Applies to: Employee Training Management for SharePoint on premise (SP2010, SP2013, SP2016, SP2019)
Other versions: View the version for Office 365/SharePoint online
For installation instructions please refer to the Employee Training Management Installation
Note: All the screenshots were taken from SharePoint 2013. The Employee Training Management is also available for SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint 2019.
In this article:Create an Employee Training Management site
To create an Employee Training Management site you can
- Create a new site collection in SharePoint’s Central Administration.
- Create a new website in an existing site collection.
- Activate the feature on an existing website.
Option 1: Create a new site collection
Open SharePoint Central Administration, go to Application Management -> Create site collection and enter the required information. Choose the template “Employee Training Management Site Template” in the sapiens.at tab and click OK.
Option 2: Create a new website
Open the web where you want to create the new sub web, click Site Actions -> New Site. Filter by sapiens.at and choose the Employee Training Management Site Template. Enter the title and the URL of the new web and click on Create.
Option 3: Activate the feature on an existing website
Open the web where you want to use Employee Training Management and click Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Manage site features. Activate the Sapiens.at.SharePoint Employee Training Management feature.
Lists
The Employee Training Management provides the following lists:
Primary skills: A list of primary skills. The primary skills can be used in the Trainers, Training Catalog and Scheduled Training Events lists.
Trainers: This list contains trainers and lecturers. Trainers are used in the Training Catalog, Scheduled Training Events and in the Feedback list.
Training Catalog: A list of topics and courses.
Scheduled Training Events: This list contains the actual training events. A training can be created from a topic (Schedule Training) or directly in the Scheduled Training Events list.
Enrollments: Enrollments in topics and training events.
Feedback: Feedbacks on past training events.
Configure the Scheduled Training Events list
The Scheduled Training Events list is based on the Calendar with e-mail extension and sends invitations to attendees if they are enrolled or the enrollment is approved. This is why you have to configure the Calendar E-Mail Extension settings.
Calendar E-Mail Extension list settings
Go to the Scheduled Training Events list and click on the link in the notification bar or open the list settings and click on Calendar E-Mail Extension settings in the Communications section.
E-Mail Address
Now you have to configure an e-mail address for the Scheduled Training Events list. You have 2 options:
- Option 1: Standard – Use the SharePoint calendar’s e-mail address
- Option 2: Advanced – Use alternative sender to send meeting requests to people outside of your Exchange organization
Option 1: Standard
Use the calendar’s e-mail address to send meeting requests and receive attendees’ responses.
Option 2: Advanced
Use an alternative sender if your SharePoint’s e-mail domain is private and you want to send meeting requests to people outside of your Exchange organization.
In advanced mode you have to configure an e-mail contact in your Exchange organization using the alias of the alternative sender and set this calendar’s e-mail address as the external e-mail address.
To verify that the e-mail communication works with the configured e-mail address(es), you can click on the Verify e-mail communication button. If something is not configured correctly, this option will help you to identify it.
If the verification is not successful, follow the instructions on the verification page or send an e-mail to support@sapiens.at and include details about your e-mail configuration. We can also help you with the configurations in a GoToMeeting session.
Time Zone
Specify the calendar’s time zone. This is important to get a rule for daylight saving changes if you schedule recurring events.
Prevent Updates through Outlook
Configure whether you want to prevent users from creating or modifying events when the SharePoint calendar is connected to Outlook. This can protect meetings from being deleted or modified unintentionally in Outlook.
Item Attachments
Specify whether to send the item’s attachments with the meeting request.
Calendar E-Mail Extension content type settings
In a content type’s Calendar E-Mail Extension settings you can configure the body of various e-mails sent by the system.
Open the list settings of the Scheduled Events list, click on the Event content type and click on Calendar E-Mail Extension settings.
You can use {field} placeholders to include the value from an event. You can also configure an alternative URL if this SharePoint site can be accessed by external users. All URLs to this SharePoint site will be replaced in the e-mail body with this value.
Employee Training Management settings
To access the Employee Training Management settings you must first go to the scheduled events’ list settings. Then select Employee Training Management settings.
Feedback Settings
Here you can configure the e-mail body of the feedback notification.
You can use {Field} placeholders to include values from the training event or {User-…} placeholders to include user data. The e-mail subject and the URL to the feedback form can also be configured, see the section’s description (screenshot). Feedback notification will be sent to enrolled users by a timer job if the training event is over and the “Collect Feedback” field is checked.
