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Q: Once a user signs in and purchases a course and therefore is assigned as an active user, how can they be deactivated so we don’t keep paying for that user forever? Does Litmos deactivate them automatically when their subscription expires?
A. Currently, the way to de-activate a user is to do so manually by going to the People tab, select the user, then click the big red ‘Deactivate’ button in the top right. This will mean the person can no longer log in, but their reporting information will still be available in the reports area should you filter on Inactive people. It also means that the user’s profile will automatically re-activate should the user purchase a subsequent course from your organization through the eCommerce page, using the same login information.
We are working on a way to automate the deactivation process but this will not be released for a few months.
Q. Does your API integrate with other eCommerce Merchant Accounts / Payment Providers?
Next you would take care of the payment side using your provider and when you’re satisfied that the payment has been processed you use the ‘Create a User’ API call (http://help.litmos.com/2009/people/) to add the new user to your account and trigger the first login email, and then the ‘Add Course’ API Call to assign the purchased course to the new user (http://help.litmos.com/2010/users-list-add-remove-courses/).
Q. What defines an Active User?
A. An active user is defined by a person who logs in to Litmos one or more times during each billing cycle.
Therefore, the pricing plan you choose needs to reflect how many “active users” you estimate to have each billing period. You can also upgrade and downgrade your account in advance, month to month, if you know you will be rolling out training or alternatively, know you will have fewer people using Litmos during the next month.
Q. What is the URL for the page on which I listed my courses for sale?
A. Your course listing page is located at the login url you have chosen, plus the text: /online-courses added to the end of the url. For example: http://demo.litmos.com/online-courses where ‘demo’ is your chosen company name/url. You can also find this outlined in your account under the ‘Account’ tab, then the ‘eCommerce’ sub-tab.
Q. How can I improve the SEO of my course listings for eCommerce? Does the use of keywords in our published Articulate lessons (SCORM) work with Litmos and SEO? Does Litmos come with the ability to put the coding necessary on our home page so that Google can “verify” our site? How is our Litmos content made searchable?
A. Content that you upload into Litmos will not be indexed by Google as it is not publicly available, ie. a user has to login to Litmos in order to view it.
If you’re selling courses via the Litmos course listing/shopping cart then the sales description text and also the course titles will be searchable by Google. To improve the chances of that page being found by Google you will need to link to it from other websites. For example, you might Tweet or Facebook the links, and post them up on to other blogs, forums, relevant discussion groups etc.
Also to track your page views you can use Google Analytics. To do this you will need to copy your Google Analytics account number into the relevant box in your Litmos account under the Account > Ecommerce settings.To further improve the SEO of the course description pages I would also recommend making the description more detailed. Generally, the more keyword-rich content you have in the description the better.
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We have just released an upgrade to the criteria that determines when a Litmos module ‘completes’ for a Learner. To explain a little about the changes please see this post on the Litmos Help Guide or read on:
Video, Audio, and PowerPoint modules
From now on these types of module will only ‘Complete’ for a Learner once the media has been played to the end of the play timeline. While some may object to say that this leaves it possible for a student to scrub forward to the end of the video or audio content, this is no different to a Learner pressing play and then walking away from their computer, and is not something that can be prevented by Litmos at this time.
Tip: It’s always a a good idea to provide some kind of quiz follow up to media content to ensure that learners have watched and understood it all.
Timing: We record the time a Learner spends on the page viewing each of these module and this is visible in the Reporting area.
Attempts: If a student starts watching a video or listening to an audio track, then closes it part way through to come back at a later date, this all falls under the 1st attempt. In fact, every time a student comes back to continue watching/listening to the content will be part of the 1st attempt, until they reach the end of the play timeline and the module’ Completes’. The Learner can then continue to re-visit the module to review the content, but the only time a Learner would be logged as having a 2nd attempt is if their Admin resets their module result.
SCORM and Assessment modules
For the most part SCORM modules have their own in-built completion settings which are set up at the time of publishing from your content authoring tool. Litmos Assessment modules also have settings that can be defined such as the ‘Lock after ‘x’ attempts’ and the quiz passmark. Both of these determine how many attempts a student can have at a quiz, as well as when they are determined to have ‘Passed’.
