How Assignment Type Changes Your IQ Dashboard
The Skyllful IQ dashboard reshapes itself around the Assignment Type, and this article covers the four types, what the Overview lens reports for each one, and the Skyllful Studio settings the type turns on and off.
Why does your IQ dashboard look different from one Assignment to the next?
If two Assignments produce Skyllful IQ dashboards that do not match, the Assignment Type is almost always the reason. One Assignment shows a countdown and a schedule status across the top. Another reports no Readiness or Complete percentage at all. Nothing is broken.
Assignment Type is a required setting chosen in Skyllful Studio when the Assignment is built. It tells IQ which question this training is asking, and IQ reports against that question rather than against a standard set. Knowing the type is what lets you read the dashboard correctly, so check it before you interpret any figure on the screen.
What are the four Assignment Types?
Type |
What it is for |
|---|---|
| New Hire | Onboarding and role training that runs continuously. Learners join over time rather than all at once, and each Learner works through the material on their own schedule. |
| Campaign | A training push with a shared start and end date. Every Learner works the same content over the same window, so the group can be measured as on schedule or behind schedule. |
| JITT | Just-In-Time Training, delivered against a due date set for the individual Learner rather than for the group. The due date is often calculated from an event, such as a scheduled arrival. |
| Reference | Content Learners return to when they need it. There is no completion deadline, so IQ reports what is being used rather than how far along each Learner is. |
Note: The label on the fourth type is Reference. You may hear it called a refresher, which is the name the setting carries behind the scenes, but Reference is what appears on screen.
Where do you check an Assignment's type?
In Skyllful Studio, open the Learning Program, open the Assignment, and look at Assignment Types in the Assignment Settings panel at the top of the screen. It is a required field with four radio buttons, and one is always chosen.
From a saved Assignment, click View in IQ at the bottom of the screen to open that Assignment's dashboard directly.
Note: Check the radio button, not the Assignment's name. Titles drift from what an Assignment actually is. An Assignment named "New Hire Onboarding" can be built as a Campaign, and one named "JITT Assignments" can be a Campaign as well. The radio button is the only reliable answer.
What does the Overview lens report for each type?
Three of the four types share the same five counters: Inactive Learners, Off Pace Learners, Learners With Low Pass Rates, Unresponsive Learners, and Longer-Than-Expected Lessons. Reference uses a different set.
Type |
What the Overview lens reports |
|---|---|
| New Hire | The five counters. Because there is no shared schedule, each Learner's pace is measured against their own timeline rather than against a group deadline. |
| Campaign | The five counters, plus a countdown of days remaining and whether the Assignment is on schedule or off schedule. Progress is tracked as Remaining, Completed and Behind. |
| JITT | The five counters. Progress is tracked as Completed, Completed Late and Not Completed, because the deadline that matters belongs to each Learner. There is no shared countdown or schedule status. |
| Reference | Lesson Exercises Viewed, Unique Lessons Viewed, Engaged Learners and Hours Spent Learning, alongside Views By Lesson Mode, Activity By Module, Most Active Learners and Most Viewed Lessons. |
Note: A Reference Assignment has no view band, which is the strip above the lenses reporting the view name, the Learner count, % Readiness and % Complete. Neither percentage appears anywhere on a Reference dashboard. If those figures are what you need and you cannot find them, check the Assignment Type first.
Why do Campaign and New Hire look alike but measure differently?
Both types run the same five counters in the same order, so the two dashboards look nearly identical. They differ in what each counter is measured against.
A Campaign has one schedule shared by every Learner. The Assignment has a start date and an end date, every Learner works toward the same date, and that shared deadline is what makes a group level judgement such as off schedule possible.
A New Hire Assignment has no shared schedule. Its availability window is usually wide, often several years, because the Assignment stays open to keep enrolling Learners as they arrive. Pace is measured for each Learner from the day that Learner was added, using the Duration settings on the Assignment.
The same figure therefore means two different things. On a Campaign, eleven Lessons behind means eleven Lessons behind the other Learners working toward the same deadline. On a New Hire Assignment, it means eleven Lessons behind where that Learner should be at this point in their own onboarding, regardless of when they started.
You can tell the two apart without opening IQ. On the Learning Program's Assignments card, each Assignment carries a small coloured indicator: green when the group is on track, red when it is behind, and grey when there is no shared schedule to measure against. New Hire and Reference Assignments show grey.
What else does the Assignment Type control?
Several settings in Skyllful Studio become available or unavailable with the type. An unexpected disabled tab is often the first sign that an Assignment is not the type you assumed.
Where |
What the type changes |
|---|---|
| Duration settings | Available on New Hire Assignments only. On every other type the Duration tab stays disabled. Choose the New Hire radio button and it becomes available immediately. |
| IQ Settings | Available on every type except Reference. A Reference Assignment reports use rather than pace, so it has no pace thresholds to set. |
| The Learners tab | A Campaign lists an End Date column. A JITT Assignment lists Latest Due Date in its place. |
| Adding Learners | On a JITT Assignment, the window for adding Learners gains a Start Date and a Due Date, and Add Selected stays inactive until the due date is set. No other type asks for this. |
| The Assignments card | The coloured indicator on each row reads green, red or grey. Grey means this type has no shared schedule to be on or off. |
Can you change an Assignment's type later?
Yes. The radio buttons remain editable after an Assignment is saved, and the effects apply immediately. Choosing New Hire makes the Duration settings available. Choosing Reference removes IQ Settings. The IQ dashboard for that Assignment changes to match the new type.
The type determines how the dashboard calculates and presents progress, so changing it changes what the reporting means for that Assignment, not only how the screen is arranged. Review the Assignment after switching.
Best practice: Choose the type when you build the Assignment. If you need to change it partway through, consider whether the training would be better served by a second Assignment instead.
FAQ
My dashboard has no countdown at the top. Is something wrong? No. Only a Campaign has a single end date shared by the whole group, so only a Campaign reports days remaining and a schedule status. New Hire, JITT and Reference Assignments have no group deadline to count down to.
Why can I not find Readiness or Complete on this dashboard? You are viewing a Reference Assignment. That type has no view band, so neither percentage is reported.
The Assignment is named for new hires but the dashboard behaves like a Campaign. Which is correct? The dashboard. Open the Assignment in Skyllful Studio and check the Assignment Types radio button, which is what IQ reads. The name has no effect on reporting.
Can two Assignments built from the same Lessons report different figures? Yes. The type, the enrolled Learners and the dates all differ between Assignments, and any one of those changes the numbers.
Why is the Duration tab unavailable on my Assignment? Duration is available on New Hire Assignments only.
Does changing the type delete anything? Changing the type does not remove Learners or Lessons from the Assignment. It changes which settings are available and how the dashboard calculates progress, so review the Assignment after switching.
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