Waiting List Settings
Below you can also adjust various options for the waiting list.
It is possible to select whether there should be a waiting list for an event or not and whether a tentative invitation should be sent to these people or not.
You can also automatically enroll the first user on the waiting list if an enrollment is cancelled and delete cancelled enrollments from the enrollment list.
Additional content approval settings have also been added, so it is possible to restrict the number of pending enrollment to the number of seats and so that enrollments can be approved after the enrollment deadline if desired.
Clicking on “Configure e-mail templates” takes you to the Calendar E-Mail Extension content type settings as explained above.
Permissions
List permissions
All the lists created by the Employee Training Management feature inherit permissions from the web. However, you can remove this inheritance and configure individual permissions for each list.
- Allow site visitors to enroll in topics and trainings: Remove the enrollment list’s role inheritance and grant visitors contribution permissions.
If you do this, you should also grant them contribution permissions for the feedback list. - Only allow site owners to add, update and delete topics and training events: Remove the Training Catalog and Scheduled Training Events lists’ role inheritance and remove the contribution permission from the members group. You may also repeat this for Primary Skills and Trainers, or
- Create a particular SharePoint Group “Training Organizer” for this purpose
Item-level permissions
Item-level permissions are only configured in the list’s advanced settings. We do not remove the permission inheritance on an item level.
In the enrollment and feedback lists users are only allowed to read and edit items that they created themselves. Other lists use the default settings, read and edit all items.
The limitation to allow users to only “Create items and edit items that were created by the user” also makes sense in the Training Catalog and Scheduled Training Events. Especially if all members are allowed to create and edit trainings (default). You may also change the item-level permission setting for these lists.
Anonymous access
If you want to allow anonymous access to your Employee Training Management site you have to enable anonymous access on the web application.
Open the Central Administration, click Manage Web Applications, select the web application, click Authentication Providers, click on the zone and Enable anonymous access.
In the site collection go to Site Actions -> Site Permissions -> Anonymous Access and allow anonymous users to access the Entire web site.
Anonymous users can now access your Employee Training Management site.
If you want to allow anonymous users to enroll in topics and scheduled training events you have to change the settings of the enrollments list.
In the advanced list settings you have to reset the item-level permission settings to the default.
In the list’s permission settings you have to allow anonymous users to add items.
Now anonymous users are able to enroll in topics and scheduled training events.
Repeat this for the feedback list to allow anonymous users to provide feedback on training events.
Permissions FAQ
Who is allowed to enroll in topics and training events?
Users with AddItems permissions on the enrollments list.
Who is allowed to enroll others?
Users with ManageLists permissions on the enrollments list or EditItems permissions on the topic or scheduled training.
Who is allowed to manage enrollments?
Users with EditItems permissions on the topic or scheduled training.
Who is allowed to provide feedback?
Users with AddItems permissions on the feedback list.
Who is allowed to enter feedback for other users?
Users with ManageLists permissions on the feedback list or EditItems permissions on the scheduled training.
Content approval
By default, Topics (Training Catalog), Scheduled Trainings and Enrollments do not require content approval. If you need content approval you can, however, enable this in the list’s versioning settings. This means that items are only visible to the author and users with ManageLists permissions until they are approved.
If content approval is configured the approver has to approve the item after every update to make changes visible to all users. This can lead to inconsistencies in the Scheduled Trainings list, as updates will be sent to attendees immediately. If, for example, the organizer changes the event date, all attendees receive a meeting update via e-mail immediately, but if attendees open the training, they still see the old event date if the training has not been approved yet.
Approval workflows
You can also add approval workflows to lists if, for example, employees need the approval of a manager to attend training events.
Microsoft SharePoint Server already provides a content approval workflow you can use for this purpose.
Activate the Publishing Approval Workflow feature in the site collection features.
You can also configure your own approval workflow or modify the built-in content approval workflow. The only important thing is to update the approval status of the item after the workflow is completed.
If enrollments need approval, add this workflow to the enrollments list and configure to “Start this workflow when a new item is created“.
Also read the following posts:
How to: Create an approval workflow for enrollments in paid training events
How to: Create a simple management approval workflow
If you have problems configuring the solution or any other questions, please send an e-mail to support@sapiens.at. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can, usually within a few hours.
Don’t forget to check our blog for helpful tricks and how-to guides about the Employee Training Management.
