Release date: January 25, 2022.
We’re pleased to announce that the January 2022 release of LMS365 is now available to all customers.
Highlights of this release:
- Structure of courses and training plans in LMS365
- Regional settings
- Session-based training
- Course and training plan banner images
- UI Improvements
- Available languages
- The LMS365 app for Microsoft Teams
- The LMS365 mobile app
Structure of courses and training plans in LMS365
Courses and training plans will no longer be dependent on subsites in SharePoint
Today, when a course or training plan is created in LMS365, a SharePoint subsite is also created. This approach, however, has created challenges for some customers as recent updates from Microsoft have made it more difficult for subsites to be created in SharePoint.
To solve this challenge and to best prepare for potential future changes away from subsites, from this release, courses and training plans will no longer be dependent on subsites. Instead, new courses and training plans will be created as pages at the root of the SharePoint course catalog site.
The change will primarily be noticeable behind the scenes and the learner experience will remain almost entirely the same. However, there will be changes to the navigation of courses and training plan pages and the way some course and training plan home page elements are managed, for courses and training plans created after this release.
NOTE: The change will not affect current courses and training plans.
Please find more details in this article.
Demonstration of how courses and training plans, created after this release, will have the general SharePoint navigation from the course catalog. Please see more details on the changes that will happen to navigation here.
Regional settings
A simpler approach to configure regional settings
From this release, it will become simpler to configure regional settings of course catalogs, courses, and training plans.
Regional settings will now be configured directly in the LMS365 Admin Center, enabling admins to easily configure regional settings to be used for notifications, certificates, reports, and dashboards in course catalogs, courses, and training plans.
For course catalogs, regional settings will be configured under Settings > LMS Configuration > Regional Settings. Here, the course catalog admin can configure time zone, locale, and the first day of the week for the course catalog in question.
Regional settings for courses and training plans will be configured in the Settings section of the course and training plan create/edit panel where the course admin (and catalog admin) can configure time zone, locale, the first day of the week, and start and end hour of the workday for the course or training plan in question.
Per default, courses and training plans inherit regional settings from the course catalog.
Session-based training
Improved option for managing learners in courses of the single-session enrollment type
Course and course catalog admins will now be able to enroll learners in single-session courses without selecting a specific session to enroll the learner in.
This enables learners to select a session of their own choice and allows admins to employ the People tab of the course and training plan create/edit panel when enrolling learners, also for courses of the single session enrollment type.
Learners can select a session to enroll in from the course home page.
Or via the Course Session Selection Request email notification if this is enabled.
All enrolled learners can be seen and managed from the People section. Allowing admins to manage and get a complete picture of all learners enrolled in the course.
The admin can still choose to enroll learners in specific sessions. This action will also enroll the learner in the course. Also, the admin can still manage learners from individual sessions.
The LMS365 endpoints are updated to also enable enrollment of learners in courses of the single session enrollment type via API without selecting a specific session.
Course and training plan banner images
You can now manage course and training plan banner images from the LMS365 Admin Center
When courses and training plans will no longer have their own dedicated subsite, this will prevent people with less than a course catalog administrator role from having access to SharePoint’s page editing options for the course and training plan home pages. This, in turn, means that course administrators might not have access to SharePoint’s page editing options for the course and training plan home pages. In these cases, they won't be able to edit course and training plan home pages from SharePoint—including the banner image of these home pages.
Going forward, to ensure course admins can still manage the banner image of courses and training plans, the banner image will, therefore, be placed in the LMS365 Course Home Page web part and will be managed from the LMS365 course and training plan create/edit interface.
The thumbnail image of the course or training plan will be managed the same way as currently—from the create/edit course interface—and will be displayed at the top-left corner of the banner image.
If no banner image is selected for a course or training plan, the course or training plan home page will not have a banner and only the thumbnail image will be shown.
