Creating a Training manual

Julia Monk

Has anyone successfully utilized Smartsheets to create a training manual?

SoniaR

Hi Julia - Are you looking to create a sheet that acts as a training manual? Do you want the content to live in Smartsheet or would you like to link to content outside of Smartsheet? If you can give a few more details about what you're wanting to do, we can pass on a few tips!

Julia Monk

I would like it to act as a training manual.  The content will live in Smartsheet and there would also be links to some external content.  I was visualizing a sheet, or Workgorup, with an outline, and inside that outline there will be content and links.

SoniaR

Great - try using this content repository template to host your content and then share via publish or sharing to the folks who need to have access to the content. 

 

-Sonia

Jeremy Myers

Julia,

 

I created something similar for a real estate office.  The content repository template is a good start - in the industry it's called a CMS (Content Management System)

 

To accommodate different learning styles, I made the documentaiton for each topic three levels deep:

 

Level 1 - In a call of the sheet: a very quick explantion of the topic.  This acts as a sort of reminder of how to do the task for someone who already knows about the topic but just needs a nudge to remember specifics.  Turn off the text wrap feature of the cell and made the first line a clear topic sentence.

 

Level 2 - Attach full written documentation of the topic , useful links to webpages and similar.

 

Leve 3 - Video file attached to the row.  I created a content video system with Jing - it's free up to a certain level of usage / stoarge.  You could attach to Vimeo file or similar if content already exsits in the public domain.

 

I added a column called: "Who Learns" with a dropdown list that containts <admin, sales, support> and similar.  You adapt for your particilar situation.

 

Example of Use;  Onboarding a new Admin to Sales Department:

 

Treat onboarding as a project.  Ceate a new gantt chart called Onboarding - Admin - refer to the <who learns> column on the CMS for the list of skills to be learned.  Type a sequential list of the tasks to be learned and the approximate amount of time that each takes, i.e. <log incoming calls - 2 hours>.   Set start dates and similar for a Gantt.

 

From the Onboarding - Admin gant chart, for each subject, create a link back to the the individual cell in the CMS with the matching task.  For those tasks that need to be learned sequentially, run a critical path through those - all other learning modules can start at any time.  Set a column with due dates for the learning modules and you are good to go.  Your new hire just goes through the Gantt, clicks on the live links and self trains.

 

Your weekly training meetings wiith the new Admin are to check their self-learning progress against the plan and to clean up any questions they may have with a particlar topic.  Works like a charm and gets you out of the training business.

 

You are good to go!   

Rebecca Hylek

Hello,

 

I'm new to Smartsheet and will be using it for our sales onboarding program.  I'm not able to locate a Content Repository template.  Has that gone away or could it be called somethng different?

Michelle Mueller

I want my division to use this tool but I need access to a training manual for teaching people how to use the tool in one sitting that they can go back to in order to look up info as needed. The topical areas and the videos won't work. 

I oversee a training department and just offering online and snippets is not the best way to teach most people information. 

 

SharronIsaacson

Hi Sonia, is this content repository template in a workspace with other sheets that correspond to that one? Is it possible to have access to the workspace or those sheets?

SharronIsaacson

hi there,

did you find a way to use smartsheet for a training manual? I would be very interested in seeing an example. I'm trying to work through one right now.