Automatic Schedule Rules

How to automate lesson scheduling

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Written by Damstra Technology
Updated over a week ago

The Automatic Schedule Rules page provides advanced lesson scheduling for a variety of conditions.

  • New User Rule: When a new user account is created, schedule a lesson for the user. This is useful for general, company-wide training.

  • Group Rule: Schedule users based on their groups. This can be useful for the job or location-specific training.

  • Recurring Schedule Rule: Schedule a lesson on a recurring interval.

  • Lesson Completion Rule: Schedule a lesson after the prerequisite lessons have been completed.

You are also able to set up multiple rules for the same lesson.

Creating a Rule

  • From the Lessons page, click the menu dropdown for the lesson you would like to apply a rule.

  • Select the ‘Automatic Schedule’ menu option.

The Automatic Schedule Rules page will appear. If no rules have been assigned, the page will display the following message. 

Select the ‘Add New Rule’ button to create a new rule from the drop-down list.

New User Rule

The New User Rule schedules the lesson when a new user account is created in Damstra Learning.

This can be useful for general, company-wide training such as company policies or company values.

You can specify:

  • How many days after the user has been created before scheduling the lesson.

  • The number of days the user has to complete the lesson before it is overdue.

Rule Summary:

  • This rule will be applied when a user is added to Damstra Learning.

Group Rule

With the Group Rule, you can automatically schedule users based on their groups.

This can be useful for scheduling more specific training based on extra details of the user like location or role in the company.

For example, you might want to schedule an Office Ergonomics lesson for everyone in the office or schedule a Safety video for all electricians.

This rule will also schedule the lesson for any new users that are added to the group(s) at a later date.

You can specify:

  • The group(s) of users that will be scheduled the lesson.

  • Whether the user must be in all or any of the selected groups.

  • How many days after the user has been added to the groups before scheduling the lesson.

  • The number of days the user has to complete the lesson before it is overdue.

Saving the rule will apply it retrospectively to any users that match the criteria. This is useful for making applying changes to users that are already in Damstra Learning.

Rule Summary:

  • This rule will be applied retrospectively after saving.

  • Users must be in either all or any of the selected groups, depending on its configuration.

  • A user will not be scheduled the lesson if they have already completed it. 

  • A user will not be scheduled the lesson if they have already been scheduled it.

  • Canceling a lesson will not stop this rule from scheduling it again. We find that manually completing the lesson is usually a better option rather canceling.

Recurring Schedule Rule

The Recurring Schedule Rule repeatedly schedules the lesson after a specified period of time. 

This is useful for retraining users that have already completed the lesson so they are periodically refreshed and up to date with any changes that have been made to the lesson.

You can specify:

  • How often the lesson should be repeated.

  • The number of days the user has to complete the lesson before it is overdue.

Saving the rule will apply it retrospectively to any users that match the criteria. This is useful for making applying changes to users that are already in Damstra Learning.

Overdue Lesson Completion Behaviour
The goal of this rule is to satisfy business policies such as "users must complete this lesson every 6 months". Damstra Learning handles this by recurring based on the completed date initially and then the scheduled date thereafter. This is so lessons will be scheduled at a consistent period of the year (after the initial completion to start it off). 

This has an interesting effect when a user doesn't complete their lesson until it is overdue. Here's an example:

A lesson has a 6-month recurring schedule rule and a user has completed the lesson in January. That means the rule will schedule the lesson again for July.

  • If the user completes the lesson in July, they will be scheduled the lesson again in January.

  • If the user completes the lesson in September they will still be scheduled to do it in January - the rule doesn't schedule is based on completion. This makes sure the lesson is still completed twice a year.

  • If the user completes the lesson in February the following year (7 months overdue) the lesson will be scheduled for July. That means they missed their July schedule completely and only completed the lesson once that year instead of the expected twice per year.

Rule Summary:

  • This rule will be applied retrospectively after saving.

  • This rule applies to any users that have completed the lesson. This can be organised by either manually scheduling the lesson or using another rule.

  • This rule will try and schedule the lesson in consistent periods of the year, depending on how late a lesson is completed.

  • A user will not be scheduled the lesson if they have already been scheduled it.

  • Canceling a lesson will not stop this rule from scheduling it again. We find that manually completing the lesson is usually a better option rather canceling.

Lesson Completion Rule

The Lesson Completion Rule schedules the lesson after the specified prerequisite lessons have been successfully completed by the user. That means that tests will have to be passed to be scheduled the following lesson.

You can specify:

  • The prerequisite lessons that must be completed before this lesson is scheduled. All selected lessons must be completed successfully to trigger this rule.

  • The period of time after a series of lessons are completed, that the new scheduled lesson should become available.

  • The number of days the lesson must be completed within.

Saving the rule will apply it retrospectively to any users that match the criteria. This is useful for making applying changes to users that are already in Damstra Learning.

Rule Summary:

  • This rule will be applied retrospectively after saving.

  • Users must complete all prerequisite lessons.

  • If any prerequisite lessons have tests then they must be passed 

  • A user will not be scheduled the lesson if they have already completed it. 

  • A user will not be scheduled the lesson if they have already been scheduled it.

  • Canceling a lesson will not stop this rule from scheduling it again. We find that manually completing the lesson is usually a better option rather canceling.

Editing and Deleting Existing Rules

Once a schedule rule has been created, it will appear on the page.

To modify the previously created schedule rule, simply click on the item in the list and it will expand and allow you to edit or remove it.

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