Feature Trak: Level Up Learning with Catalogs

Building an eLearning library gives your employees access to training whenever they need it. Whether you're onboarding new hires, developing current employees, or providing customer education, catalogs help organize your training content into an easy-to-browse learning library.

The Feature Trak: Level Up Learning with Catalogs course explores how catalogs can simplify course management, encourage self-directed learning, and support employee development.

Ready to learn more?

• Take the comprehensive eLearning course.
• Watch the webinar.
• Or continue reading below.

What Is a Catalog?

A catalog is a collection of courses that trainees can browse and self-enroll in.

Catalogs allow you to organize related courses into a single location, making it easier for learners to discover training that matches their interests or job responsibilities.

Instead of manually inviting trainees to individual courses, administrators can:

• Make catalogs available within the Trainee Dashboard.
• Share a direct catalog URL.
• Allow learners to self-enroll in available courses.

Create a Catalog

To create a catalog:

1. From the left navigation menu, select Catalogs.
2. Select Create Catalog.

Complete the catalog information, including:

• Catalog Name
• Catalog Description
• Courses to include

You can also configure whether the catalog:

• Appears on the Trainee Dashboard.
• Allows self-enrollment.
• Is available only to specific user groups.

Select Add Courses to include existing courses in the catalog.

Sharing Catalogs

Catalogs provide a simple way to organize and share your course offerings.

Rather than assigning individual courses, you can allow learners to browse a catalog and enroll in the courses that interest them.

Catalogs can be shared by:

• Making them available on the Trainee Dashboard.
• Sharing the catalog URL directly.
• Embedding the catalog on an intranet or website.

Internal Employee Training

For internal training, catalogs work well for optional or professional development courses.

Employees can:

• Browse available catalogs.
• Search for training.
• Self-enroll in courses that interest them.

To configure catalog sharing:

1. Open the catalog.
2. Select Edit.
3. Scroll to Public Catalog Page Access.

From this section, you can copy the catalog URL and share it with employees through email, an intranet, or another internal communication tool.

Employees can also access available catalogs directly from the bottom of their Trainee Dashboard.

External Customer Training

Catalogs are also an effective way to provide training to customers or external audiences.

By organizing customer-facing courses into catalogs, learners can browse available content and enroll in only the courses they need.

To make a catalog publicly available:

1. Open the catalog.
2. Select Edit.
3. Scroll to Public Catalog Page Access.
4. Set the catalog visibility to Public.

When a catalog is public:

• Anyone with the link can register.
• Learners are automatically enrolled as trainees in your Learn account.
• The catalog can be shared through email, websites, or social media.

When trainees go to their dashboard, they will see all their catalogs available at the bottom.  Once here, they can scroll through or search for the available catalogs.

A public catalog page displays:

• Available courses
• Course descriptions
• Trainer information

Once they find the catalog they'd like to explore, they can click on it to view all available courses.

You can also share the URL with your trainees, as you do with the public catalog.  Email it to your trainees or embed it into your intranet for easy access!

External Customer Training

Catalogs simplify organizing your external training to share with your customers or clients.  Organizing your courses into catalogs allows trainees to browse and pick what they'd like to take on an "as needed" basis.  You can share the URL with your customers, and they can bookmark it - and any updates to the modules, courses, or catalogs will automatically go through. 

Access these options by selecting the catalog, clicking Edit, then scrolling to Public Catalog Page Access.  This is where you can grab the URL to share or embed the catalog and email the link.  With public URLs, you can also share the catalog directly with your social network!

By setting the option to Public, anyone with a link can register and take this course.  They will self-enroll as a trainee into your account.

Here is an example of what a catalog page looks like.  It displays the courses available, a brief description, and the trainer.

Upskilling Your Employees with eLearning

Upskilling is the process of helping employees develop new skills so they can continue growing within your organization.

Rather than hiring externally to fill every skills gap, organizations can invest in developing existing employees through ongoing learning opportunities.

Building catalogs within Trakstar Learn supports a culture of continuous learning by making training resources easily accessible across your organization.

Benefits of upskilling include:

• Preparing employees for new responsibilities.
• Supporting career growth and internal mobility.
• Preserving organizational knowledge.
• Encouraging continuous learning.

By capturing internal expertise and organizing it into catalogs, your organization can make valuable knowledge available to current and future employees.

Additional benefits of eLearning include:

• Reduced training costs, including travel expenses and instructor time.
• Flexible, self-paced learning.
• Consistent training across the organization.
• Long-term support for a learning-focused culture.

By building these internal training resources via catalogs - and involving your employees in the process - you can "download" that organizational knowledge and easily share it amongst teams. 

The current workforce is transforming the traditional single-skilled personnel into multi-skilled employees who can multi-task and take on many responsibilities under one job title.  And this can only be possible through new disruptive learning models and continued employee education.

Focusing learning within Trakstar Learn has many benefits, such as:

• Savings in training costs, including travel expenses & time
• Flexibility - trainees can take courses whenever they want and don't have to take time away from work to attend
• Unified training for all - keeps the resource inside the organization, i.e., the training courses you create
• Long-term organizational success is linked to embracing a learning culture

Creating and Sourcing eLearning Content

Once you've created your catalogs, the next step is building the content that fills them.

Here are several ways to develop your eLearning library.

Audit Your Existing Learn Content

Start by reviewing your existing modules and courses.

Working with your Learning & Development team to audit your current content can help identify:

• Courses that are already available.
• Opportunities to organize existing content into catalogs.
• Gaps where new training should be created.

Capture Internal Expertise

Your employees are often subject matter experts.

Consider scheduling knowledge-sharing sessions during team meetings or company events. These presentations can be recorded and converted into courses within Trakstar Learn.

Research Industry Resources

Google Scholar can be a valuable source for scholarly articles and research that can be used to build presentations, webinars, and internal training content.

Purchase Ready-to-Use Content

If you're looking to expand your training library quickly, content providers such as HSI (formerly eJ4) offer ready-made eLearning content covering topics such as:

• Business Skills
• Workplace Compliance
• Software Skills

These professionally developed courses are regularly reviewed and updated.

If you're interested in adding HSI content to your Learn account, contact learn@trakstar.com for more information.