Case Study

Automating Classes Management, Registration, Notifications, Reporting

Better Serve Learners. Improve Revenues. Reduce Admin Costs. Improve Reporting Control. Survey Needs and Evaluations.

The Learn.net MAPLE Classes/Events Manager solution, one of several pre-integrated solutions from Learn.net, is ideal for automating all aspects of classes and events management. This Case Study documents a very successful use, and provides workflow details. Training companies, associations, companies needing to train on its products, seminar providers and others can use this solution to boost revenues, reduce admin costs, improve profits, and gain much better control of their business. This Case Study overviews an example program.

Case Study

Automating Classes Management, Registration, Notifications, Reporting

IIAG (the Independent Insurance Agents of Georgia, otherwise known as “Big I”) is a major provider of education services to its over 700 agency members in Georgia, and a vast number of independent insurance agents and Customer Service Representatives (CSR’s).

IIAG is the largest such association in Georgia. In addition to its state-level lobbying efforts, IIAG has a major education focus, including conducting hundreds of instructor-led courses per year at numerous locations around the state. Insurance education, insurance Continuing Education (CE), and insurance pre-licensing for new agents and CSRs are major education program types. The classes are conducted by many different instructors.

IIAG management, known for continuous improvement versus settling for past methods, was searching for a breakthrough automation capability to achieve the following enterprise goals:
--Be able to steadily free up internal professionals from mundane manual tasks, so they can be available for implementing other programs, and to produce new sources of benefits and revenues using the existing cost base (thus improving net cash flow).
--Provide even faster and easier class registration for learners, including calendaring, fast and easy web registration, “waitlist” management, e-mail communications, e-commerce payment, the ability to download course materials and to be presented with class pre-requirements (e.g., pre-testing).
--Have access to robust, real-time, multi-faceted management reporting (including accounting functions able to support revenues recognitions timing correctly).
--Be able to automate learner profiles and program histories in an automated versus manual manner.
--The ability to survey the market to better learn where and when courses should be provided, what new courses are needed, and to get tallied evaluations of the course instructor, content, quality, satisfaction levels, and ideas for improvement.
--Also be able to survey member agency heads about priorities, needs from IIAG, lobbying views, and other important information.

After an alternatives review process, IIAG chose Learn.net’s MAPLE Classes/Events Manager solution, and proceeded with the installation. MAPLE’s configuration was quick and straightforward. Later use revealed some workflow change needs to better fit surrounding procedures, and these were provided by Learn.net.

“The efforts by Learn.net to exactly meet our needs was impressive and very well received,” according to Paul Saye, IIAG Education Coordinator. “The provided features are very robust, and when we need to change our workflow processes they are able to adapt with us by making pre-programmed, rules-based configuration changes, making the final solution very successful for us.”

IIAG administrators are provided with the complete capability to publish new classes, with many details auto-configured once selected. The course is then auto-populated to the IIAG website for learner registration access. Also, email lists can be used to auto-email the new courses to present and potential attendees, as a “push” marketing program; all with manual effort or time costs eliminated.

A key aspect of the selection of Learn.net is that all learner activities come from the IIAG website’s look and feel, with no visibility to Learn.net, including no “click-through” needs to a third-party scheduling provider as is often required. The provided screen shot reflects how a learner gets multiple accesses to courses that are available, from IIAG’s website. A click on the URL takes them to the classes registration page(s), provided anonymously by Learn.net via IIAG’s website.

Different payment and pricing programs can be auto-supported (e.g., member, non-member, club, pre-paid, post-paid, credit card, etc.). In addition to the Learner Self Registering, IIAG admins can automatically register a learner for a specific session or sessions. IIAG admins easily manage offline payments received by updating the Roster and confirming all offline payments (e.g., checks).

Very importantly, as changes regularly occur (e.g., location, instructor, pre-requirement, time, date, or cancellation), MAPLE auto-notifies all attendees and waitlistees of the change by automated emails, without admin efforts and costs.

Learner profiles and transcripts are easy to access by learners in a secured manner. Multiple types of reports are available to IIAG, including: Roster Report; Weekly Status; Sign In; Workshop/Class/Event Detail; Payment Activity; Attendance Summary; and Learner History.

As observed by IIAG’s Paul Saye, “We are well on our way to automating what has been a laborious, expensive function for the last several years. Such innovations, harnessing the Internet to its fullest, are critical if we are going to provide better service and to simultaneously keep our costs down. Our freed up staff is now able to turn its attention to other programs, making us even more competitive and successful in the marketplace. We are very pleased with the progress and benefits, and with working with Learn.net.”

Future projects could include online Skills courses from Learn.net as well as Video-Via-Web.