Target skills and skill gap

Introduction

LMS admins can use the target skill and skill gap features to define target skills for their organization. Line managers can assess their subordinates’ proficiency in these skills, and monitor their progress toward defined targets from the Line Manager Dashboard. Learners will benefit from a detailed overview of their current and target skill proficiency in My Training Dashboard, as well as a radar chart, which visually represents their upskilling roadmap.

This article describes how to enable the Target skill and skill gap feature in the Learn365 Admin Center, and how to create target skills for learners and monitor learners’ skill gaps.

For information about the user administration actions available on the Line Manager Dashboard, see this article. For information about team skill proficiency, see this article.

 

Enable the target skills and skill gap features

 

To enable the Target skill and skill gap features, go to the Learn365 Admin Center > LMS Configuration > Global Settings > Skills framework features, and set the Target skills and skill gap toggle to On.

 

 

When the toggle is On, LMS admins will be able to define target skills, line managers will be able to view their subordinates’ skill proficiency and skill gaps on the Line Manager Dashboard, and learners will see their skill overview and chart under My Training Dashboard.

 

 

Define the target skill rules

As an LMS admin, you can use target skill rules to set criteria that will define learners’ target skills and skill levels.

You can make the target skills global by defining target skill rules for all users in your organization. You can also define target skill rules for specific groups of users, based on users’ properties as defined in the Learn365 Admin Center. The following properties are currently supported:

• Job title
• Department
• Company
• City
• Office
• Country

Depending on your configuration, the values for the properties are taken from either Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory) or from a specified custom source. To learn more about the columns on Users page, see this article. To learn how to edit the display columns on the Users page, see this article.

To manage target skill rules, go to the Learn365 Admin Center > Global Settings > Skills framework > Target skill rules. The Target skill rules page opens. By default, the rules are sorted alphabetically by Title. You can also sort the rules by the Global or Skills columns.

Here, you can add target skill rules, or edit or delete existing ones.

To add a target rule:

1. Select Add target skill rule. The Add target skill rule panel opens.

 

 

2. Add a Title for the target skill, for example Project Manager.

3. If you want to make this target skill global, that is to say you want to define it for all users in your organization, set the Global toggle to On. When you set this toggle to On, both the Criterion and Equals fields will be grayed out. If you've selected this option, continue to step 7 below.

 

 

4. To define target skill rules for a specific group of users, select an option from both the Criterion and the Equals drop-down menus.

 

5. If you want to add another criterion, select Add criterion.

6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you’ve defined all the relevant criteria.

 

 

7. Select Add skills. The Add skills panel opens.

8. On the Add skills panel, complete the fields:

• Filter by catalog. Select a catalog from the drop-down list to see the skills and categories associated with it.
• Filter by categories. This field will be present if at least one skill within the catalog has an associated category. Leave the field blank if you'd like to see all the skills within the catalogs. Enter one or more categories to filter the skills. If you enter more than one category, such as "Management" and "Communication", courses that have either the Management or Communication category associated with it will be shown.
• The Select skills field is required. Select the required skills from the drop-down list. The skills are arranged alphabetically and follow the skill name / level format. Enter the first few characters of a skill name to filter the list.

 

9. When you've selected all the relevant skills, select Add to return to the Add target skill rule panel, where the skills and levels you've selected will be displayed. Select Clear or choose another catalog to start over.

 

10. To change the skill level, select another one from the drop-down menu.

11. Select Save. The selected target skill will be displayed as a new row on the Target skill rules page.

 

To edit a target rule:

Select the relevant rule and select Edit in the opened Actions panel. The Edit skills panel opens.

Make the changes then select Save.

 

 

 

To delete a target rule:

Select the relevant rule then select Delete in the opened Actions panel.

 

 

Import target skill rules

Required role: LMS admin.

The Import target skill rules feature enables you to import multiple target skills via a .csv file.

 

The .csv file and its data structure

It’s essential that your .csv file is structured as described in this section.

 

 

General rules

• The top row of the .csv file must contain the following line:
  

  Title;Global;Criteria;Skills

• The target skill rule must have a title, up to a maximum of 255 characters.
• The target skill rule names in the file must be unique. Any rule that you’re importing can’t have the same name as an existing rule in the catalog or the .csv file.
• The Global field must be defined as Yes or No. Enter Yes to ensure the skill rule will apply to everyone in the organization. To ensure the skill rule will apply only to groups of users according to specified criteria, enter No.
• Enter one target skill rule per row.
• All fields and values are case-insensitive. For example, the skill entry “Academy/Communication/Advanced” will be interpreted the same way as “ACADEMY/Communication/advanced”. In the City criterion, values “Sydney,” “SYDNEY,” and “sydney” will be interpreted the same by Learn365.
• The catalogs specified in the file must exist.
• Target skill rules won't be imported if they relate to catalog names that are duplicated in Learn365.
• The skills defined in the file must exist within the catalog specified in the file.
• A skill level specified in the file must match the skill level set that’s defined in the catalog for that specific skill. For example, if a Leadership skill in the Academy catalog has three levels defined — Novice, Advanced, and Expert — however, if a “Master” level is specified in the file, an error message will be shown.
• Enter the skills and skill levels as “Catalog/Skill name/Skill level.” For example, if the rule contains a Leadership skill at an Advanced level that belongs to the Academy catalog, enter “Academy/Leadership/Advanced.”

