The Global Village

Most companies now understand and agree that user adoption is one of the biggest issues and key success factors of software implementation projects. Once they have got to that point the organizations are faced with the next big challenge. The wish to use e-learning and user performance support is only one part of the equation. The other, even more important one is that learning content also needs to be planned, created and delivered in the most effective way. For big international organizations this often needs to be done frequently and on a global basis in more than one language. This challenge, together with the user adoption problem, is the main reason for not reaching defined project goals, like deadlines, budgets, amortizations and benefits. Efficiently supporting content creation processes and the deliveries of content to target groups - the company’s learners and end users - brings the idea of a user focused approach to the next level and helps to reduce costs significantly during the whole application lifecycle, and to reduce training and support costs even further.

Successful enterprises are increasingly discovering the advantages of a user-focused approach to handling the challenges of software implementation projects, and are therefore declaring user adoption as a primary goal. To achieve this goal, tools are used to generate training material and other documentation automatically instead of manually, simply by recording the processes in the original application. Documentation and also simulations – which come from the same recording - are then provided to the users for initial training or ongoing qualification and assessments. This already eases the pressure on many software projects, since time and resources are limited to enable the users to use existing or new applications more effectively and to achieve faster ROI for the whole project and for the enterprise.

While the concept of a user-focused approach is generally accepted, there is always also the other side of the content life cycle creating the content and providing it to the user. This expands the view from the mere creation of content by some key users and providing the results to end users to a much broader approach in which different key aspects build specific complex requirements for the whole and mostly time-critical content creation process.

What are these key aspects?
Most big enterprises, but also more and more medium-sized companies are global players. Providing training material, documentation, simulations and electronic user performance support is necessary not only at one location in one language. The organizations are spread over several countries at even more locations:

• The content is delivered in more than one language.
• Key users and authors creating the content are working decentralized in their teams.
• Subject matter experts (SME) have only limited time or it is expensive to bring in their process and application knowledge.
• At the same time the content needs to be delivered to the users in the most effective way.
• It is useful to monitor the learning efforts of the users.
• Collected data has to show whether the software was implemented successfully.

About 50% of the datango customers are global players and the percentage is rising constantly. The number of companies with more than one location, even when only present in one country, is way higher than that.

To make user support as efficient as possible, the solution needs to cover: Easy and fast creation of high volumes of content in a user-friendly quality, seamless transition of content to different target languages, fast adaptation of changes in software to all contents, support for authoring groups in content creation projects, single source approach for all kinds of content: one project -> many output formats

Automation

Creating learning content, as part of a software rollout is usually time critical. A lot of content needs to be created in a short period of time, in a defined quality and in defined kinds of flavors. Afterwards this content needs to be translated into different languages. And learning content always needs to be up-to-date and therefore needs to be adapted easily to changes in the software.

Automating the content creation process saves a lot of resources and time.

Why manually record the same process in e.g. 5 different languages? The sequence is known already from the initial recording in the first language. Especially when content is needed in different languages but the key users, authors and subject matter experts are not sufficiently proficient in all the target languages of the content, automation is an easy way to provide contents fast and efficiently.

Why recording the whole process again when just a few screens or buttons changed? An automated recording process that updates the content, and only prompts the author when it comes to a point where a decision needs to be made, does away with a lot of the time-co suming creation of content from scratch.

Automation saves time and supports the rollout process by providing a lot of content in many languages in a very short time in a user-friendly quality.

Documentation

Even in times of e-learning, software simulations and electronic performance support systems (EPSS), classic documentation still has its value to many organizations. Processes need to be documented as part of the implementation life
cycle or the documentation is used as a printed manual at the workplace, to name just two of the possible scenarios.

The documentation is basically the printed version of a business process. A single-source approach together with the recording tool allows easy updating of the documentation as well as providing it automatically in many different types, depending on what the use case for the documentation is.

Simulation

The best way to let the users train and improve their skills is to show them the actual process in the target application or to let him play with it without mistakenly misusing the live-system and causing data corruption or other kinds of malfunction. At the same time a simulation can also be used for assessment purposes if the users have to prove that they are proficient enough to use the live-system for business critical processes.

