EC: Release Notes 12.4.2024 - New Course Player Update

Effective December 4th 2024, Engage Center will be unveiling a visually enhanced course player. This upgrade will elevate our course presentation with a sleek, modern design that ensures smoother, more intuitive navigation.

PLEASE NOTE: The visual enhancements in this upgrade are exclusive to the desktop version of EC.

Meet the All-New Course Player

Section A. New Title Bar

The upgrade will make our course titles more prominent and easily comprehensible for leaners with the all-new title bar. The Title bar will include the Course Title, Course Type and Course progress as underlined in the following image.

Course Title: Gimme a Break - BDS Meal Break Guidelines for Employees
Course Type: E-Learning
Course Progress: 0 of 2 lessons completed

Section B. The Syllabus

The syllabus, or table of contents, will now be located on left-hand side within a collapsible drawer.

By default, the syllabus will be visible when learners access the course.

Please note that while this will be the default setting, course creators will have ability to set their syllabus preference. These settings can be adjusted within a course’s General Settings under Player.

Section C. Training Material Title

The title of the active training material will now be displayed above the content as the learner interacts with it. With this in mind, we need to pay close attention to what we are naming our training material objects now that the course title is so prominent.

Please avoid labeling your training objects the same as the course title.

If the object needs to have the same wording as in my example above, ensure to trim unnecessary parts from the object's name.

Section D. Title Bar [Continued]

Superadmins and Power Users with the correct permissions will have quick access to the administrative sections for easier management.

New Course Player - New Color Theme

Engage Center will be adopting what is referred to as a dark theme for its color scheme. This dark theme will allow our training material to stand out against the lighter colors present across our LMS.

This dark theme will be applied to all our courses when the update rolls out.

Please note that while this dark theme we will be applied to all courses upon the update rollout, course creators will still have the option to set their own light or dark theme preference. These settings can be adjusted within a course’s General Settings under Player.

Focus Mode - a New Mode of Presentation

Focus mode is designed to eliminate distractions and focus the user's attention on the training content. When enabled, the course player expands to full screen, optimizing the display for the learning materials.

If the course contains a single training material:

The system will hide the syllabus to maximize space for the training material
Only the course tile will appear in the player header to avoid redundancy and text duplication

For courses with multiple materials:

"Next Lesson" and "Previous Lesson" buttons are located on the right side of the header for easy navigation
Hovering over these buttons displays a tooltip with the name of the next or previous lesson

In courses within a Learning Plan:

Navigation behaves dynamically to offer a simple and intuitive way to move between course contents and courses.
After completing the last lesson, the "Next Lesson" button changes to "Next Course," allowing seamless transition to the next course in the Learning Plan.

By default, Focus Mode will not be activated across Engage Center.

Course creators will still have the option to enable this feature on a per-course basis. These settings can be adjusted within a course’s General Settings under Player.

New Video Playback Options - PLEASE READ

Prior to this update, video training material only had the following options available when configuring the playhead settings of a video:

[Before 12/4/2024] Allow users to move through the video with the item in the playhead:

- No
- Yes
- After Completion

The new course player expands on these options with the addition of a new capability*

*'Learners can only move backwards' is currently not functional for mobile app learners. This new feature still requires further refinement by our LMS provider, docebo, and we cannot recommend using this feature in its current state

Until further notice, please only use the following options when setting up a video training material:

- Do not allow learners to move through the video
- Learners can move backwards and forward
- Learners can move backward and forward only after completing the course or less (Recommended)

Meet the All-New Learning Plan Overview Page

Learning plans have been revamped to include a more detailed overview page that see the inclusion of a new Hero Banner:

Section A. Hero Banner

The hero banner will display the name of the learning plan against the backdrop of any color or image that you prefer. These settings can be found within the learning plan being configured under General Settings and Header Layout.

Section B. Learning Plan description & Courses

Your learning plan description will be underneath the hero banner and right above your list of courses within the Learning Plan.

Section C. Learning Plan Progress

On the right-hand side of the Learning Plan overview page, learners will see their Learning Plan progress including the number of courses left to complete and the total amount of time left*. Total amount of time is calculated using a course's set Average Time.

Section D. Learning Plan Details

Below Learning Plan Progress, learners will see the Learning Plan details showcasing the total Average Time of the Learning plan, Time to Complete and Learning Plan ID.

Average Completion Time is automatically calculated by EC using each course's set average time.

Time to Complete is set by looking at the Learning Plans set validity period.