Scale LMS to manage potentially thousands of internal and external learners
Simplify management, administration, and delivery of eLearning
Track multiple types of online and offline learning
Results
Combine 70% online with 30% hands-on learning
Mobile access for reviewing material anywhere
Created 30+ skill paths for employees
Educate more than 550 employees, 620 partners, and 350 customers
style
white-columns, icon-headings
background
Education for cutting-edge technology
From global enterprises to mom-and-pop operations, companies of every size use virtualization and cloud computing to streamline and power operations. Since 2008, Tintri has helped companies maximize their IT infrastructure with VM-aware storage for virtualized applications. Tintri continually works on the cutting edge to develop new storage products and solutions for its customers. But, as providers of new technologies, Tintri must also invest in education and training to help customers get the most from their solutions.
“We work closely with internal teams, such as engineers and technical marketing, to make sure that we’re delivering the best information and services to our employees,” says Jonathon Addington, Manager of Education and Training at Tintri. “At the same time, we’re also reaching out to help partners, resellers, and customers access educational content to better leverage their investments in Tintri’s solutions. That can mean repurposing content for a wide variety of learners.”
A small team spearheads the online training for the company, from online partner certification programs to employee education that combines online courses with hands-on training. Tintri quickly outgrew its existing learning management system (LMS) and began searching for a replacement that could handle the company’s need for scale while minimizing manual administrative processes.
Flexible training
After looking at numerous LMS options, Tintri decided on Adobe Learning Manager. “We needed an LMS that would house and capture all of our training — whether that was classroom, online, mentoring, or hands-on activities,” explains Judi Yost, Staff Technical Curriculum Architect at Tintri. “Adobe Learning Manager is flexible enough that we can incorporate any type of component into our courses.
Adobe Learning Manager also provides Tintri with the flexibility to rearrange and deliver courses on the fly. During onboarding, the order of lessons may need to change to spend more time on certain topics, or trainers may need to cancel a day of online lessons so that learners can attend a local engineering symposium. Yost can easily customize training plans with just a few clicks.
“Adobe Learning Manager is the only LMS that is flexible enough to capture the breadth and depth of our training needs in one package”
Jonathon Addington
Manager of Education and Training, Tintri
Hands-on training
For Tintri, the bulk of education and training focuses on the needs of the company’s technical support engineers and other internal teams to deliver expert service to customers. Technical support engineers participate in three weeks of onboarding training. About 70% of the training is covered in online education, but the remaining 30% takes place with hands-on sessions and time spent shadowing senior technical support engineers. “Before Adobe Learning Manager, we couldn’t capture all the learning that took place during onboarding training,” says Yost. “Now we can, which helps us to better assess and improve our training program, as well as improve our scheduling process.
For online content, Tintri typically creates short segment videos with Adobe Premiere Pro and eLearning modules with Adobe Captivate. “Adobe Captivate integrates smoothly with Learning Manager so that we can easily upload modules in less time,” says Addington. “We have a small team, so any time saved gives us a big boost to productivity.”
Ongoing educational support
Education doesn’t stop once initial training is over. Tintri holds ongoing education sessions to teach learners about operating system upgrades, new features, and other important developments. Using Adobe Learning Manager, Tintri can offer live classroom sessions that reach a wide number of employees at once. After the live sessions are over, Tintri edits the recordings into short topic-based videos so that learners can view the entire session or click on specific topics for review.
With Adobe Learning Manager, sessions are easily accessible on any device, from desktop to mobile phone. “We’re primarily seeing desktop access at the moment, but we expect to see a jump in mobile access in the coming months and years,” says Addington. “Mobile access will be particularly helpful for people working in the field who want to review a topic before meeting with a customer. With Adobe Learning Manager, they can quickly find and watch a video on their tablet or smartphone, which gives them the confidence that they’re providing the customer with the best solution.”
Encouraging skilled training
Tintri also encourages ongoing individual education through 30 skill paths. Using detailed tagging, Tintri organizes courses into three levels for each skill path: foundational, intermediate, and expert. While all technical support engineers are expected to have foundational-level knowledge after completing the three-week onboarding training, they can earn higher-level skills with additional courses and training.
Managers will use Adobe Learning Manager to determine the available skill levels in their team to better route support calls or customer requests. Managers can also identify which particular skills are needed. If a manager notes that only a few Technical Support Engineers have Level 3 certification in network troubleshooting, they can create learning paths to help up-level the network troubleshooting skills for others on their team.
Gamification in the Adobe Learning Manager LMS encourages further involvement from employees. On the learner dashboard, learners can view their progress in modules and courses, as well as badges that they have earned for completing courses. Leaderboards have encouraged friendly competition to take more courses and boost skill levels.
Although courses are primarily created for technical support engineers, they are open to anyone at Tintri. Sales representatives take courses to learn more about the products they’re selling and technical writers take courses to understand the language used around Tintri products.
Educating partners, resellers, and customers
Online certification courses encourage partners, resellers, and customers to learn more about Tintri services and products. Adobe Learning Manager offers detailed reports to track all 620 partners currently enrolled, and reports show that many continue to take courses beyond what’s needed for certification. Learning Manager integrates with Salesforce to track historical data on certifications for all learners including Tintri’s 350 customers and 550 employees.
Tintri is looking forward to when learners, both internal and external, will be able to use comment boards to discuss course content and provide evidence of their learning directly in Adobe Learning Manager. For example, new hires in sales must create a video of themselves demonstrating their sales technique. Currently, those videos are shared outside of Learning Manager, but soon sales representatives will be able to include links to their sales pitches directly in Learning Manager for review and comment.
“Education and training play a critical role in driving success for our customers, partners, and employees,” says Addington. “Adobe Learning Manager is the only LMS that is flexible enough to capture the breadth and depth of our training needs in one package.”
