Mzinga Program Best Practices

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Mzinga Program Best Practices

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Program - Best PracticesOverview

Introduction/Improvements

Planning

Date Driven

Status Driven

Common pitfalls

Methods of Publishing

Q&A


Introduction/Improvements – Best Practices

A couple of upfront Mzinga Improvements: • Adding in a fail safe so admins cannot re-publish the last published

program until the version transition completes• There will be a message at the top of the Program Versions screen

saying, “A new version is currently being processed for this program. When processing is complete the versioning feature will become available.”

• The “Make a New Version” option will also be removed from the Program Versions screen until the Version Transition is complete• October 1st, 2014 released to CHA Test

• There are also some queuing improvements being made to the system to improve the version transition speeds• Improvements on October release and a full re-right on the January 2015

release




Planning

Date Driven

Status Driven

Common pitfalls


Q&A


Planning - Best Practices

Planning• Ask a few simple questions1. Is this Program about the resources, courses, events, etc.2. Is the Program about timing? Done by date xx/xx/xxxx3. If there is a date, what are all the dates, assigned, completed by, is

there a grace period4. What learning resources are in this program and do they need any

special consideration



Planning Questions Answered• Is this Program about the resources, courses, events, etc.?

• Most Programs should be Status driven which makes them about the resources

• For example, users need to complete course 101 and event 101 and they are complete

• Remember a Status Driven program can be changed to a Date Driven Program

• A Date Driven can NEVER be changed to a Status Driven



Planning Questions Answered• For the 2 below questions – Do a timeline

• Is the Program about timing? Done by date xx/xx/xxxx• If there is a date, what are all the dates, assigned, completed by,

is there a grace period• Do a timeline for date driven to assure the timing is correct

for the expected outcome• If this is a yearly item, make sure it’s set up for renewal• A basic Program based on the calendar-year can be found at

the: Mzinga CXC

http://community.omnisocial.mzinga.com/exp/Customer_Experience_Community10000/blog/Solution_Center/How_do_I_set_up_a_Program_based_on_the_calendaryear/lt90p00v00b1/203?nav=entry

http://community.omnisocial.mzinga.com/exp/Customer_Experience_Community10000/blog/Solution_Center/How_do_I_set_up_a_Program_based_on_the_calendaryear/lt90p00v00b1/203?nav=entry



Planning Questions Answered1. What learning resources are in this program and do they

need any special consideration?• Know the material inside the Program to assure the correct

outcome for the user• Are there any courses with assessments?• Events in the Program• This can be an issue if they are not updated after user

complete in a Date Driven Program



Planning Questions Answered• Questions so far?




Planning

Date Driven

Status Driven

Common pitfalls


Q&A


Date Driven- Best Practices

Date Driven Program• Use Date Driven Programs when the dates are what determines the

users progression through the program• Start with a Status Driven if there is at all a question about the type

of Program needed• A Date Driven can NEVER become a Status Driven Program• A Status Driven can be change to a Date Driven

• Do a Timeline if you are doing a Date Driven• Know the resources and any dates associated to them in the Program• Date Driven Program are system intensive for Publishing and re-

publishing• Know the Methods (1 and 2) before re-publishing


Date Driven- Best Practices

Date Driven Program• Know the Methods (1 and 2) before re-publishing

• What are the two re-publishing methods?1. Method 1: Ignore completed users.• By using Method 1, any user in a completed status will renew on

the newly published version, however, any user still in progress with the program must complete any newly added requirements to complete the program.

2. Method 2: Validation completion for all users associated to the current program version.

• All students are reprocessed no matter what their status is and they all need to complete the newly added resource(s)




Planning

Date Driven

Status Driven

Common pitfalls


Q&A


Status Driven- Best Practices

Status Driven Program• Always Start with a Status Driven if there is at all a question

about the type of Program needed• WHY?

• A Status Driven can be changed to a Date Driven• A Date Driven can NEVER become a Status Driven Program

• Know the resources and any dates associated to them in the Program• Status Driven Program are system intensive publishing and re-

publishing• Know the Methods (1 or 2) before re-publishing


Status Driven- Best Practices

Status Driven Program• What are the two re-publishing methods again?1. Method 1: Ignore completed users.• By using Method 1, any user in a completed status will renew on


2. Method 2: Validation completion for all users associated to the current program version.





Planning

Date Driven

Status Driven

Common pitfalls


Q&A


Common Pitfalls - Best Practices

Program Common Pitfalls• Starting with a Date Driven Program

• Why do we not start with a Date Driven Program?• A Date Driven can NEVER become a Status Driven Program• A Status Driven can be changed to a Date Driven

• Not knowing the Methods (1 or 2) before re-publishing• Always using Method 2

• This is a much longer process because it needs to do all users associated to the program



Program Common Pitfalls • Not knowing the impact on the system

• For Example, there is a Program with 1000 users and 10 resources that needs to be republished• Admin creates a new version and hits publish and uses Method

2, takes a total of about two (2) minutes for the admin to complete this task

• Do we know the impact of this action?



Program Common Pitfalls • The Impact

• On the backend, there are 10 or 12 processes that need to take place for each of the users on each of the program resources • Items like course and event statuses, dates, date ranges, user

statuses for each of the resources etc. • Just for the ease of math, let say there are 10 checks for each user

and for each resource• That means we have 10,000 rows processing in the queue

• Then for each user there is also a check for letters, yes or no a letter needs to go out for the resources. There are about 100 letters in the system that need to be checked



Program Common Pitfalls • The Impact Continues

• That adds another 100 checks to each of the 10,000 processes so we have 1,000,000 rows queued for this one program

• Lets say there are 5 hospitals that are doing the same type of republishing today, that’s 5,000,000 (Five Million) rows that were added to the Mzinga backend and all it took was 2 minutes for 5 admins

• In Addition, lets keep in mind that CHA has approximately 4746 active Programs that have 724,488 active registrations associated to them



Program Common Pitfalls • Additional Impacts• One of the things that the Mzinga engineers have noticed, Thursdays

seem to be the highest traffic days • Maybe spreading out the days items are being published would help

speed the queuing processes• Think about off peak publishing hours

• Or at least when half the users are off line• East and West coast time of day



Program Common Pitfalls • Other Impacts

• At any given time CHA can have 30,000 to 50,000 users logged into the application taking courses, registering for courses and events and just using the application.• This will also have an impact on how fast publishing and

republishing programs• Again consider the time of day when publishing

• East and West coast times




Planning

Date Driven

Status Driven

Common pitfalls


Q&A


Methods of Publishing - Best Practices

Methods of Publishing• Method 1 Ignore completed users

• Students who are in a Completed Status are not processed• By using Method 1, any user in a completed status will renew on


• Method 2 Validation completion for all users associated to the current program version.



Q&A


Thank You!

Documents

Mzinga Program Best Practices