Managing Training Plans

This chapter provides an overview of training plans and discusses how to:

• Set up training plans.

• Generate training plan reports.

• Model training plan budgets.

See Also

(FRA) Managing French Regulatory Requirements

Understanding Training Plans

A training plan identifies the training that learners are expected to complete over a stated period of time. Each training plan pertains to a single company or learning environment and can be designed to meet one or more high-level learning objectives.

You can use training plans to:

• Estimate the demand for learning.

• Project the cost of delivering training.

• Compare training budgets to estimated training costs.

• Report actual training for a defined period.

Note. (FRA) Organizations that operate in France can generate training plans that satisfy the Workers' Council requirements for reporting forecasted training.

You can create multiple plans for the same time period. For example, you might produce an annual training plan by company, and produce separate quarterly plans by learning environment.

You can also generate training plans for the current period or a future period. Plans are based on activity enrollments, learning requests, supplemental learning and program registrations.

Training Plans and Training Budgets

When you define a training plan, you specify the period of time it covers, the learning environment or company and respective establishment or business unit it represents, the objectives, and the training budget for each department. The system produces two reports: the training plan and a training plan budget:

• Training plan

  This report lists all activities, learning requests, supplemental learning, and program registrations that meet the parameters defined on the Training Plan Setup and Training Plan Status Options pages. For each activity, it lists the learner's employee ID, name, organization, and other details. Activities are sorted by global objective. The report lists learning requests and the number of learners associated with each request. The enrolled date on the report represents the date the enrollment record was created.

• Training plan budget

  This report includes the same information as the training plan plus the budgeted training amount for each department and the forecasted cost of delivering the training listed for each department. Information is sorted by department rather than by global objective.

Note. (FRA) When French features are enabled for the administrator's learning environment, the reports also include head counts of learners by certain criteria such as age, gender, learning classification, employee category, and other information that is required by the Workers' Council. The labor agreement and related category codes that appear on the report are defined in PeopleSoft HR. A DIF (Droit Individuel à la Formation) indicator on the report is selected when DIF hours are specified for an enrollment request.

Report Formats

You can generate training plans in several formats, including PDF and CSV (comma separated value). Files generated in CSV format can be opened with Microsoft Excel, enabling you to modify the format and content of the reports to meet your requirements.

Forecasted Learning Costs

In the training plan budget report, the system lists the total forecasted training cost for each department, along with the forecasted cost for each related learning request, supplemental learning, program registration, and activity enrollment record.

For learning requests, the system uses the estimated (flat) cost per learner that you enter when submitting the learning request.

For enrollment records, forecasted costs can be based on an estimated flat amount per learner, or on an hourly amount per learner multiplied by the number of hours defined for an activity's components. If both cost figures are available, and component durations are defined for the activity, the estimated hourly cost takes precedence.

For activities, the default rules for using estimated flat and hourly costs work as follows:

• You can define system-wide default values for the estimated cost and hourly cost through the Install Defaults component.

• Learning environments inherit the default cost values from the Install Defaults component.

  You can override both values by learning environment.

• Catalog items inherit the estimated cost from the learning environment.

  You can override this value for a catalog item.

• Delivery methods inherit the default estimated cost from the catalog item and the default hourly cost from the learning environment.

  You can override both default values for a delivery method.

• Learning activities inherit the cost values from the delivery method.

  These values do not appear in the Activity component and cannot be overridden.

For supplemental learning, the system uses the price field that you can set when defining supplemental learning.

For program registrations, the system determines the cost based on the internal price or external price defined in the program details, whichever is applicable.

Data Selection for Reports

To determine which enrollment records, supplemental learning, program registrations, and learning requests to include in the training plan report, the system refers to the parameters that you define on the Training Plan Status Options page and the criteria entered on the Training Plan Setup page.

On the Training Plan Status Options page you specify the status of the enrollment records, learning requests, supplemental learning, and program registrations that can be included in current and future training plans. For example, you may want to include completed activities in current plans but not in future plans. You define these rules during system configuration.

On Training Plan Setup page, the administrator enters an As of date, Start Date, End Date, and other filtering criteria to specify which records to include in the report.

