Cost effective software simulation for digital adoption
using dominKnow Capture
The Cost Challenges of Digital Adoption
Implementing new software often poses challenges, from user resistance to steep learning curves. Planning digital adoption to support your users at the beginning of your software implementation project is essential if you want to ensure a successful rollout.
Investment in a digital adoption tool allows you to maximise return on investment by accelerating development of learning and support content, reducing training time, and minimising errors or inefficiencies. However, it can be a costly concern, particularly as the majority of tools have an end user licence cost. The cost can vary depending on the sophistication of the tool and the number of users, but as digital adoption is often left until the last stage of a project when there is little or no budget remaining, it can be challenging.
Larmer Brown has over 30 years of experience in planning and delivering learning projects for enterprise software implementations and we have (and still do) utilise several different digital adoption tools in that time. Whilst organisations change and technology continues to evolve, the pressure to tighten budgets and reduce spending remains. In this article we introduce a cost effective software simulation tool for creating software training – with zero user licence cost.
dominKnow Capture for Software Simulation Training
dominKnow Capture is a versatile tool in the dominKnow | ONE content authoring platform designed to create software simulations which can be seamlessly added to projects, enabling you to tailor the content to meet your requirements. It offers full object recognition and can be used to record against any software application.
With Capture, it is easy to record the steps to carry out a software task, edit the captured steps and publish the lesson straight to a course in the dominKnow | ONE platform.
When the Author opens the Capture application on their desktop, they are given the option to either record their whole screen for a simulation, or just a specific window. Once a simulation recording has started, Capture recognises and records the mouse clicks on elements within a page. Once finished, Capture will convert each mouse click into a step to show the process.
The Author will have the opportunity to edit each step if needed before publishing. Annotations and markers can be added to highlight parts of a page, with the ability to zoom in and out of elements. It is easy to customise what information needs to be input, and then how that leads to the next step in the process. Some edits could be as simple as changing the dimensions of the area for the mouse to click in the next step.
The latest release of the Capture tool has also provided Authors with the ability to quickly and easily mask and replace sensitive data in the recorded screenshots. This could be the Author’s user login, which many applications tend to display, or it may be that the recording necessitated using the live application and therefore the data must be anonymised. There is a new eye-dropper tool to seamlessly match to colours on the screen, and text in a range of font options can also be overlaid to replace the sensitive data with an appropriate alternative to simulate a real scenario. To ensure data protection is adhered to, an additional level of security for the original sensitive data is also now available – Authors can enable the option to make the screenshot modifications permanent when they are sharing the file into a project. This will prevent other Authors accessing the sensitive data as the source Capture file removes this data from all components.
When the software simulation recording is completed in Capture, it can easily be set to behave differently depending on the context of the lesson and learning need: Show Me mode offers the learner an opportunity to view all the steps in the process, Try Me mode is available when the user is ready to try out the process themselves, Practice Me mode allows you to assess knowledge with a scored knowledge check. There is also the option to provide printable job aids with Guide Me mode.
More than a Software Simulation Tool
As Capture is part of the dominKnow | ONE platform, additional features and benefits are available to the Author over and above software simulation:
- Offering the ability to create job aids, a searchable knowledge base (similar to a search engine), product guides and support portals from a single source. Authors using the dominKnow | ONE platform can provide users with additional support on the job, offering learning in the flow of work, previously called in-application support.
- The built-in collaborative workflow and review features in dominKnow I ONE allow Authors and Project Leads to track learning projects for improved management and progress measurement. All team members can work simultaneously on the same project with functionality that allows them to see version history, who has made changes, as well as review and provide feedback.
- Authors can assign reviewers to projects, set start and end dates for review and notify reviewers automatically. Reviewers can add comments to a page or specific element of a course, which other reviewers can like or reply to – and there’s no licence required for reviewers, so it won’t affect the cost of the tool.
Cost Effective Digital Adoption Solution
The functionality of dominKnow Capture matches that of leading software simulation tools and we are using it for the majority of our IT projects. A unique benefit of Capture compared with other digital adoption tools is there is no end user licence (you only pay for Author licences), making it a cost effective option for software simulation training content development. Depending on the number of users, this can be less than 10 per cent of the cost of a digital adoption platform with a user licence.
If you are looking to invest in a tool for the lifecycle of your IT project and it will not be needed in BAU, Larmer Brown offers a rolling monthly subscription licence; you only pay for the duration of your project and no more.
More about dominKnow | ONE
With dominKnow I ONE you can create multiple types of learning content for use on any device, making it one of the most powerful web-based eLearning authoring platforms. Bringing together traditional eLearning course development with powerful responsive authoring and built-in software simulation means that you need fewer tools to build more kinds of eLearning, faster. Templates, stock assets, a central library to share and re-use content across projects and real-time collaboration and review provide all the capabilities you need for rapid authoring.
In addition to our multi-tenancy Private Cloud, Larmer Brown exclusively offers single tenancy, security approved UK hosting for dominKnow I ONE. Our hosting solution is fully managed, providing dedicated, cutting-edge security from an ISO-accredited UK data centre. For our government and public sector clients, our hosting service has also achieved Cyber Essentials Plus certification. This ensures the very highest standards of security, business continuity and peace of mind for all our clients.
For more information about dominKnow | ONE and Capture join our next webinar or contact us to arrange a 1-2-1 demonstration.