Learner Help Requests is a Turbo feature that allows you to facilitate real-time communication between users within your account. Learners are able to create help requests directly from their Learner Portal and have Admins and Trainers respond in a chat-style format. This aims to reduce time spent troubleshooting issues with learners, gain better insights, and keep all of your communications in aXcelerate for simplicity and auditing purposes.
This feature aims to:
- Reduce the time that admins and trainers spend communicating and troubleshooting issues with learners
- Allow admins better insight and oversight into the communications between staff and learners
- Provide Learners with a quick and easy way to communicate directly with their training organisation
- Keep all communications within aXcelerate and not waste time in other systems where messages may fall through the cracks
- Add context to messages so that an admin or trainer has a direct link to the subject that the learner is having difficulty with
- Assist with Audits by accurately showing efforts made to engage and communicate with Learners
Tip: Requests can be handled as a live-chat or as more of an inbox-style system depending on what suits your business. You can indicate this to Learners by customising the Notice Message displayed to Learners when they submit a request.
Note: Learner Help Requests is available for Turbo accounts and can be enabled from the Learner Portal & App settings.
Warning: Permissions related to Learner Help Requests are not updated immediately and can take up to 5 minutes to process. If you are still unable to view information or perform certain actions, please try again after 5 minutes.
Enable Learner Help Requests
Settings
System Settings
Learner Portal & App Settings
Help Requests can be enabled from the Learner Portal & App settings page. When this feature is enabled, a chat icon will be available in the Learner Portal that allows Learners to create new help requests and view existing ones. Admins and Trainers will then be able to view, respond and resolve requests from within the system.
Tip: Other configurable settings are also available in the Learner Messaging settings area including notification preferences and the Notice Message.
Note: We recommend enabling this in your Staging Account first and testing it out yourself to get an idea of what Learners will experience before turning it on in your Live Account and beginning to accept requests.
Set a Help Request Notice Message
Settings
System Settings
Learner Portal & App Settings
Admins & Trainers won't always be able to respond immediately to messages, so it is important to set a Notice Message displayed to Learners when they first submit a Request. This is set in the Learner Portal & App system settings and will help to set expectations around when they can expect to receive a message.
Submitting Help Requests as a Learner
Once Help Requests have been enabled, Learners will be able to submit and respond to requests through their Portal. Requests are accessible from a chat icon that will appear in the top bar or bottom right corner depending on your Widget Position selection. A notification will be shown to Learners to indicate when new messages have been received for one of their Requests. Email notifications can also be configured as well.
- As a Learner, click on the Help Requests Icon
- Select a Category under Create Help Request
- Fill out the Subject and Description
- Click Submit Request
- After a Request has been created you will be able to submit messages and view responses
Tip: You can test out how this will look as an admin, by logging into the Learner Portal. Click your avatar icon in the top right corner of the screen, hover over your global login account and click on the option to sign into the Learner Portal. Try this out in your Staging account, to test how the feature works before enabling it for all of your Learners.
View Learner Help Requests
Contacts
Help Requests
Help Requests are available in the Contacts section of the main navigation menu. From here you'll be shown an overview of all requests in the system and be able to search and filter on conversations.
Tip: Click on 'Filters & Columns' to adjust the data that is displayed as a way to find requests you are looking for or gain insights into your communication data.
Note: Admins & Trainers with the 'Help Requests - View' permission will be able to view all requests regardless of the assignee. Users without this permission will only be able to see Requests where they have been set as the Assignee or Requester.
Updating and Responding to Learner Help Requests
Contacts
Help Requests
Select a Request
When viewing the list of Help Requests, clicking on a Request will open the thread and let you view the message history as well as send a new message. New messages can be sent by simply typing in the response area and clicking Send.
From here you'll also be able to view the messages that have been sent as well as update the details of the Request including the Status, Assignee, Category and Priority. You will need to have the Help Request - Update permission to update the details of any requests where you are not the assignee.
Tip: Click on the Internal Note checkbox to submit messages
as internal notes. Internal Notes allow you to share information with other Admins or Trainers who can view the requests, without notifying the Learner.
Note: The Status, Category and Assignee will be displayed to the Learner. Priority will only be visible to Trainers & Admins.
Create a New Learner Help Request
Contacts
Help Requests
Typically, Learners will create their own requests, however you can also generate a request on behalf of a Learner. This can be useful if the Learner has contacted you via other channels and you wish to continue and record the conversation in aXcelerate, or if you want to proactively reach out to a Learner.