Timing: We record the time a Learner spends in a SCORM or Assessment module and this is visible in the Reporting area.
Attempts: As above all lock, passmark and attempt restrictions are set up within the SCORM or Assessment module itself. Therefore, these types of modules will complete and lock according to their individual specifications.
Flash, Embeded and Page modules
These modules all ‘complete’ as soon as the student begins going through the content.
Timing: We record the time a Learner spends on the page viewing each of these module types and this is visible in the Reporting area.
Attempts: When a student starts watching Flash or Embeded content or reading a page, this is marked as their 1st attempt. The Learner can re-visit the module to review the content, but the only time a Learner would be logged as having a 2nd attempt is if their Admin resets their module result.
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In case you missed some of our new posts on our Help Desk Blog, here are the following common questions that the Litmos team received last week. Take a moment to review them, they may answer some questions or inquiries you have had when using your Litmos LMS!
How to use different languages in Litmos?
By default the Litmos Learning Management System interface is in English. However, there are some core places within our system where the text can be replaced with your own custom text in another language, or more than one language if desired. Plus, don’t forget that all of the actual learning content that you upload to be a part of your courses can be produced in the language of your choice.
To check out where you can adjust our text or add your own custom text, please sign in to your Litmos account (or sign up for a free 14-day trial account here: https://go.litmos.com/signup.aspx), then go to the ‘Account’ tab and select ‘Messages & Labels’ from the sub-tabs. Here you will see all of the text and email customization options.
How do I change my account name?
To update the name of your Litmos account just log in and go to the ‘Account’ tab. Then under the ‘Profile’ tab you can change it in the ‘Account Name’ field at the top of the page.
How do I edit the compliant date of a learner’s result?
You can edit a learner’s result including the compliant date by going to the “Courses” tab. Once there, you can open a course and select the “People” sub-tab to locate the learner and click on the edit result link.
Then select the module you would like to edit and click edit. The next window that appears will be where you can edit the compliant date for the learner
.
How do I upload my logo?
When you sign up for a Litmos trial account you can select a logo to upload or you can skip the logo and upload it later on.
To upload or change your logo in your Litmos account please go to the Account section and select the Theme tab.
The recommended size for your logo is a maximum of:
65px high x 200px wide
If the logo you upload is greater than the recommended size it will be automatically scaled down.
Also, keep your eye out for a new Help Desk feature coming out shortly that will help you get the answers to your questions even faster!
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On Wednesday 8th February our development team released the following new features and enhancements:
Custom fields available on the user profile. A highly requested addition to the system, you can now create your own custom fields for learners to fill in upon first sign-in or within their profile area which means you can now collect more information about your learners than ever before! Check it out by going to the “Account” tab, then “Messages & Labels” area and scroll down to “Custom User Data / Fields”:
Report on Custom Fields In relation to the custom fields mentioned above, that new user data is now available in user and custom reports:
Also, the custom fields can be added to certificates as placeholders. The new placeholders that you can now add are as follows:
New custom report to drill down into user’s modules Our reports area is slowly getting an overhaul and this week we added a new way to view your user course / module results. In the Custom reports area, select the User Report and try searching on all users and a specific course. You will see a new icon to expand the users course results to show a module view on the same page:
Minor enhancements to result editing/ hiding assessment results and messages
You will now find a new setting in the Assessment module ‘Edit Settings’ area to give you more control over the assessment results that your learners can see:
There have been a few minor adjustments to the way course results are edited such as when you update a learner’s course result to ‘complete’ you no longer have to check all the boxes but can make one adjustment at the top:
Also, when you change a user’s compliance date this will automatically update the compliance date on their certificate:
Finally, the Team Leader Dashboard feed now only shows activity for users that belong to the Team Leader’s teams.
Send us an email if you would like more information on any of the above topics.
