Best practices for using Journeys in Bridge

A Journey is:

A mechanism in Bridge that allows for the use of imported user data to automate affiliation with a group as a means of (1) automating delivery of specific content to those learners and (2) reporting.

Learn how to create a Journey.

Something unique about Journeys is that it allows for inclusion of courses, programs, live trainings, checkpoints, and Perform actions (i.e. 1:1 meetings or skills feedback requests).

Learner relevance can be set for individuals or groups. Enrollment capabilities are that the learner status is set to active in the Journey, and “optional” enrollments are made possible through the shareable link.

Learn more about how to organize your content for your learners.

Here are some popular ways to leverage this feature.

New Hire Onboarding

Starting at a new company can be overwhelming. There is a pound of paperwork to get through, new tools to set up, compliance training to complete, and company-specific learning to digest. Plus, culture assimilation!

Could there be anything more intimidating for a new employee than getting handfuls and handfuls of coursework dumped into the required section of their LMS with a flood of notifications taking over their inbox?

Journeys solves this problem and creates an experience for learners where time-synced content is released in manageable chunks. A best practice that we can recommend is to actually delay the FIRST step of the Journey. This can look like delaying the delivery of the first course or program from the onboarding journey for three days after the learner was added to a new hire group:

It can also look like adding a 60-day cushion to a single checkpoint that nests inside a Journey to be delivered to those same new hire group learners as a reminder to complete something like their New Hire Survey:

SAMPLE LEARNABLES SEQUENCE

  • Welcome to Sleigh
  • Program - Let’s Get Acquainted
    • Our Executive Team
    • Department Roles & Responsibilities
    • Our Culture
  • Live Training - New Hire Meet & Greet
  • Checkpoint - Benefits Open Enrollment
  • Program - Best Practices
    • Gmail Best Practices
    • Google Drive Best Practices
    • Slack Best Practices
    • Navigating a Remote Workforce
  • Checkpoint - Confirm Onboarding Completion

USE CASES

  • Internal, required training
  • Internal, contractor training
  • Internal, employee development
  • External, partner training
  • External, franchise

Compliance Training

There is no company, big or small, that is immune to the necessity for delivering compliance training. Note that most (if not all) of these courses need continuous completion on a yearly basis. 

Using a Journey here can get a little tricky when also trying to pair every course with re-enrollment behaviors since re-enrollments are triggered by completion date and not enrollment date.

To leverage compliance training as a Journey, we recommend naming the courses with the version year and naming the Journey with the version year. We then recommend not enabling re-enrollment for these courses. Instead, you will duplicate the courses in subsequent years, make any necessary modifications, and then name the newer versions of the courses with the appropriate year (and you’ll then put those courses into the Journey name with the matching nomenclature).

Course and program requirements will influence due dates. If a specific course or a set of courses need to be completed within seven days, that rule will be set at the course or program level.

SAMPLE LEARNABLES SEQUENCE

  • Non-Harassment in the Workplace 
  • Program - Cybersecurity Awareness 
    • Phishing Scams 
    • Mobile Security 
    • Malware 
  • Active Shooter 
  • Avoiding Bias 
  • First Aid 

USE CASES

  • Internal, required training
  • Internal, contractor training

Department or Role Ongoing Education

You are the marketing manager. You want your direct and indirect reports in the marketing department to stay abreast of both relevant industry trends and important company-specific initiatives. Create a Journey that will allow for continuous course additions that is based on assignment to the marketing smart group.

Note that any new hire is going to be added to this Journey. It may then be best to set this up in a non-linear fashion so that anyone in the group with the affiliation can have visibility to the entire set of content. Categories work in a similar fashion, so you’ll want to explore if you’d like the learner to experience this content as an assignment (in a Journey) or as a chunk of visible content for enrollment at the user’s discretion (in a category).

SAMPLE LEARNABLES SEQUENCE

  • Marketing at Sleigh LLC
  • Hubspot Best Practices
  • Color Theory
  • Program - Photoshop Tips & Tricks
    • Removing Backgrounds
    • Working with Layers
    • Mastering Gradients
    • Typography 101
  • Inbound Marketing
  • Welcome New Team Member: Jessie

USE CASES

  • Internal, required training
  • Internal, skill development

Manager or Leadership Training

Journeys is a fantastic way to leverage cohort-based leadership training. We see this in organizations who are passionate about (1) leveraging multiple and different touchpoints with their learners and (2) upskilling employees for vertical movement in their organizations.

A popular formula is to have programs that are broken up by live trainings with expected behaviors as checkpoints to engage in social learning through company chats (i.e. Slack or Teams) to expand on the topics discussed in the programs.

For these Journeys, it is necessary that they be taken in order.

SAMPLE LEARNABLES SEQUENCE

  • Program - Leading at Sleigh
    • Your First 90 Days
    • Making Connections
    • Deepening Relationships
    • Team Purpose & Alliance
    • Team Assessment
    • Team Dynamics
  • Live Training - Leading at Sleigh, Cohort #
  • Checkpoint - Participate in Slack Channel [Leading at Sleigh]
  • Program - Conscious Leader
    • Your Leadership Style
    • Building Trust
    • Performance Coaching
    • Communication
    • Navigating Change
    • Online Meetings
  • Live Training - Conscious Leader, Cohort #
  • Checkpoint - Participate in Slack Channel [Conscious Leader]
  • Program - Leading People
    • Career Development
    • Supporting Performance
    • Promoting Well-Being
  • Live Training - Leading People, Cohort #
  • Checkpoint - Participate in Slack Channel [Leading People]
  • Program - Leading Teams
    • Team Effectiveness
    • Creating Intelligent Teams
  • Live Training - Leading Teams, Cohort #
  • Checkpoint - Participate in Slack Channel [Leading Teams]

USE CASES

  • Internal, skill development
  • Internal, employee development

Continuous Culture Development

Another example of a non-linear Journey could be ongoing additions of content that seek to reinforce the company culture. With Analytics, this is also a great way for admins to see the percentage of content that is being completed within the Journey.

SAMPLE LEARNABLES SEQUENCE

  • Program - Sleigh North Stars
    • Our Mission & Vision
    • Values that Drive Us
  • Checkpoint - Career Drivers
  • Culture Updates
  • Employee Resource Groups

USE CASES

  • Internal, skill development
  • Internal, employee development

If a user is migrating between Journeys because they change smart groups that are affiliated with different Journeys, we want to acknowledge that you can expect the following enrollment behaviors.

  • A historically completed learnable in the Journey will retain its completion state
  • If a user leaves a smart group that is affiliated with a Journey, that user will be unenrolled from the Journey; if the user is in an active state of any learnable, that learnable’s enrollment will move to the “added by you” section and will no longer be required (this happens at the highest level of the learnable and will not cascade down, i.e. if a user is unenrolled from the Journey when they are two steps into a five-step Program, the entire Program will move to the “added by you” section)
  • If a course or Program within the Journey is set to re-enrollment, the learner will be re-enrolled based on the logic of the course and Program from the date that the user originally completed the learnable

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