 

If the skill rule is global — applies to everyone in the organization:

• Add a semicolon (;) in place of the criteria field. If there are Criteria defined for a global rule in the file, they will be disregarded.
• At least one skill is required. Although skill rules are imported at organization (global) level, you must specify the catalog names in which the related skills and skill levels exist.

For example, you’re importing a rule for everyone in your organization. The rule has one skill —Cybersecurity in the Academy catalog — and this is required at Advanced level. You should enter the following skill rule row:

General Onboarding;Yes;;Academy/Cybersecurity/Advanced

 

If the skill rule is defined for a specific group of users:

• At least one Criterion-Equals pair and one Skill are required. Enter the criterion-equals pairs as Criterion = Equals. The spaces around the equals sign aren't required. For example, a City criterion with a value of New York can be written as “City = New York” or “City=New York”.
• The title, global, criteria, and skills fields must be separated by a semicolon (;).

For example, you’re importing a target skill rule titled Human Success. The rule is defined for the Human Success department. The target skill rule has one skill — Conflict Resolution from the Human Success catalog — and this is required at Advanced level. You should enter the following skill rule row:

Human Success; No; Department=Human Success; Human Success/Conflict Resolution/Advanced

• You can define any number of criteria. The criteria must be separated by a comma. For a list of acceptable criteria, see the Define the target skill rules section.

 

 

Upload a .csv file

1. Go to the Learn365 Admin Center > Global settings > Skills framework > Target skill rules.

2. Select Import target skill rules. The Upload file panel opens.

3. On the Upload file panel, select Upload CSV file. Alternatively, drag a .csv file into the marked area on the panel.

4. Select Upload.

 

Select rules to import

Once the .csv file is uploaded, the Select target skill rules to import panel will open, where a table will show the Title, Global, Criteria, and Skills columns. If any rules contain errors, the table will also show a column containing a red triangle.

The gray bar will show the number of rules that can be imported, as well as the number of rules that can’t because of errors, if any. Select the black checkmark icon to see only error-free rules. If there are no error-free rules, the black checkmark icon won't be shown.

 

 

You'll see the black triangle icon if any of the target skills rules contain one or more errors. Select the icon to see only the rules that contain errors.

At the bottom of the page, you’ll see the Total target skill rules.

On the Target skills rules grid, hover over the red triangle icon to see the reason for the error. A rule may have more than one error.

 

 

Only the target skill rules that don’t contain errors can be imported. To import the rest of the rules, you must first resolve the errors.

Select the Edit (pencil) icon if you want to make changes to the target skill rule. The Edit target skill rule panel opens.

On the Edit target skill rule panel, you can:

• Rename the target skill rule;
• Set the Global toggle to On or Off;
• Add or edit the Criterion and Equals fields (if the Global toggle is set to Off),
• Add, edit, or remove skills; and
• Adjust the required skill level.

If a rule contains a skill-related error, the error message will be shown below the skill name.

To add a skill to the rule, select Add skills. For information about target skill rule requirements, see the Define target skill rules section.

To edit a skill, select the Edit (pencil) icon. On the Edit skill panel that opens, you can select a Catalog from the drop-down list, add a Skill, and select a Level.

When you’re happy with your changes, select Save.

 

 

Select the target skill rules you want to import. The Selected tab shows your selection of rules.

Select Discard or the x in the top right-hand corner to return to the Target skill rules page without importing the rules.

Select Import when you’re ready to import the selected skills. You'll see the target skill rule import status under Notifications (the bell icon).

 

 

Once imported, you can manage target skill rules in the usual way.

 

The Skills radar chart on My Training Dashboard

Under My Training Dashboard > Skills, the learners will see their current and target skill proficiency and skill gap percentages, and the number of defined and met target skills. If the number of target skills is between three and twenty, a radar chart will also be displayed with the current and target skills. Otherwise, a bar chart will be shown. To learn more about the target skill and skill gap overview and chart, see this article.

If the learners can't see the Skills section, LMS admins can enable it. For more information, see this article.