual BUSINESS impact of our training. Something SkillPort just isn’t designed to do (and I’m not entirely convinced it should be).
– We would only have to train the managers once on a system some of them are already familiar with.
– The initial research regarding what needs to happen to create the DataMart has already been done.
The challenges:
– Getting the SkillPort information into our DataMart. The head of DataMarts and I have already started the preliminary investigation. His initial impression… “Shouldn’t be too hard.”
– Creating the “right” reports to start with. This is going to require the same level of collaboration that our attempt at group creation in SkillPort has created.
– Making sure we have a good support infrastructure. There is already some training available, but the Data team is understaffed. And we would probably want to put together some reports and specific training for the management. The training and support will require some political discussions regarding who will be responsible for what and making sure everything stays coordinated. Thankfully, I currently have a decent working relationship with the DataMarts trainer. I’d like to keep it that way.
– We are not sure whether we are going to be able to limit manager access to their individual teams. This is where I need to go back and investigate more closely how the DataMart actually works. I’ve been trained on it before, but only needed the information to refer students to the class. I’ve never actually needed to use the tool. Revisiting basic training when your needs change is always a good thing.
The more I look at this and talk to people, the more this strategy makes sense. DataMarts is designed for reporting. And it has a lot of information we already need in the system. The trick will be getting on the schedule and putting it all together.
Wish us luck, we may need it.
Leave a Reply