Organizations can access LinkedIn Learning content via an integration built into the LMS. This feature allows clients to import LinkedIn course content to the LMS and track user progress and completion.
The LinkedIn Learning Integration is only available in Absorb Production environments.
Getting Started
To get started with LinkedIn Learning content to Absorb, you will first need two key things:
1. A Single Sign-On (SSO) connection.
2. A subscription to LinkedIn Learning.
You'll need to contact LinkedIn Learning directly to get a subscription to their service, as Absorb does not sell LinkedIn Learning plans.
LinkedIn Learning Configuration
- Enable AICC Content: This step will request AICC course content links to be included with your Course Information.
Enable AICC FirstEnsure that Enable AICC is enabled before connecting Absorb to your Corporate LinkedIn Learning account. This will ensure that content is made available to convert to Courses.
- Enable API Keys: This step allows Absorb to connect to your available content to prepare it to be converted to Courses within Absorb.
- Authenticate LinkedIn Corporate Account in Absorb: This step connects your Corporate LinkedIn account with Absorb and steps to convert content to Courses.
- To complete the configuration with Absorb, you will need the Client ID and the Client Secret from the previous step.
- To activate LinkedIn Learning and have the information added to your Portal, you will need to either request this from your Onboarding Specialist, or reach out to your assigned Client Success Manager to help set this up for you.
Authorized ContentAll content authorized for the client by the LinkedIn-provided credentials will be returned automatically. This cannot be affected by Absorb.
- Enable SSO and User Provisioning: This step prepares your Corporate LinkedIn account to provide content access to individual LinkedIn profiles.
- You will require a LinkedIn SAML set up with complete SSO configurations. LinkedIn Learning will come with a free SSO connection specifically for LinkedIn Learning Connection. However, if you would also like to connect to other systems for which we do not offer an app or out-of-the-box integration, you will need to pay a one-time fee to add SSO to your Portal. You can learn more about setting up a SAML SSO on Absorb here: Outgoing SAML 2.0 Single Sign-On.
- Some clients have instead utilized a different identity provider to configure single sign-on directly with LinkedIn Learning.
Important Configuration Considerations
Issuer String or Entity ID: The Absorb Portal Route should appear here. The format should be: https://company.myabsorb.com/
The slash at the end of the route is essential as the SAML assertion will pass the entity id with this slash.
- IDP Redirect End Point: The following syntax should be used for this field: https://company.myabsorb.com/account/samlrequest, where "company.myabsorb" is the Absorb Portal Route.
- Assertion Consumer Service URL: This URL is provided by LinkedIn Learning and should be confirmed with LinkedIn.
-
- The "authModeId" at the end of a LinkedInLearning ACS URL is what allows access to LinkedInLearning. Without that ACS URL, you will receive 403 errors.
- EXAMPLE LinkedInLearning ACS URL: https://www.linkedin.com/checkpoint/enterprise/saml/2206404?application=learning&appInstanceId=2246436&authModeId=1232145804582757249
-
- Ensure that you follow the instructions in the LinkedIn Enable AICC Integration article linked below. If no hostname is provided when setting up the LinkedIn side of the connector, clients will receive an error page from LinkedIn stating, "Oops, It's not you it's us. Give it another try, please." Adding the Portal URL (company.myabsorb.com) will correct this. You can read more about AICC integration here.
Learner Authentication Flow
This is the expected Learner authentication flow:
The Learner will be requested to authenticate or create a personal LinkedIn account if they do not already have one.
Learner Authentication Considerations
- LinkedIn retains your session history – and may not require an additional login.
- User Provisioning must be enabled and set up correctly on Corporate LinkedIn settings.
- SSO Account Provisioning can be enabled via LinkedIn to allow connection between Absorb and LinkedIn Corporate Account
- Account Provisioning only occurs on the launch of the first course.
- LinkedIn Learning requires “Automatically assign licenses” to be enabled to connect the Personal LinkedIn with the Corporate account to access content.
The current authentication model was developed in consultation with the LinkedIn product team to support real-time reporting of learner outcomes. No alternate LinkedIn Learning recommendations are currently supported.
Syncing LinkedIn Learning Content to Absorb
Once an SSO connection is established and our Support team has enabled LinkedIn Learning with the necessary fields completed, the system will automatically begin syncing your LinkedIn Learning courses with Absorb.
The library in your Portal is updated nightly to ensure you always have access to the newest content. LinkedIn Learning completes a weekly update to their Learning Library that occasionally retires a small amount of content from their site.
If you are using a Course that is removed from the library, Absorb will mark the Course as inactive. If it is a multi-content Course (i.e., many different lesson types with one LinkedIn lesson), then the Course will be marked as Retired by Absorb. Regardless of which type the LinkedIn Learning content falls under, the progress data for these Courses are retained and stamped to the Learner’s profile.
Content Sync Considerations
- The initial sync of your courses can take a while, depending on the number of courses. However, this will run in the background. Before leaving the page, click Save to begin the import process.
- You must enable the LinkedIn AICC Integration settings to add courses to your LinkedIn Catalog.
- Courses must be synced with AICC launch data to successfully convert to an LMS AICC course.
- Set up a new REST API application. Reusing an existing one may result in credential issues.
Converting Courses
After all your courses are synced to Absorb, you will be able to convert the ones you wish to start enrolling Learners into. In the Admin Experience, please advise the following:
- From the Courses menu, select the LinkedIn Learning Library.
- On the LinkedIn Learning Library page, select one or multiple courses from the list to convert.
- Click the Convert to Course button in the Actions sidebar to bring up the Convert to Course window.
- Fill out the appropriate details. You can select whether this course will allow Self Enrollment, has Automatic Enrollment enabled, whether Learners receive a Certificate upon completion, and what Category the course should be placed in.
- Select the Course Editors.
- Click Save.
It is important to note that Course Editors can only be added in bulk at this stage and will need to be edited at the individual course level after this initial selection. Please ensure you have selected the correct Editors.
Once you have finished converting the courses you wish to use, you can select the View LinkedIn Learning Courses button.
As you will notice, this page is pre-filtered only to display LinkedIn Learning Courses. Please note that the LinkedIn Learning integration also supports filtering Courses by Language. From here, Administrators with Course editing permissions can select a Course and make edits to the settings as they would with any other Online Course, as well as add additional Lesson Objects (i.e., Assessments, Tasks, etc.).
As the Course content is brought over from LinkedIn, the Lesson section cannot be edited (i.e., Lesson Description, Title, etc.). You will also find that the LinkedIn course thumbnail and tags (created from LinkedIn Learning's Taxonomy) are brought over automatically.
LinkedIn Learning courses are not eligible to be sold via E-Commerce.
LinkedIn Learning in the Learner Interface
On the Learner Interface side, you will see the LinkedIn Learning Ribbon, where up to 30 LinkedIn Learning courses appear. You will notice that these courses are branded with the LinkedIn Learning logo, as only purely LinkedIn Learning content will appear here, not mixed content courses. Courses with a variety of content will instead have the logo listed by the lesson rather than indicated for the whole course and will not appear in the ribbon.
Your Learners can then enroll in, or launch the content, and begin enjoying the benefits of your Portal’s LinkedIn Learning Library.
Please note that the ribbon "LinkedIn Learning" must be enabled in Manage Template menu in order for it to appear on the Learner Dashboard. If you require further instructions on the Manage Template menu, please view our Department Templates article.
Comments
Article is closed for comments.