For courses and training plans created before the LMS365 January 2022 release, the banner image will still be managed from the SharePoint site of the course or training plan in question.
New option to create a selection of banner images
A new setting, Training Banner Image, under Settings > LMS Configuration will enable course catalog admins to upload a library of banner images on course catalog-level and to select an image among these to be the default banner image for courses and training plans in the catalog.
This will make it simple for course admins to provide courses and training plans with a banner image that is aligned with the company brand.
The default banner image can be changed or removed for the specific course and training plan in the course/training plan create/edit panel.
UI Improvements
New design for pages to handle enrollment requests
With this release, we introduce new designs for the pages where course admins and line managers approve and reject enrollment requests.
The new design introduces a lighter visual look and more space to provide a clear overview of information and available actions and improve the general user experience.
The pages will open in the LMS365 Admin Center when the course admin or line manager selects to approve or reject an enrollment request from a notification received by email or via Microsoft Teams. From the pages, the line manager and course admin will only see and have access to the part of the LMS365 Admin Center that their role has permission to.
New design for the Enrollment Approval Confirmation page.
New design for the Enrollment Rejection Confirmation page.
If an enrollment approval or rejection page is not available anymore, for example, if the course or training plan has been deleted or its URL has changed, this page will be shown when the course admin or line manager selects the enrollment approval or rejection link.
New tone of voice for feedback messages in quizzes
To provide a more friendly experience for learners when they are taking quizzes, we have changed the wording of the default feedback learners see when they have answered a question.
The message learner will see when they have provided a correct answer to a question will be: "Great! That is correct.". If learners provide an incorrect answer, they will get the message: "Good try, but that is incorrect.". Finally, with a semi-correct answer to questions of the Short Answer type, the feedback will be: "Almost perfect, but there is a better one."
The people picker will now show department of suggested people
When employing the LMS365 people picker, you will now see the department of the suggested people. This will be helpful if an organization has more than one person of the same name employed. In this case, the department will indicate which person to select.
It will now be easier to edit quizzes from courses
With this release, we introduce a direct link for course admins to edit quizzes from the Content section of the course create/edit panel.
When selecting the relevant quiz from the list of course content, the link, Edit Quiz, will be available from the Actions panel and lead the admin directly to edit the quiz in question.
Available languages
Now LMS365 also speaks Lithuanian
We are happy to announce that Lithuanian is now added to the list of available languages in LMS365.
This enables admins and learners to experience the LMS365 user interfaces in Lithuanian, both from their desktop and mobile phones.
The LMS365 app for Microsoft Teams
You can now customize the name and description of the LMS365 app for Microsoft Teams
You can now brand the LMS365 app in Microsoft Teams with a customized name and description.
In this way, you can name the app in alignment with the name you have chosen for your learning system and guide users with an app description of your choice.
The customization is made from the Microsoft Teams admin center, where the Microsoft Teams or Microsoft 365 global admin can change the Short name, Short Description, and Full description by customizing the app from the Manage apps section.
Course and training plan banner images will be shown in Microsoft Teams for training created after this release
Now, users accessing courses and training plan home pages in Microsoft Teams will also be presented to the banner image of the training.
As the banner image is now placed in the LMS365 Course Home Page web part, the banner will be part of the content shown on course and training plan home pages in the LMS365 app for Microsoft Teams, for courses and training plans created after the LMS365 January 2022 release.
The LMS365 mobile app
We will now notify users when newer versions are available of the LMS365 mobile app
For an optimal experience, users should always have their LMS365 mobile app updated to the latest version. Using previous versions, users might experience unstable behavior and will not benefit from the latest features and improvements.
Therefore, to ensure we offer the best possible and most recent experience to users of the LMS365 app, app users will now be notified if they have not updated to the latest available version.
The notification will be shown when users open the LMS365 application and will direct them to Google Play Store or Apple's App Store to perform the update.
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Please find full details of the LMS365 January 2022 release in the release notes.
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