- Click New
- Select the Recipient
- Select an Assignee who will be responsible for managing the Request
- Set the Request Name as the topic of the conversation
- Select an appropriate Category and Priority. Priority will not be visible to Learners.
- Click Create
Note: Admin & Trainer Users will need to have the Help Requests - Add permission to be able to create new Requests.
Resolve a Learner Help Request
Contacts
Help Requests
Select a Request
Once a Learner's query has been addressed, their request can be resolved and closed. To do this, simply set the Status of the Request to Resolved. A Learner will be able to see that their Request has been closed and will be able provide feedback about their experience or reopen the Request if needed. Feedback will then appear in the Request for Admins and Trainers to see.
Automatically assign Learner Help Requests to Trainers
Settings
System Settings
Learner Portal & App Settings
By enabling the setting Set default Assignee to be Learner's Facilitator, you can automatically allocate help requests from Learners to the correct person. This will aid the administrative overhead for your RTO and empower your trainers to maintain improved communication with their learners.
Configure Learner Help Request Email Notifications
Settings
System Settings
Learner Portal & App Settings
Email Notifications for Learner Help Requests can be configured in the Learner Help Requests section of the Learner Portal & App System Settings page. From here, you can set when different types of Users will receive email notifications about updates to Help Requests relevant to them.
You'll be able to individually select whether Admin, Trainer & Learner users receive email notifications when a new request is created, they are assigned to the request, or a new message is posted within the request. Just tick the relevant notification types and click Save Learner Portal & App Settings when you're done.
Tip: Email notifications can also be configured for specific users to be notified of newly created Requests that have no assignee. These users can then help sort through new Requests and ensure they have the correct assignee to help Learners appropriately. Just add any relevant users in the Unassigned Request Notifications field.
Note: Email notifications will contain a direct link to the Help Request so that recipients will be able to easily respond after receiving the email.
Learner Help Requests Widget Position
Settings
System Settings
Learner Portal & App Settings
You can configure where in the Learner Portal the Help Requests widget will appear for Learners to Interact with. You can choose whether to include it in the bottom-right corner, or in the Top-Bar alongside some of the other navigation items.
Manage Learner Help Request User Permissions
Settings
System Users
Manage User Roles
As with most features within aXcelerate, Learner Help Requests has its own set of specific user permissions. The main point to be aware of is that Admins & Trainers with the 'Help Requests - View' permission will be able to view all requests, regardless of the assignee. Users without this permission will only be able to see Requests where they are the Assignee or Requester.
Users will need to have the 'Help Request - Update' permission to update the details of any requests where you are not the assignee. The same goes for the 'Help Request - Delete' permission and deleting Requests.
Users will need the 'Help Requests - Add' permission to create new Requests on behalf of Learners.
- Click the Edit icon next to a User role
- Assign permissions to the role by ticking the appropriate checkboxes
- Click Submit
Tip: You can refer to our User Management help article for more general information on updating user permissions.
Warning: Permissions related to Learner Help Requests are not updated immediately and can take up to 5 minutes to process. If you are still unable to view information or perform certain actions, please try again after 5 minutes.
Learner Messaging FAQs
How do I get access to Learner Help Requests?
Learner Help Requests is available for all Turbo accounts and can be enabled from the Learner Portal & App System Settings page. You can find out more about what's in Turbo and organise a demo of the system here if you're interested.
Why can't I see any help requests?
You will need the 'Help Requests - View' permission to be able to view all requests in the system. Without this permission, you will only be able to see Requests where you have been set as the Assignee or Requester.
Why can't I update the details of a request?
You will need to have the 'Help Requests - Update' permission to be able to change fields against a Help Request such as the Priority or Status.
Are Learners able to access Help Requests via the Learner App?
Learner Help Requests are available via the Learner App. Learners will have all same functionality available to them both in the Learner App and via the Learner Portal.
I've updated my user permissions but am still unable to view or update certain information?
Permissions related to Learner Help Requests are not updated immediately and can take up to 5 minutes to apply. If you are still unable to update or view certain information after updating your permissions, please try again after 5 minutes.
How do I change the name and logo of my company that displays at the top of requests?
When a Learner first submits a Help Request, it will be unassigned so the name and logo of your organisation will display to Learners. The name used is your Organisation Trading Name set in the Core Tab of your System Settings. The logo displayed is the one set in your Learner Portal & App System Settings in the Logo & Customisation tab.
Are there any planned improvements that are coming to Learner Help Requests?
- Admin portal notifications
- Default assignee configuration options