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As the year draws in to a close, it’s a great time for us to reflect on how Litmos has grown as a product in 2011: the course library, a brand new user interface, custom domains, more account customization, dashboard activity feeds, massive Litmos mobile improvements, and so much more. But we’ve also grown as a company experiencing a huge amount of change moving the office from New Zealand up to San Francisco, and through the expansion of our core team to include our first US colleague, Sales Manager Ayoob Syed. Plus, this week we are excited to have another new face joining the team! Read on below to find out who that is.But just because the year is ending, doesn’t mean the excitement should stop. We want to end this year with a bang by rolling out a couple more great enhancements today that we’re sure you’ll like.
HOT NEW FEATURES coming to your favorite LMS today
eCommerce Shopping cart - learners can now purchase multiple courses in a single transaction – read more in this blog post
SCORM modules now available on Litmos mobile - I know a few people who have been waiting very patiently for this one, so today’s the day to celebrate!
Salesforce Single Sign On integration - this is the first of many that we have on our to-do list. More info coming to the blog today…
We don’t like to think you might have missed something from an earlier month so here’s a quick recap of major additions in the last few months:
Custom Domains - further customize your account with your own url
Also, this may be useful to know – if at any time you’re curious to know about any recent development, you can just go to our Help Guide and check out the Litmos System Updates.
Litmos welcomes Jacqueline Barnes
The secret is out! We have just secured the wonderful Jacqueline Barnes as the new addition to the Litmos crew. Meaning, our team just got a whole lot more awesome! Jacqueline is a recent college graduate from Saint Mary’s College with a fresh, firsthand perspective on the value and effectiveness of eLearning. She comes to us with a BS in Business Administration in hand, and as a member of the Sigma Beta Delta Business Honors Society. Jacqueline is bringing a big dose of passion, commitment, and support to the Litmos team, not to mention she is devoted to helping others, eating cupcakes, and traveling the world. We hope she’ll share some of her wisdom – and cupcakes! Jacqueline is joining me in the Marketing team to blog, tweet, brainstorm and support our fabulous customers. We’re super happy to have her and wish her all the best for this new role in 2012!
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Last but most definitely not least, to all of our customers, friends and supporters – THANK YOU from the Litmos Team. We wish you all a safe time with your friends and families over these holidays, and all of our best wishes for a prosperous, healthy and fun new year in 2012.
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Following the release of custom domains, and all ‘part and parcel’ of making Litmos as white label as an LMS can be, we have recently released the ability to add your own custom favicon and a mobile interface icon! If you’re not familiar with favicons, it’s that little image that sits in the url box, before the web address in many browsers.
In Safari you will see it in the url box:
It will look the same in FireFox:
And in Chrome you will see it in the tab:
Favicons are very simple image icons. Even Microsoft Paint should be enough of a program to create a good looking one. The easiest way to do it is first create a 32 x 32 pixels JPEG image with Paint, and then use the online service Favicon from Pics to convert your .jpeg image into a favicon (.ico) file.
Then on the Litmos side, you will just log in as an Admin and go to the Settings area, then under the Theme tab scroll to the bottom to see the Additional Icons area. Upload your favicon file and your iPad / iPhone icon, and you’re all set and ready to go with an even more professional, personalized learning program.
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When you’re offering self paced online learning courses you can potentially have people accessing your courses at any time of the day. So, how do you keep track of that?
Well of course there’s the Litmos reports that you can use when you want to get the big picture but from an operational point of view you really need a dashboard that feeds you information about all of the interactions between you, your courses, and your learners.
Enter the Litmos LMS Dashboard! This gives you an instant picture of the activity around your online courses and quick access to all of the people, courses, and teams that are currently using your LMS.
Check out the following video for a quick overview.
And here are a few of the highlights:
Sales activity chart - For our ecommerce customers, one of the stand-out new features is the new course sales chart. This gives you the last 30 days worth of sales data so you know how many courses you’ve sold and how much money you’ve made.
Email tracking – If you’re sending out emails to hundreds of learners then chances are a few of the emails might bounce. To help identify when this happens so that you can fix it up, we’ve added advanced email tracking that displays reasons for many of the bounced emails right on your dashboard.
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The highly anticipated upgrade to the Litmos learning management system is now live!
If you have an account with us, just log in and you will see your shiny new Dashboard feeding you more information about overall account activity than you ever could see before.
