Keeping pace with change requires knowledge. Equally, the delivery of knowledge must keep pace with the needs of people today. When the Lucent Technologies VitalSuite team in Sunnyvale, Calif. sought to improve its customer training, focus was placed on improving the quality, availability and accessibility of courses. Learnframe, a leading developer of KnowledgE-Commerce and e-Learning infrastructure technologies, provided a 21st century solution to higher learning.

To enhance customer training, the VitalSuite product training group chose to implement Web-based product training for its VitalSuite portfolio – a family of software products that enable enterprise and service provider networks to measure, monitor and manage their business processes. The goal of the VitalSuite Web-based training (WBT) project was to offer customers an alternative to classroom-based training. With that in mind, the Lucent team sought to develop WBT, based on its existing instructor-led training, that was easy-to-implement, construct and maintain using internal resources. The primary team in the development of the WBT was the Information Delivery organization within the VitalSuite group, which consisted of instructors, courseware developers, documentation writers and managers.

Because of resource constraints, two vendors were sought to fulfill the objectives. The first vendor was chosen to host the WBT and provide the e-commerce and reporting capability necessary to support the e-Learning portal. A number of potential vendors wanted to take over the content of the portal and build everything to suit their training environment. Learnframe of Draper, UT was selected as Lucent's Web portal vendor because they understood the need to implement a solution that could be maintained with minimal support by the internal training group. Learnframe's training engine—Pinnacle™ supported whatever courseware Lucent could provide with minimum coding or customization. Learnframe also provided the ability to easily and quickly add third-party WBT courses to the list of VitalSuite courses, which allowed for exceptional flexibility in the event Lucent chose to provide students with WBT on related technologies. In addition, Learnframe’s training portal was easily adapted to the look and feel of Lucent VitalSuite products.

The second vendor would become the source of a programmed template with which non-programmers could build training modules. Trozzo Interactive Design of San Francisco was chosen to develop a template to build the courses. Trozzo Interactive Design showed an excellent understanding of the model the VitalSuite team wished to create and worked closely with the group to build a template that was easy to use and provided expansion capabilities for future interactive add-ons.

Defining the Processes
The primary instructional delivery method for training customers on VitalSuite products is instructor-led training (ILT). ILT is presented via interactive lecture using slides with notes, software demonstrations and hands on lab activities using a closed network. Because of the highly flexible nature of the products, ILT was selected to satisfy customer-specific training needs. The Web-based training was created as an alternative for customers who did not have access to ILT.

The VitalSuite team set out to build a WBT version of its 5-day ILT. Because the ILT was created in Microsoft PowerPoint, the decision was made to use the slide presentation format to allow a quick conversion to WBT. A Macromedia Flash template was developed internally that could take the PowerPoint slide images and convert them into a Web-based presentation with audio, flexible navigation and some on-line resources such as a glossary and other reference documents. The interactive media vendor created a template to support this design. The team succeeded in crafting a template that could be populated with content quickly and without the need for additional programming. The template also allowed the team to test the WBT modules. Once the template was created, a streamlined process was developed to port the ILT to WBT.

Development Tools and Techniques
In the process of streamlining the Web development, the team experimented with some commercially available media tools, but Microsoft PowerPoint provided features that allowed for expanding the module presentations, adding scripts for audio and tracking of each slide in an environment where frequent changes were the order of the day.

To batch process more than 1,000 images and convert them into a Web appropriate format, a shareware tool was used. The presentation engine was built as a template in Macromedia Flash 5.0. Using Flash to run the WBT also enabled the use of a high-quality audio file format for the scripted audio. An additional benefit was that Flash movies would simultaneously run and load in the background. Movies were tested on line at speeds as low as 40 Kbps to ensure that customers could use the training from a modest performing 56 K line.

With some minor programming, Learnframe’s Pinnacle was able to run the WBT modules and to collect back office data. Learnframe worked with Trozzo Interactive Design to pass information between the training template and Pinnacle. Once these final program changes were made each WBT module was tested on a Learnframe staging server while the final site went through the testing and approval process. Within three months, Lucent launched its 10-hour, VitalSuite WBT for customers.

The Results
With Learnframe, Lucent has provided customers the flexibility and convenience of anytime access to its VitalSuite 8.0 product training. Customers are able to access courses from any location with out the burden of travel schedules, course availability and conflicts typically associated with training. They are also able to take the course and perform work at their own rate. Another benefit provided by the on-line training for customers is the ability to repeat all or an individual module in the course. Lucent has greater control over course content; lesson content can be updated instantly providing customers immediate access to the latest material.

With the development of this portal, the Lucent VitalSuite group has the option of providing a full range of courses on related technologies created within the company or by a third-party vendor. The open architecture that Learnframe provides enables VitalSuite trainers to migrate existing courses online in a matter of days rather than months. And, with the Learnframe environment employees can also take advantage of WBT on the VitalSuite products. Additionally, Learnframe's reporting capability provides up to date status for trainers to monitor activity on the WBT. Status reports are generated monthly. Customer/student scores are tabulated in the reports in addition to a record of progress and a record of the time frame for the work that has been completed.

A major achievement for the VitalSuite team was developing a process that will allow them to continue to economically modify and maintain WBT internally. This provides customers effective learning experiences.

For additional information about Lucent VitalSuite software products go to www.lucent.com/vital or call:

VitalSuite software  VitalQIP™/VitalAccess™ software

In U.S. 1-888-467-8342 1-800-40TCPIP

Outside the U.S. 650-318-1020 610-722-7925

About Learnframe
Learnframe is the leading provider of KnowledgE-Commerce™ solutions, e-learning infrastructure technologies and services for large and small enterprises, government agencies, learning providers and Internet businesses around the world. Our premiere product Nebo, a Universal Platform™ and Learning Hub, is easily tailored to your business processes with our patent-pending KYSO Technology™. The combination of Pinnacle, Learnframe’s learning management system and e-Learning infrastructure, and the Learnframe Learning Center, an e-commerce front end, defines KnowledgE-Commerce™ — the point where e-Learning and e-commerce unite. Learnframe also provides web-based content delivery, hosting and re-branding services and one of the largest online libraries of CBT, WBT, text, audio and video courses on the market. Learnframe customers include Compaq, CompuCom, Rockwell Collins, Supervalu and others. For more information, please contact Ron Sanders at rsanders@learnframe.com or call 800.738.9800. Visit www.learnframe.com for product and company details.