Here's how SumTotal 18.2 update can engage your learners and elevate your enterprise learning ecosystem. 

Focus on Learner-centric design and learners’ choice of learning 

The update presents content in a Netflix-style design, with multi-modal content that invites your learners to choose their favorite learning style.  

Along with Percipio's content services, it offers learners a fresh content experience. 

• Engages learners with personalized learning playlists and a bespoke design. 
• Fills competency gaps with content discovery and provides short bursts of relevant content that fits your learners’ busy schedules 
• Offers flexibility for users to choose their own learning styles 

Mobile-friendly design to engage learners on the go 

SumTotal has a mobile-first design strategy that ensures the new learning and social experience is optimized for small screens. The app is available for Apple, Android, and Microsoft — including Surface and Windows 10 Laptops. 

Social functionality to facilitate collaborative learning 

SumTotal Social allows your learners to build communities, post blogs, discuss learning, and share files. It further supports the BYOS approach and is also planning integrations with Teams and Slack to build on the existing integration with Yammer.  

Flexible extended enterprise learning tools  

SumTotal has enhanced its extended enterprise learning tools with email marketing support to grow your training revenue. 

• Greater flexibility in how you package and bundle your content to create a holistic learning experience. 
• Payment options support a virtual currency in the form of tokens.  

Accurate processing of employee time and attendance  

SumTotal 18.2 brings you a redesigned and updated rule engine for accurate processing employee time, attendance, scheduling, and absence management. With a drag and drop design and enhanced sequencing of rules and rule sets it, helps you deploy customer self-service improvements faster.  

Improved compliance training and LMS infrastructure 

SumTotal 18.2 offers you a smooth path to design your curriculum, assign it to various groups, to better manage credits and compliance reporting.   

Getting Ready for the Update?  

A little preparation can help you make the most of the update. Here are some suggestions to help you get ready.  

• Understand the new functionality and document it.    
• Create a project plan. Maintain checklists for all tasks.  
• Prioritise your focus and ensure there is enough coverage for critical functionality.  
• Maintain a testing log and track the status of every bug and fix.  
• Assemble the right team (discuss team characteristics, who should do what)        

As always, if you have questions, please contact us.   

But testing is one of the most important functions, not only in your implementation but ongoing system management. The stakes can be high — from inaccurate regulatory reporting to a damaged company reputation.

You should include testing in project costs for the initial implementation and operating costs for the life of the software. After user acceptance testing (UAT), you will need to conduct regression testing for every software update. You should also perform weekly testing after system fixes and to test for security errors.

Automated testing

Fortunately, automated testing can be very cost-effective, and it has several advantages:

• It reduces the cost of labor-intensive manual testing.
• It eliminates the human error inherent in tedious, repetitive tasks.
• Many automated tasks, such as weekly security testing, can run unattended overnight.
• You can save and replicate test scenarios for automating periodic tasks like regression testing of software updates.
• By eliminating almost all repetitive testing, it enables your testing team to focus on critical test management tasks.

Manual Testing

Automated testing is not always the best approach. In many cases manual testing is more desirable and in some cases necessary.

Exploratory Testing. Manual testing is required when you are designing new processes and workflows. Hands-on testing validates workflow decisions.

Configuration Testing. Initial testing by the people who make configuration decisions gives them a first-hand look at the impact of their decisions and provides an essential training ground for the core team.

Scenario Scripting. Creating a new automated script requires a detailed step-by-step manual testing the entire process. Even though many testing tools give you the capability to record a test scenario and convert it to a script, that shortcut can lead you astray. What’s missing in a recorded script is validation. The process must check whether each sub-process stores the correct values in the right place. Use a recording only as a starting point for creating your test scripts.

Usability Testing. The purpose of usability testing is to ensure that the software is intuitive and efficient from the perspective of the user. The feedback you get from users will be invaluable in improving the user experience, and they may have suggestions for improvement that will make your processes more efficient. Involving people from your organization in usability testing also creates an opportunity for you to co-opt them as evangelists in your change management efforts.

Both manual and automated testing have an essential place in your testing strategy. Let machines handle the routine work so your people can focus on critical thinking and design.

Chasma Place, is an independent source for solutions that will help you keep pace with changes in the way your people work without ripping and replacing your existing systems.

SumTotal 18.1 isn’t the leap forward that 17.2 was. At our first look, it appears to be improvements in those features and some new tools to make admin easier and learning more accessible.

Here are just a few of the highlights:

• It’s now easier to address one of the most pressing problems business face today. SumTotal Learn is now integrated with Harvard Business Publishing, making the entire spectrum of leadership development courses available.
• The new Library is now easier to manage with permissions to manage and organize taxonomies. Administrators can now associate multiple activities to a single topic and associate entire topics with audiences.
• Users can now manage skill matrices, and administrators can connect one skill to another to develop learning paths.
• Your administrator can assign permission to update statuses for all open child activities from the parent activity roster.
• Learners now have a calendar view for searching for activities, and you can put the calendar on their dashboards using the calendar widget.

Of course, these features come complete with the admin tools to manage them.

Getting Ready for the Update

A little preparation can help you make the most of the coming updates. Here are three suggestions to help you start your planning.

Tune up your data files. Before the update is an excellent time to clean up your records. Take this opportunity to archive old content and clean up user records. Check your support records to see if there are issues you need to address before the update.

Prepare your test scripts. Review changes in your organization, processes, and configurations. Document any changed workflows to make it easier to record and edit new scripts.

Evaluate new features to assess how they can help you improve service. For example, if you have beenconsidering investments in leadership development, HBR integration may be just the opportunity you need.

As always, if you have questions, please contact us.

Chasma Place, is an independent source for solutions that will help you keep pace with changes in the way your people work without ripping and replacing your existing systems.