At any time in the application lifecycle simulations are the core of the qualification measures for the human capital of an organization.

Contact: Nina Butzke
nina.butzke@datango.de

Navigation

The best way to provide help to a user is to offer it exactly at the place and at the time when it is needed. Classical EPSS approaches are providing contextual help in an application on object level (e.g. at a button or at an input field) Navigations take this concept to the next level. In addition to the object level help navigations can take the user literally by the hand in a critical process and guide him through the screens, masks and dialogs to the goal – depending on the individual user’s interactions within the business process or application.

Detailed instructions can be given to the user on what he or she has to do next, entries can be checked for plausibility and automated parts (automated click-sequences) can be inserted in the navigation to save time or bypass redundant parts of the process.

The object and process help together are the most effective way to ensure that end users are always provided with the best help possible in any application at any time. The users can get their training literally on the job. It minimizes costs for the training and the user help desk. Furthermore, navigations can also collect data and reveal the hot spots in the application where users tend to have more difficulties in accomplishing their tasks. This is valuable information for optimizing business processes and maintaining applications.

Collaboration

Working together in a company is important not only in the day-to-day business but also for the lifecycle of learning content. The more content is created, authors are involved and users need to be trained, the more important it becomes to organize these efforts. The authors need a central repository for the content they are creating, enabling them to exchange content easily in different stages of the creation process, no matter whether they are sitting together in an office room or are spread all over the world in different time zones.

Workflow management should support the authors, the project manager and also the other project members to keep an overview of the whole project and to always be informed about who is working on which part of the content and what the status of the project is.

The learners are also part of the collaboration landscape. Content can be assigned directly to users or user groups, ensuring that right and relevant content is presented to the right users. Feedback given by the users helps the authors to improve and maintain the content. The collaboration support for authors is one of the main factors to successfully carrying out implementation projects – not only on a big or international scale.

Evaluation

In an implementation project it is important to evaluate its qualitative and quantitative success. Both can only be achieved if users become proficient in working with their business critical applications.

Every time an end user utilizes navigations in an application, plays a simulation, performs a quiz or views rapid e-learning material, the information about the user‘s actions can be collected and evaluated in different ways.

Evaluation is not limited to reports of user performance or assessments. The collected data can also help to improve and maintain software to reduce support costs and to achieve ROI more quickly.

Localization

Knowledge transfer in a global enterprise can be cumbersome. Key users or subject matter experts for different key processes are able to create help content in their own native language, but already just one second target language is usually a big obstacle.

When recording content, customizable standard text templates can describe the standard actions.
This enables the authors to easily replace those standard instructions with a different language. It can already be sufficient if the user interface is not available in the target language but e.g. in English. If the application‘s user interface is also available in the target language, this can be combined with a fully automated re-recording of the application in the new target language.

The parts of the content using customized text can be exported e.g. to a MS Word file and given to professional translators. Afterwards these translated text fragments can be imported back into the project. This approach makes it unnecessary to have key users or authors for the respective process in the target language, since the translation and the content creation are completely detached from a recording of the process itself.

At the end the whole learning content, the simulations, all documentation and also the EPSS-content are available in numerous languages for optimal user-focused presentation and delivery without the need for much manual effort.

Summary

The global village is becoming a reality. Companies are operating worldwide in a changing environment, constantly modifying their IT landscape and their business processes. The main focus still remains the user. If the user cannot be provided with appropriate training and help material as fast as possible at a high quality, critical business processes are in danger of becoming a threat to the revenue and ROI of the implementation project itself.

Electronic user performance support today is a major key to success for every enterprise. datango identified seven scenarios that are typical for a software implementation project. Taking into account and weighing the seven scenarios correctly, enables any company to deliver perfect aid to their software users, no matter in which corner of the global village they are located.

Author: Christian Kleberg, Head of Product Management, datango AG

About datango
The datango AG, founded in 1999 and headquartered in Berlin, is a technology provider in the e-learning and Electronic Performance Support sectors. Since 2006, the company has enjoyed the support of Hasso Plattner Ventures und EXTOREL on its expansion course. In 2007, datango took over the business unit “Knowledge and Performance Solutions” of the Swedish company Enlight AB – and since then, has also expanded to the international level.

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