Drive adoption of your learning pathways portal

Article
07/12/2023

Once you've customized Microsoft 365 learning pathways and put together your initial learning campaigns, it’s time to think about how you will get users return to Microsoft 365 learning pathways for ongoing learning and transformation. You can use the guidance, adoption kit, and best practices Microsoft has made available To help you run successful Microsoft 365 learning pathways adoption campaigns, we offer guidance, best practices and an Adoption Kit.

Run awareness campaigns with Microsoft 365 learning pathway adoption kit

To help drive sustained adoption of Microsoft 365 learning pathways in your organization, we recommend you implement a six to eight-week communication campaign. Your communication campaign should:

Generate awareness of the new Microsoft 365 learning pathways site to end users
Help end users be more productive by exposing them to new and compelling Microsoft 365 scenarios
Reinforce end user learning by encouraging ongoing consumption of Microsoft 365 training

Center your learning campaigns around scenarios or business goals

Using the following scenarios in your communication campaign will help engage users by highlighting what they can accomplish with Microsoft 365, then directing them to the Microsoft 365 learning pathways site to learn the “how”. We recommend centering your communication campaign around five basic Microsoft 365 scenarios:

Create impactful content together
Provide a chat-based workspace with Teams
Save and share files
Share sites and content
Connect your organization with Viva Engage

Use the downloadable Adoption Kit

To assist you with executing your Microsoft 365 learning pathways communication campaign, use the downloadable Adoption Kit. It contains:

Microsoft 365 learning pathways recommended communication campaign calendar to help you plan your campaign
End user launch and tips email templates for each of the five Microsoft 365 scenarios. Use our templates or simply review them for inspiration to create your own communications campaign.

To implement your communication campaign, we recommend you:

Customize the campaign calendar to fit your needs. We recommend “launching” one scenario every two weeks as part of your plan.
Customize the email templates to suit your needs, style and branding.
Include a call-to-action (CTA) to the Microsoft 365 learning pathways site in your email communications. The link should be to the relevant scenario playlist in the Microsoft 365 learning pathways site.

Microsoft 365 learning pathways adoption best practices

At a minimum, to ensure success, we recommend you:

Communicate about the launch of the Microsoft 365 learning pathways site to your employees.
Connect Microsoft 365 learning pathways to common tasks that your employees can learn or improve upon.
Sustain the communications campaign over a period of time so employees have an opportunity to understand the message.
Encourage feedback through a Viva Engage community or Microsoft Team.
Reach out to key business leaders in your organization and encourage them to build playlists for common tasks and processes that they would like their team members to learn.

Integrate with your service desk

As the “go-to” channel for end user “how to” questions, your service desk can help promote your Microsoft 365 learning pathways site as an alternative to end users creating a new ticket. Consider including a standard Microsoft 365 learning pathways tagline such as “Check out our training site for resources to get productive with Office 365” in all service desk communications to end users. Your service desk can also be trained to encourage end users with “how to” related questions to visit your Microsoft 365 learning pathways site to self-serve.

Customize the site with compelling content to generate demand

The right content is a big draw to visit a site. To generate interest and traffic to your site, consider creating custom content that will be relevant to your end users:

Custom scenario training that illustrates how people in your organization can use Microsoft 365 to complete company specific processes more efficiently
Registration for live or in-person training your organization may offer to supplement the on-demand training
Activity instructions for end users to complete a task related to an Office 365 training playlist they’ve consumed - e.g., Store a document in Microsoft Teams and invite a colleague to work on the document with you in Teams. Have end users complete a survey, built using Microsoft Forms, once they complete the activity.

Connect learning to other business outcomes

You will have the best results when the launch of the Microsoft 365 learning pathways experience is incorporated in any other service deployment or upgrade projects. This will give your employees a clear reason to visit the site. Examples might be an upgrade of SharePoint Online or deployment of Microsoft Teams. You can include phrases like: "To learn more quick tips about SharePoint Online visit the Microsoft 365 learning pathways site."

Align the training site to investments in your employee learning

Work with your human resources team to align the launch of your training site with any other employee training initiatives that are being implemented in your company.

Next steps test

Create an adoption plan for the rollout of Microsoft 365 learning pathways in your organization.
Pilot your customized version of Microsoft 365 learning pathways with a representative group of end users and do a dry run of your adoption plan. Based on feedback from the pilot iterate a final adoption plan.
Run your adoption campaign over a sustained period of time.
Join the Driving Adoption community. Share your experience with Microsoft 365 learning pathways in our Driving Adoption community online. Find us at https://aka.ms/DriveAdoption.

Join the Driving Adoption community

Share your experience with Microsoft 365 learning pathways in our Driving Adoption community online. Find us at https://aka.ms/DriveAdoption.

Give us Feedback

Do you have requests for new features or content in the Custom Learning portal? Visit our online Community and Adoption Feedback Portal where you can vote for existing suggestions or add your own. Find our Feedback Portal at https://aka.ms/CommunityandAdoptionFeedback.