Customize user views of Training resources with My Learning tab

By Richard Santink, Sr. e-Learning Specialist, Global Education Services, Cognos Inc.

In most enterprise organizations, timely training is crucial to reducing support costs and improving productivity. Equally important is ensuring that training resources are targeted at the correct audience. The My Learning tab in Cognos Connection allows system administrators to determine ‘who sees what’ in terms of training resources based on group membership within a namespace. For example, Report Authors can be configured to see a different set of training resources than Analysis Users, enforcing target audience.

The Difference

My Learning is packaged with a Java-based application that allows administrators to push the portal across all users within a namespace. The My Learning tab, in conjunction with deployment archives, simplifies administration and distribution of tabs to existing users, by eliminating the need to recreate tabs for each existing account. For new accounts, the default profile can be configured to include the tab. Although it is indeed possible to create a similar portal on a web server using web protocols such as HTML, DHTML, XML, etc., the My Learning solution allows administrators to reduce the effort, while consolidating the portal with the Cognos product. My Learning tab can be customized to include an organization’s current content, located on file or web servers.

Downloading the My Learning Script

The My Learning script and administrator’s guide are available to supported customers at no charge. Visit My Learning to download the zip file you’ll need to install My Learning to your Cognos Connection portal.

Adding the My Learning Tab

All of the details needed to install the My Learning tab on a system running one or more namespaces are contained within the Administrator’s Guide in the download file., It is a simple 7 step procedure for each namespace that is to be configured on the computer. When the code has completed, all existing users will have the My Learning portal tab available to them.

Figure 1: Default installation of My Learning tab

The My Learning package includes the Cognos 8 BI for Consumers CBT demos in English, French, and German.

All technical questions about My Learning should be sent to cognos.ges@ca.ibm.com.

Benefits of My Learning

• Provides a single location to consolidate all training links.
• Links to static pages, dynamic content, multimedia, as well as many other data formats.
• Includes script to copy portal to all existing user profiles.
• Training resources ‘gateway’ configures itself dynamically, based on logon credentials.
• Provides an environment that can be configured to mirror the security model of your namespace.
• Supports multiple platforms.
• Includes uninstall functionality.

With the My Learning tab installed within your Cognos Connection portal, you are now ready to roll out the training resources to each of the various roles within your organization. The My Learning tab can also be used to link end users with Cognos CBT Training courses, recordings and other web based learning offerings purchased from Cognos.