Budget Modeling

In addition to the training plan and training plan budget reports, PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management provides a budget modeling tool that enhances your ability to plan and make adjustments to training plans based on budget data. The Training Plan Budget Model page enables you to perform "what if" analysis based on budget data and training demand costs.

(FRA) Prerequisites

To enable an administrator to see head counts by learner age, gender, learning classification, and category when analyzing training budget models, be sure that French features are enabled for the administrator's learning environment.

See Also

Prerequisites

Setting Up Training Plans

This section provides an overview of training plan setup and discusses how to:

• Define statuses for actual and future training plans.

• Define training plan parameters.

Understanding Training Plan Setup

Before you can generate training plans, you must identify which catalog items, learning requests, supplemental learning, and program registrations your plans can include, define default values for calculating estimated costs, and complete other setup tasks.

The setup steps that are described here are presented in two sections: implementation tasks and plan preparation tasks.

Implementation Tasks

Complete the following tasks during system implementation. You can modify the setup later, as needed.

1. (Optional) Define global objectives.

   A global objective represents a broad learning goal that can be associated with a training plan, for example, a company-wide objective to improve teamwork or adopt new accounting standards. Information in the training plan is sorted by learning objective. Use the Objective Definition (LM_OBJV_TBL) component to identify global objectives.

   See Setting Up Objectives.

2. Define criteria for including activity enrollments, learning requests, supplemental learning, and program registrations in current or future training plans.

   The system refers to the status of a learner's activity enrollment record, learning request, supplemental learning, or program registration to determine whether to include the learning in a training plan. Use the Training Plan Status Options page to specify which statuses to associate with future plans and which statuses to associate with current plans.

   See Defining Statuses for Actual and Future Training Plans.

3. (FRA) Review learning classifications and training categories.

   French organizations are required to classify planned and actual learning according to legally defined learning classifications, such as competency check and experience validation, and training plan categories, such as job adaptation and job evolution. Enterprise Learning Management delivers learning classifications and training plan categories as system data.

   See Reviewing and Defining Learning Classifications.

   See Reviewing and Defining Training Plan Categories.

4. Define default values for estimating learning costs.

   For each learning environment, define the estimated (flat) cost per learner and the estimated hourly cost per learner on the Learning Environment - Defaults page. (Learning environments inherit the default costs values from the Install Defaults component.)

   See Defining Default Values for a Learning Environment.

5. When adding catalog items and activities to the learning catalog, complete the following tasks for learning that you want to include in training plans:

   • (Optional) Assign a default learning classification to each catalog item and enter the estimated (flat) cost using the Item Details page.

     See Creating Catalog Items.

     Note. You can use the Learner Roster page to associate a training classification with a learner's activity enrollment record or update the classification.

   • (Optional) Assign a global objective to each catalog item on the Maintain Items - Attributes page.

     Global objectives are used to sort data in the training plans. If a catalog item has no global objective, all training related to that item is listed on the training plan under a Not Classified category.

     See Creating Catalog Items.

   • Enter the estimated cost, by delivery method, for each catalog item.

     Update the estimated (flat) cost and the hourly cost per learner on the Delivery Method page.

     See Defining Delivery Methods for Catalog Items.

   • For each activity, enter the duration of the constituent learning components.

     This step is only necessary when you want the system to calculate estimated costs based on the hourly amount.

6. To ensure that the system can capture costs for a learner's supplemental learning, you must enter a price and currency when you enter supplemental learning details on the Supplemental Learning (LM_ADHC_LRN_PG) page. The Price and Currency Code fields are available on this page only if you set Price and Currency Lookup to display on the Define Supplemental Learning - Details (LM_ADHC_SETUP_PG) page for the type of supplemental learning you are adding.

   See Maintaining Learning Records and Objectives Using Employee Self Service, Defining Supplemental Learning Type Details.

Plan Preparation Tasks

After you complete the implementation tasks, identify the demand for learning. Demand is based on enrollment records and learning requests. The system automatically takes into account any enrollment records that meet the training plan parameters and are designated to be included in the budget model on the Training Plan Status Options page.