If you don’t have an account with us yet, please sign up for a free 14 day trial account to see what all the excitement about.
Litmos enhancements as of this upgrade:
Desktop Browser
New system terminology – Learner and Administrator
Customize the Complete / Incomplete course terminology via the Account area
Search boxes everywhere
Improved navigation on learner side
Improved course library on learner side
Enhanced admin Dashboard now shows activity feed, eCommerce information, recently viewed people and courses, plus much more
Bulk learner imports now do field mapping rather than use our template
Ability to update a Video, PowerPoint, Audio or Flash module rather than delete and upload a new one
New user profiles, activity feed and extra fields like adress, employee id, Twitter etc.
New results override so admins can manually update the results of a module / course
Better linking between learners, teams and courses on admin side to make it easier to drill down
100% customization of email templates.
Greater control over when email notifications are sent
Course listing widget no longer displayed on course listing page
New overall courses complete pie chart in Reports
Admins can now download learner certificates from their profiles
Mobile Browser
Big improvements to the mobile device user interface (UI)
Litmos assessment modules are now available on mobile
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Mobile is certainly a buzz word right now and not just in elearning circles. As many of you know, Litmos released one of the first mobile LMS solutions for iPhone, Android and iPad about a year ago. It was a great entry into the mobile space for Litmos and allowed us to start working out what our customers truly wanted out of a mobile learning solution.
Currently the mobile version of Litmos enables your learners to watch videos, listen to audio tracks, read news, notes, messages and download documents like PDFs. As of next month we’re very excited to announce that mobile access will also include surveys & assessments.
Offline access for assessments
Using the latest HTML5 technology we’ve made it possible for your learners to complete assessments even when they’re offline. So if your learners are on an aeroplane they can still complete the assessment and when they go back online their answers will automatically sync with your Litmos account. It’s really clever :-)
Administrator dashboard
We’ve also added a cool new dashboard for Administrators and Team Leaders which gives you a real-time view on all of the activity happening in your Litmos account. Whether its assessments being completed, emails being sent or courses being sold now you can keep track of all this and more while you’re on the move.
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Sometimes I write an email and think that this information should really be explained better on our website or perhaps even the blog. So heres my email response to a few high level questions about Litmos.
I hope this helps if you’re taking the first steps in finding a new LMS.
1) Will we be able to host the system ourselves?
Litmos is a SaaS (Software as a Service) based LMS that’s accessible online, anytime.
You will find many installable LMS products around but they all have lengthy setup/installation processes, require ongoing software updates and an IT team to manage the servers they are hosted on.
In contrast you can get your Litmos LMS up and running within minutes, we take care of the hosting/IT and you also benefit from regular feature upgrades such as mobile access.
2) Is Litmos secure? With regards to security, all Litmos accounts are password protected and must be accessed over bank level SSL from a web browser. Our servers are hosted at Rackspace, a world leader in hosting and we do daily offsite backups of students records/results.
3) Is Litmos open source? Litmos is not open source but we are SCORM certified. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with SCORM or not but it is a standard for allowing any compliant elearning content to work with any compliant LMS. As a general rule, being SCORM certified should be a consideration when selecting an LMS.
4) Can Litmos be integrated with other systems?
Yes. Using our API we have clients connecting various in-house systems to Litmos to manage user accounts, access training results etc. We also have automated report exporting that enables the easy export of custom formatted data to complex systems such as SAP.
Q: Once a user signs in and purchases a course and therefore is assigned as an active user, how can they be deactivated so we don’t keep paying for that user forever? Does Litmos deactivate them automatically when their subscription expires?
view it.
perspective on the value and effectiveness of eLearning. She comes to us with a BS in Business Administration in hand, and as a member of the Sigma Beta Delta Business Honors Society. Jacqueline is bringing a big dose of passion, commitment, and support to the Litmos team, not to mention she is devoted to helping others, eating cupcakes, and traveling the world. We hope she’ll share some of her wisdom – and cupcakes! Jacqueline is joining me in the Marketing team to blog, tweet, brainstorm and support our fabulous customers. We’re super happy to have her and wish her all the best for this new role in 2012!
Big improvements to the mobile device user interface (UI)
