Absorb Admin Refresh Checklist

Updated December 12, 2023 18:00

Ready to upgrade to Admin Refresh?

Here at Absorb, we want to make the transition to our new Admin Refresh easier for you and your team, so we have created this comprehensive checklist for you to review prior to your upgrade. The checklist will point out numerous improvements, summarize features that have a change in product behavior and/or have different accessibility. We encourage you to review this list with your internal teams and an Absorb representative, to familiarize yourself with features that have changed ahead of your upgrade, as this will help determine the level of readiness you have and avoid potential program impact.

Have any questions? Please let us know - reach out to your dedicated Client Success Manager, or the Absorb Support team to initiate your upgrade process. We are here to help!

Admin Dashboard

In the new Admin Refresh experience, System Admins can create customized Admin Dashboards. The Admin Dashboard is unique to the organization and more interactive. The System Administrators will have the ability to create dashboards that are specific to different Department Admins and/or Group Admins. These dashboards will contain visually appealing data of the overall activities happening in the LMS for the Admin’s set of users.

Some of the features available within the Admin Dashboard are:

An overall view of Login Activity within the LMS.
- Note: The Login Activity widget is only visible to System Admins and anyone with the Absorb Admin role. An Admin with a Custom Role will not see this widget or any data within it.
Display overall completion status on selected training within the LMS.
Display overall enrollments for specific courses by department.
Access to the Admin’s saved reports or reports other admins want to share with them.
- Note: please select Saved Report Templates for more information.
Access to the Admin's reports they have generated.
Display Competencies earned within the LMS.
A custom text widget that allows Admins to provide instructions to other admins or use HTML to provide a branded look and feel.

For more about our Admin Dashboard please see the following articles:

Admin Dashboard Widgets

How to Add a Dashboard

How to add a Widget

Roles and Permissions

The Admin Refresh has made it easier for you to configure granular Role permissions. Each administrative area now has a section listing the permission set available for the feature or process.

Previously, Course permissions were configured as View, Modify, and Delete. The Admin Refresh experience has expanded the Modify permission based on the different tiles or sections that exist on the page. This setup allows administrators to add or remove access to different areas of the Admin Interface.

For specific changes to Roles and Permissions, please review the following articles:

Absorb LMS Roles & Permissions Overview

Role Permission Changes

File Manager

The File Manager will no longer be used to upload files into Online Courses, Certificates, Engage Products or User Accounts. The Admin will be prompted to find their image or documents from their computer or to use a URL. This was designed to be a simpler file uploading experience that better integrates with permissions and provides enhanced security. However, the Admin will have the ability to select SCORM, AICC and Tin Course files to share between Online Courses using the Lesson Object Re-Use Existing.

Lesson files within an Online Course will be available to be share and re-use throughout all Online Courses. The Admin will see a new Object available within the Add Lesson modal, named Re-use Existing. In addition, Admins will have the ability to run a Lesson report. The lesson report will allow Admins to view and update files attached to lessons. This report will provide Admins a one-stop shop for all lessons and their files.

Instructor-Led Courses & Sessions

The creation of Sessions has been improved, allowing access to simpler recurrence rules, modern calendar invites (instead of ICS files), and our Zoom integration. The modal used to create the sessions has been simplified and adjusted so that all options are on one page, versus the multiple tabs.

Note: If you have an older version of the LMS (prior to A5), you may have the ability to configure multiple day sessions to any date and time, but going forward that functionality has been updated to mirror an Outlook reoccurrence type pattern. Which means the reoccurring sessions must follow a specific date pattern. For example, offering 2 sessions each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. There are multiple options to select from when selecting your pattern.

Reporting

Our reporting engine has been rebuilt from the ground up to provide a better admin experience. Admins will find it is easier to use, better filtering capability, more relevant Actions and many more.

Here are some of the specific improvements you will see while running reports.

Default operation is now Contain, as opposed to Starts with.
Date filters:
- Filter popup modal is now improved to be more comprehensive and compatible with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
- Operations are all the same options as they were, except you will now find the specific Calendar blocks of time (Today, Week, Year, etc...) consolidated into the Equals option.
- Show the selected Time zone from the Portal Settings > Defaults.
The Department and Category filter now pop up into a modal, where Admins can easily search and find the specific value. This view allows the Admin to see the full hierarchy layout.
- Note: The Admin’s role will now need to have Department and/or Category selected, to be able to filter by these values in the reports. Otherwise, no values will populate in the pop-up modal for them to select.
Additional fields have been added to some of the reports, so that more data is available to report on. For example, adding the Course ID in the Course Activity report and the Due Date in the Enrollment reports.
System Admins have the capability to create an Organizational default report layout, where all other Admins will have this view as their default. There is an icon on each Administration page that is labeled, Set Organization Default to the left of the Report Layout icon.
When an Admin Generates a report to Excel or CSV, the report will be available to download within the Setup > Generated Reports. This allows for the Admin to continue working while the report is processing and for the Admin to reference at a later date.

View History

Admin Refresh has introduced some great new functionality, yet not all the Admin’s changes made in the LMS using these features will be tracked in the History. For instance, if you add or update an Observation Checklist in an Online Course, these changes will not appear in the View History modal. These changes are still being tracked in the database and will gradually be added to the UI. History of changes displaying within the current Admin functionality, will still be available in Admin Refresh.

New Functionality

Here is some additional new functionality you will gain by moving over to Admin Refresh.

In Progress

A small number of features have not yet been recreated in the Admin Refresh, but will be added soon:

Using Groups to restrict Course Visibility to Admins
Survey Feedback Ranges (Allow Scored Answers)