Stream LXP

Authors: 

Jon Brydges
Senior Product Manager
[email protected]

Niamh Davis
Associate Product Manager
[email protected]

Introduction

This year we have invested a lot of time delving into different ways to improve the Stream LXP user experience and user interface (UX/UI) in various areas of the platform. We spoke to customers directly and we have actioned a number of Feature Requests related to the front end of Stream.

This release has numerous improvements made with both the admin and learner in mind. We have lots more UX/UI refinements and customisations on the roadmap to help provide the modern learning experience your learners expect.

Updated Notification Centre

What it is:

Stream LXP now includes a brand new notification centre with an updated UI. This not only provides a more modern look and feel bug gives us the building blocks to develop more in-platform notifications.

• Updated notification centre UI
  • A sidebar now surfaces with the user’s notifications
  • An updated bell icon with 2 levels of visual indication
    • Red dot indicator – you have a new notification since you last looked at the notification centre
    • Number indicator – number of unread notifications
• Supported notifications:
  • A user has “replied” to your social comment on a Learning Experience object
  • Your Manager has left you feedback about a Manager Sign-off object
  • Your Team Member has sent a note about a Manager Sign-off object
  • Your Manager has signed off a Manager Sign-off object
  • A Team Member’s Manager Sign-off object is ready for sign off

More in depth notes can be found for customers on the Academy: https://academy.thelpacademy.com/courses/the-stream-user-guide/playlist#object/908889

Why we have done this:

The new notification centre provides a better user experience and lays the groundwork for a number of other features in the future including one-to-one communications, near real-time social / manager sign-off conversations, integrating automation but with email, announcements, etc.

In-platform notifications keep your learners engaged and up-to-date, and provide a better learner experience to a large number of our users who share email addresses or have no access to an email address linked to their account.

The “opt out” option was included to give current customers, who are more familiar with the legacy notification centre, time to trial the new layout. Please note we plan to retire this option in the future and move all organisations to the updated notification centre. We will communicate this change in due course.

How it works:

For orgs without Notifications enabled:

• Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Services’ > ‘In-platform Notifications’
  • Check the box ‘Enabled’
• Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Services’ > ‘UI/UX’
  • Disable ‘Opt out of new Notification Centre’

For all orgs with legacy notification centre:

• Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Services’ > ‘UI/UX’
  • Org admin has option to enable or disable ‘Opt out of new Notification Centre’
• Please note we have plans to retire this option in the future

Emojis in Comments and Feedback Notes

What it is:

Stream LXP now supports emoji characters in comments and Manager Sign-off feedback notes. This will be followed shortly with an emoji picker to make the feature more user friendly.

Why we have done this:

Emojis have become a staple in our daily interactions and are being used as a way to communicate across cultures, languages and borders. Emojis within comments and feedback improves social interaction. We feel it is important that users are able to express their emotions in online communication.

Enabling emoji support on Stream LXP opens the door to future improvements including an integrated emoji picker.

How it works:

Inserting an emoji character will vary depending on your operating system. Find the shortcuts usd on Windows OS and Mac OS below:

• Windows OS:
  • In the text area, open the emoji panel using the Windows key + ; (semicolon) or Windows key + . (period).
• Mac OS
  • Click on any text input area, and when you see a cursor, press Control + Command + Space.

If you are unsure on how this will work for your operating system you can copy and paste emojis from other websites or platforms.

Toggle Off My Plan

What it is:

Org admins can now choose to hide the ‘My Plan’ stream for all users when it is empty. This option does not prevent a learner from using the My Plan stream.

Why we have done this:

We regularly look to our clients for feedback and the option to hide the My Plan stream was something that clients have requested.

The pain point was due to the space taken up by an empty stream on the dashboard, which happens when a learner is not utilising “My Plan”. Giving an option to have it hidden when empty provides a better experience for learners and gives admins confidence that the dashboard shows the maximum amount of content.

How it works:

Org admin has the option to hide the My Plan stream when empty:

• Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Services’ > ‘UI/UX’
  • Tick the check box for “Hide ‘My Plan’ when empty”
    • This will hide the My Plan stream on all user’s dashboards when empty.
• The stream will resurface when content is added to My Plan by the learner.

Stream ‘View all’ layout options

What it is:

Org Admins can now choose from a selection of tile views for the ‘View all’ page of each stream. Following extensive user testing, we recommend using the ‘Grid’ option as it gives the best user experience. We have set this as the default layout.

Please find our video detailing these improvements below:

Why we have done this:

Creating a consistent, accessible and customisable user interface is a high priority for Stream LXP. Providing ‘View all’ layout options creates consistency between the ‘View All’ pages and empowers admins to choose which works best for their organisation.

How it works:

To choose your preferred stream ‘View all’ page layout:

• Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Services’ > ‘UI/UX’
  • Select option from ‘Stream View all’ drop down
    • Grid – Grid format with vertical scroll
    • Slider – The standard Stream view
  • Press save

Attempt history in the My Team Completion Report

What it is:

The My Team Completion Report has been updated to include every learner’s attempt history for each learning experience in the report.

Why we have done this:

We are consistently improving reporting for Team Managers, and providing the history of attempts is something that a number of Team Manager users have asked for to increase their knowledge and understanding of the learning progress of their team members.

How it works:

To view a learner’s previous completed attempts:

• A new ‘Attempts’ column has been added to the Completion Report to indicate how many previous attempts of each learning experience the learner has
• Click on the number button in the ‘Attempts’ column to view the attempt history in a sidebar

Attempt Completion Expiry Date editing

What it is:

Team Managers can now edit a team member’s attempt completion expiry date to better reflect their performance. This allows Team Managers to effectively “invalidate” the attempt completion which can lead to the learner being re-enrolled onto the Learning Experience.

For example, if a Team Manager observes a lapse in health and safety compliance within the workplace, they could set the attempt completion expiry date to yesterday’s date, which means that the completion is no longer valid. Depending on the learning experience configuration, the team member may then be re-enrolled on the learning experience.

Why we have done this:

This feature is particularly important within compliance environments, where a learner’s adherence to guidelines and regulations can be monitored. If non-compliance is observed, Team Managers can now very easily take action without the need for administrator involvement. These actions also generate xAPI statements that can trigger other automated workflows within Waves, the Stream Learning Suite automation tool, for example.

How it works:

Editing an attempt expiry date ‘Valid Until’:

• A new ‘Actions’ column has been added to the My Team Completion Report to allow editing of learners’ attempt expiry ‘Valid Until’ dates
• Click on the ‘Edit’ icon for an individual learning experience to set a new ‘Valid Until’ date
  • The date can be in the past or future
• For learning experiences that have the ‘Reset Enrolments’ checkbox checked and the new ‘Valid Until’ date is in the past, the learner’s enrolment will be reset immediately.
  • Note: the ‘Reset Enrolments’ checkbox is within the ‘Attempts Options’ settings of a learning experience

Bug Fixes

• LXP-6939 – Badges are now calculating correctly
• LXP-6382 – Reports are now showing for a team member with no start date
• LXP-7111 – The setting for comments, within social, is now saving correctly
• LXP-6900 – A learner’s dynamic expiry date is now shown in the sidebar of the summary report, for their manager
• LXP-7129 – The learners due date option for an LX is now saving the correct date
• LXP-6857 – All letters on the dashboard are shown correctly, including the letter ‘g’