It would be helpful for Skilljar by Gainsight to include additional backup / export functionality, as this increases data resiliency, and could improve the ability of teams to review and update content on an ongoing basis.
The Current State
Currently:
- There is no graphical UI affordance to allow users to export, backup, or download course text content at the lesson level. It is possible to select each Content section, select Source Code, and manually copy / paste each section in order to back it up to another location.
- It isn’t possible to export the entirety of a course (encompassing multiple lessons) or multiple courses.
- It isn’t possible to export HTML lesson content as a SCORM file (although it is possible to create a lesson from an existing SCORM file).
- It is possible to download Assets (videos, images) and SCORM files.
In total, if a Skilljar user wants to export content from Skilljar, this is currently an intensive manual process, or would require a script to attempt to crawl the site and download content.
Possible Solutions
- A graphical UI element or menu that allows the user to export content, ideally at the course level.
For example: an export of HTML files for each lesson, packaged and zipped in a folder/file hierarchy that mirrors the course / lesson hierarchy. Associated media assets (images, movie files) could be included in the folder of a given lesson, along with the lesson’s HTML file.
Operational Goals
- Increase data resiliency. Give the customer the ability to store current Skilljar course data in a secondary location to reduce risk to data. Backups are key to any organization’s data resilience strategy.
- Improve ease of review for course material updates. For example, some companies may require consultation with internal stakeholders before a team makes updates to a published course. Such reviews are typically easiest to accomplish using internal company platforms and collaborative document-sharing solutions. They also help avoid the temptation of provisioning Skilljar access for team members who usually don’t need it.
- The ability to export HTML data from Skilljar opens the door to implement content updates more systematically or even programmatically - for example, if we are implementing updates to a brand name, “replace all X with Y” becomes easier with a data export feature. Currently a Skilljar user needs to manually edit each section in each lesson of each course iteratively.
- Increase the value of other product features. For example, proposed product Ideas like content version control, when combined with backup functionality, could allow a team to 1) Take a report from a customer about incorrect or outdated course content, 2) identify who authored the content and when, 3) conduct internal review to identify new content to be published, and 4) implement the new content in Skilljar - secure in the knowledge that it’s safe to do so, because the existing content is doubly protected from data loss by both version control (snapshot / rollback functionality) and the export feature (functionally an offsite backup).
- Align with existing Skilljar functionality. Skilljar offers a download button in the Assets and SCORM tabs already. Adding similar functionality to courses would extend the design logic of existing UI affordances to the most useful level for customers looking to ensure data resilience.