Deliver content in multiple languages

Introduction

When an organization needs to deliver content to learners in Learn365 in multiple languages, there are several approaches to achieve this. Each approach has its pros and cons. 

In this article, we go through the various approaches that can be applied to Learn365 to optimize training in different languages.

 

 

Multilingual training within a single course catalog

Create separate courses for each language

You can create separate courses and training plans for each supported language. The courses and training plans will contain the same content and will be available in the same course catalog, but they will be presented in different languages. For example, there might be mandatory security training that is relevant to all employees in a global organization.

To help learners find the relevant course, add tags and categories for the relevant languages to the course or training plan. From the Course Catalog page, learners can carry out a search using the search field or filter training based on the language categories added to the course. For example, add the English tag or category to courses that are in English, Español to courses in Spanish, etc.

Tags aren't visible to users so add as many tags as you want, and as many as you need, to help learners find the relevant courses and training plans on the Course Catalog page.

By applying course targeting to a specific audience, you can ensure the targeted courses are only available to the relevant audience. This method will allow you to, for example, ensure that only people that are members of a Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group for French-speaking people, will see courses in French in the course catalog and be able to access them from there.

 

 

Pros:

• Learners can search for and complete courses in their preferred language.
• Admins can set up the Locale settings for each course, enabling learners to receive notifications and certificates in the language used in the course.

Cons:

• Admins need to enroll learners in the relevant language variant of the course or training plan, instead of enrolling all learners in a single course or training plan.
• Admins can't track the progress of all learners from a single course. They need to track progress in multiple courses, with multiple lists of learners.

 

Create multilingual courses

If you don't want to create separate courses and training plans for each supported language, another option is to create a single multilingual course that contains learning modules in different languages.

Using this approach, learners select learning modules in their preferred language in order to complete the course. For more information, see this article.

To help learners find this type of course, add tags and categories for all relevant languages to the course. Tags and categories can be either multilingual or monolingual for each language.

From the course catalog page, learners can carry out a search using the search field, or filter training based on the language categories added to the course.

Adding tags and categories in multiple languages helps the learner when a course title is only displayed in the company's international language (for example, English). In this way, learners can still find this course on the course catalog page because it has all the relevant tags and categories.

 

 

By applying course targeting to a specific audience, you can ensure the targeted courses are only available to the relevant audience. This method will allow you to, for example, ensure that only people that are members of a Microsoft Entra (Azure Active Directory) group for French-speaking people, will see courses in French in the course catalog and be able to access them from there.

 

Pros:

• Learners search for and complete the course in their preferred language.
• Admins can enroll all learners in a single course and track the progress of all learners from a single course. 

Cons:

• While tracking and reporting on courses with multiple completion sets, admins need to be aware that the progress of all learning items will never show as 100% complete because each learner only completes one of the completion sets of this course. For more information, see this article.
• Notifications and certificates that learners receive will be in the language that admins set up in the Locale settings of the multilingual course. In most cases, notifications can be set up in the company's international language (for example, English).

 

 

Create custom catalog pages 

Custom Learn365 course catalog page

Course catalog admins can create multiple custom Learn365 course catalog pages within a course catalog. Using this approach, admins can prepare separate, customized pages for each supported language, with each page displaying courses in that course catalog and in that language. They can also present all multilingual courses on a separate, customized page. 

This approach requires all courses and training plans in a course catalog to be clearly categorized, to ensure the customized Learn365 course catalog page displays the relevant courses and training plans.

If a custom catalog page is targeted to a specific audience, it won't be visible to users outside that audience.

For more information on how to customize navigation on your SharePoint site, read Microsoft 's documentation on the topic.

 

 

Creating custom Learn365 catalog pages can be an alternative to creating separate course catalogs for each language within an organization.

 

Pros:

• It's convenient to create a single course catalog and manage all courses and training plans in a single place.
• If an organization just has one course catalog, admins can add all learners to it.
• Each custom page can be customized to cater to specific scenarios.
• It's easier for admins to track the progress of all learners from one course catalog than from multiple.

Cons:

 

Custom catalog home page

If the SharePoint Translation service is enabled, catalog admins can set the navigation links to be displayed in a different language using the options at the top of the course catalog page. Catalog admins can also create a catalog home page in multiple languages, customize the home page for each language, and place relevant links.

Learners will automatically see the top navigation links in the relevant language, depending on their preferred language of the Learn365 interface display.

With translated pages, learners can select which language they would like to use when viewing the home page.

 

 

Using separate course catalogs for each language

When preparing to offer learning in different languages, admins can create separate course catalogs for each language. Admins would need to add learners to a specific course catalog, based on their native language.

It's also possible to organize all multilingual mandatory courses, for example, in a separate course catalog. In this scenario, all learners have to be added to this course catalog. All other courses can be managed from the course catalogs you've created to cater to the native languages of your learners.

 

Pros:

• Only specific people can access the course catalog and manage it.
• Each course catalog allows for different content and languages to be available, and for different learners to be added to it.

Cons:

• It's more difficult for admins to track the progress of all learners across multiple course catalogs than from a single.
• If learners are added to multiple course catalogs, they may find it inconvenient to have to navigate between them.
• It can create additional administrative work.