What this book covers

Part I: Basic Concepts

Here you will learn about the main purpose and basic concepts of Moodle Workplace. You'll familiarize yourself with the Workplace terminology and its user interface. This part comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 1, What Is Moodle Workplace?, is an introductory chapter to give you an overview of Moodle Workplace and its various new key features. This new kid on the Moodle block will be compared with its little sibling, standard Moodle, and its main rival, Totara Learn. You will also explore Moodle Workplace's business model and its versioning policy.

Chapter 2, Working with Moodle Workplace, will cover essential elements that you will be using when working with Moodle Workplace and also throughout the book. You will learn about the key players in Workplace, their roles, their responsibilities, and what functions they have in your setup. Also, you will learn about important user interface interactions, and finally, you will become familiar with different help sources, both built-in and external.

Chapter 3, Exploring Moodle Courses, Users, and Roles, is a short primer on Moodle courses, users, and roles. It covers the basics of the three key concepts and demonstrates how the three core elements are inherently intertwined.

Part II: Data, Processes, and Workflows

Learning in enterprise environments is driven by data, processes, and workflows such as induction programs, compliance training, and controlling based on reporting. There is a plethora of new tools in Moodle Workplace to model organizational data, map out processes, and optimize learning management workflows. This section comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 4, Tenants, Organizations, and Teams, is all about setting up and managing the structure of your user-related data. Tenants are entirely isolated entities with their own look and feel, structure, users, and learning entities. Each tenant is modeled using organizations with multiple hierarchical department and position frameworks. Based on job positions and reporting lines, teams are a key feature that lets managers see the learning progress of their staff.

Chapter 5, Automation and Dynamic Rules, covers the definition and execution of centralized and automated rules using an "if this then that" conditional approach to trigger actions when certain conditions are met. Dynamic rules allow you to automate a wide range of steps you would otherwise have to work through manually.

Chapter 6, Onboarding and Compliance, deals with two powerful features of Moodle Workplace, namely programs and certifications. Programs allow you to establish learning pathways for your employees by adding a combination of courses or a hierarchical sequence of courses. Certifications allow you to validate learning paths by offering certifications for recurring programs.

Chapter 7, Skills and Incentives, covers three Moodle Workplace tools to reward staff: certificates, competencies, and badges. You will learn how to create and issue certificates in different contexts. We will then briefly introduce competencies, which describe the learner's proficiency or level of understanding in specific subject-related skills. Finally, we will cover the basics of badges, which are a good way of celebrating achievement and showing learning progress.

Chapter 8, Generating Custom Reports, focuses on the Moodle Workplace custom report builder, which allows you to create site-wide reports that are then distributed to users, such as managers and trainers, so that they can review and manage employee training programs.

Chapter 9, Seminar Management, will equip you with the knowledge to organize and manage face-to-face training events using the appointment booking activity.

Part III: Technical Tools

Moodle Workplace is a highly modular and adaptive learning management system that can be tailored according to your (mobile) workforce and customized to reflect your corporate identity. Furthermore, it supports the exchange of all Workplace elements via migrations and provides an abundance of web services to facilitate integration with other systems in your technical infrastructure. This part comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 10, Mobile Learning, is all about the dedicated Moodle Workplace app. You will learn how to prepare and use the app, and we will cover some relevant configuration options.

Chapter 11, Corporate Identity, tells you how to adapt your Moodle Workplace system to bring it in line with the corporate branding of your organization. To achieve this, you will be given an overview of Moodle designs, before we brand individual tenants as well as the mobile app.

Chapter 12, Migrations, is all about moving various data and elements between tenants and sites. Moodle Workplace's powerful migration tool expedites and simplifies importing and exporting processes. We will then apply the migration tools via its versatile CLI to demonstrate HR synchronization processes.

Appendix A, Moodle Workplace Web Services, looks at ways to integrate Moodle Workplace with other systems via web services. We will provide information about the basic concepts of Moodle web services before exploring the differences between migrations and web services. You will also find a helpful reference of Moodle Workplace-specific web services.