Comprehensive overview of SuccessFactors LMS Training Planner

Overview
One of the not so commonly used but a compelling feature of SuccessFactors Learning Management system (LMS) is the training planner. In our last deployment at a client site, the client was looking at options to forecast and manage training costs and have the ability for the training planners to distribute training budget across different departments/organizations. We deployed SuccessFactors training planner for the client.
Capabilities
SuccessFactors training planner at a high level provides the following capabilities

1. Allow organizations to define training period for which they want to manage training budgets. For example 2017 for a time frame of (01/01/2017 to 12/31/2017) or it could also be 2017 Q1 (Period of 01/01/2017 to 03/31/2017)
2. Allows organizations to assign budgets to organization units.
3. Allow training manager to distribute budget across different organization units
4. Allows to maintain currency conversion so that the planning can be performed in manager currency
5. Allows planning of training needs for different departments
6. Allows training manager to have visibility to organizational projected training costs Vs available budgets
7. Allows employees to request internal and external training requests
8. Allows managers to raise group(bulk) department request for training
9. Can be integrated to Government reporting (2483 programs)

Roles involved in Training Planner
The key players involved in “Training Planner” are:

• Employee
  • Can raise a training request
  • Has visibility into the training request status
• Supervisor
  • Can approve and send training request review to the training planner
  • Can reject a training request of an employee
  • Can raise a bulk organizational request
  • Can also be assigned the additional role of training manager
  • Can assign training manager approved training
• Training Manager
  • Distribute budget
  • Visibility into project training costs vs. available budget
  • Approve both internal and external training request

The below options are available to perform the actions mentioned above for each role

Detailed overview training planner Process Flow:

Detailed overview Training Planner Process flow:
Initial Process:

Approval Steps
Step 4 – Role: Supervisor

• Has a summary view into total training requests, training request costs and hours
• Can reject or defer courses to future
• Supervisor approve and send for final review by training manager
• Supervisor can add bulk request from Catalog or outside

Step 5 – Role: Training Manager

• Receives notification of the request sent for approval by the training manager
• Training Manager reviews the training request cost Vs allocated/available budget and can approve or reject the training request
• Training manager can approve bulk request
• Once the review is complete, the training manager set the flag “Review completed’ for a particular organizational unit.

Step 6 – Role: Supervisor

• If it is an internal training, supervisor can assign training to the employee
  
• if it is an external training,the supervisor needs to provide the final approval

Employee View
Step 7: Role: Employee

• Employee can see the status of the training request
• Internal training if approved, get a notification, and the item is also assigned
• If the Internal training is rejected the employee receives a notification
• If the training is external, then the employee sees the approval and can go ahead with the external training

Conclusion
Training planner is a very comprehensive and robust tool that provides the organizations the ability to manage training budgets. IT involves all key players for training and ensures visibility and comprehensive planning capabilities. In the next part, we will go over the configuration, notifications, and reporting aspect of the Training planner.
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Nagesh: Senior Consultant – SuccessFactors @YASH Technologies

• LMS Training Planner
• SAP
• SuccessFactors