Making the right choice for Training Users on New Software

Making the right choice for User Training of New Software

The sooner your users become competent and confident with your new or upgraded ERP system, the quicker the software will deliver ROI. Providing a comprehensive and well considered user training solution not only helps ensure compliance with your business processes, but it also helps increase employee satisfaction and productivity.

Implementing a user training solution may mean an investment in new technology and you will most likely need to build a business case for this. Here’s some of the key elements to consider when selecting a training platform.

Key considerations when evaluating Training Platforms

Licencing Restrictions

Is the Licence perpetual, ie. once you buy it, it’s yours, Concurrent or Named User; this will effect usability and cost. Establish whether the Licence model allows you to capture all your applications or is only one application per Licence. Also, consider what might happen when your application upgrades; can you get assurance from the vendor that the tool will still work?

Single Recording

Smart design in content authoring means that you can generate many outputs from a single process recording. This can dramatically reduce the time and cost of creating effective training content. Outputs include training documentation, training simulations, user acceptance tests and in-application performance support.

Rapid Authoring

Rapid authoring often involves the use of templates and styles. The latest trend is hierarchal authoring, a real bonus for Project Teams who just need subject matter experts or business process owners to capture the basic process without being exposed to the full functionality (and often complexity and risk) of the tool.

Support Continuous Change

Changes in technology mean that you must constantly adapt training content. It is therefore crucial that your chosen solution allows you to manage content, templates and libraries as well as support collaborative authoring with workflow, version control and status management. This can reduce the cost of maintaining content.

Translation

If you are rolling out applications in various languages, then a training solution that can offer simple and straightforward translation of your content to facilitate roll-out will save a great deal of time. This is especially pertinent when your content is continually changing.

On-Premise or Cloud

Having the option of Cloud or on-premise means that you can choose the option that best suits your needs. On-premise means the solution is stored and accessed locally, i.e. on a computer or server. Cloud-based means it's stored on your chosen vendor’s server and accessed via a browser. The decision will be guided by your organisation’s IT strategy and security, as well as requirements for maintaining and managing upgrades and also project requirements, such as the importance of team collaboration and sharing resources.

Consolidate Solutions

In many organisations there will be silos of different teams or projects that have already invested in training solutions to meet their own specific requirements. It may therefore be necessary to identify the defacto enterprise solution and re-develop any existing content. Ownership should be strategic to maximise Licences, resources and user benefits.

More Information

If you would like more information to help build your business case for user training, download our Guide to Delivering Effective Training for IT implementations. This Guide also explores the value of user training, not only to the success of your implementation project but to the ongoing benefit of your organisation’s investment in software.

We have supported many clients with the development of business cases to justify their investment in a training solution. Should you require assistance in your search for a suitable training solution, or the justification of your chosen tool to your organisation, we would be happy to assist you, help you determine your specific challenges and plan how to overcome them.

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Janice Brown is the founding director of Larmer Brown Limited. She has worked with Oracle’s User Productivity Kit (UPK) technology since 1994 and has over 25 years’ experience in the design and delivery of end user driven implementations. Janice has Diplomas in Business Studies and is a member of the Institute of IT Training.

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