To also use learning requests to quantify the demand for learning:

1. Use the Submit Learning Requests (LM_ADM_LRQ_ASSGN) component to enter learning requests.

   On the Submit Learning Requests - Details: Training Plan Attributes page specify if the request is eligible for inclusion in the training plans and enter additional attributes for the request.

   (FRA) If French features are enabled for your learning environment, and you are submitting a request for seats (rather than naming individual learners), you can complete the French fields at the bottom of the Training Plan Attributes page for head count information required by the Workers' Council.

2. Update learning requests submitted by learners and managers.

   Use the Maintain Learning Request: Training Plan Attributes page to make these requests eligible for inclusion in training plans and enter the estimated costs, global objective, and other information.

See Managing Learning Requests.

Pages Used to Set Up Training Plans

Defining Statuses for Actual and Future Training Plans

Access the Training Plan Status Options page (Set Up ELM, Catalog, Training Plan Status Options, Training Plan Status Options).

When you generate a training plan, you specify the plan's start date and an as of date. If the as of date is before the start date, the plan is considered a future plan, and the system considers the enrollment and request statuses defined in the Consider for future plan column on this page. If the as of date is after the start date, the plan is considered an actual plan, and the system considers the enrollment and request statuses defined in the Consider for actual plan column.

See Enrollment and Registration Statuses.

Defining Training Plan Parameters

Access the Training Plan Setup page (Enterprise Learning, Learning Reports, Training Plan Setup, Training Plan Setup).

Use this page to define a set of training plan parameters that you can use to run the Training Plan report or to perform analysis using the budget modeling tool.

Assign Global Objectives

Select the global objectives for the training plan. Information in the plan is sorted by global objective. Learning with a global objective that differs from the plan's objectives is listed at the end of the global objectives. Learning that has no global objective is listed at the end of the report under the heading Not Classified. All global objectives that you select here are listed in the report, even if none of the reported learning is designed to meet the objective. This helps you spot unsupported global objectives and revise your training plan as needed.

Training Budget by Department

Enter the budgeted training amount for each department that is associated with the selected learning environment or company.

Generating Training Plan Reports

This section discusses how to run training plan reports.

Page Used to Generate Training Plans

Running Training Plan Reports

Access the Training Plan page (Enterprise Learning, Learning Reports, Training Plan, Training Plan).

Use this page to initiate the LM_TRPLN PSJob, which includes both the Training Plan Report (LMTPOBJV) and Training Report - Budget (LMTPLNBG). You define the parameters associated with a training plan ID on the Training Plan Setup page.

Modeling Training Plan Budgets

This section discusses how to analyze training plan budgets.

Page Used to Model Training Plan Budgets

Analyzing Training Plan Budgets

Access the Training Plan Budget Model page (Enterprise Learning, Learning Reports, Training Plan, Training Plan Budget Model).

Training Plan ID	Select a training plan ID. The system populates the fields in the Run group box based on the training plan ID that you select. These are the training plan parameters that the system uses to generate the budget model.
Run	Click to generate a budget model for each department associated with the training plan ID. Click this button for an existing budget model to update the current training demand so that it reflects enrollments and drops that occurred after the budget model was originally created.

Budget Model

The fields in this group box provide an overview of how a department's training budget compares to its actual activity cost.

Budget Items: Details Tab

The Details tab of the Budget Items group box lists each item included in the Total Activity Costs for the department.

Budget Items: Criteria and Add Criteria Tabs

The Criteria and Add Criteria (additional criteria) tabs of the Budget Items group box display the learning request criteria counts for each activity included in the model. Each field represents a different learning request criteria attribute value as defined on the Learning Request Criteria page. Because learning request criteria are defined for each learning environment, the fields that appear on these tabs depend on the learning environment associated with the training plan ID selected for the model. You can edit the counts for each learning request criteria attribute value, save them, and use them for the training plan reports.

Note. To be able to view and edit learning request criteria counts on the Training Plan Budget Model page, you must have French features enabled for the learning environment associated with the model's training plan ID.