New system features, intuitive functionality & sophisticated automation capabilities
Background
The State of New Jersey was looking for a unified Learning Management System (LMS) to help them drive adoption and increase revenue.
Client
The State of New Jersey was established in 1787, making it one of the first established state governments in the United States. Like the federal government, the state government divides powers among the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. Today, the State of New Jersey is the largest employer in the state with nearly 70,000 employees. This dedicated and diverse workforce spans a broad range of jobs and provides essential support and services to the citizens of the state and beyond.
Challenge
Chartered by the state’s constitution to be fully independent branches of the government, the Executive and Judiciary historically leveraged separate learning management systems to support the development of their employees and the wider audience requiring training from the state. This approach led to a reliance on outdated technology as each system was costly to administer, maintain and upgrade. In conjunction with the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security & Preparedness (NJOSP), the state embarked on an initiative to combine the three siloed legacy stakeholder systems into one statewide platform. Each stakeholder group required that they be able to: 1) retain autonomous administration privileges, 2) build and manage their own unique learning curriculums, and 3) deliver distinct system features and end user experiences to constituents. The key enabling technology had to be intuitive, robust, secure, and powered by sophisticated automation capabilities.
Solution
The New Jersey Civil Service Commission selected Saba Cloud as their enterprise solution and Educe Group as their services partner to help design and deploy a unified LMS solution. Additionally, Educe Group was asked to establish a long-term strategy to enable the State to expand and thrive after the initial go-live. As originally conceived, this effort was expected to require a twelve-month timeline for the launch of all three stakeholders’ solutions.
At the beginning of the project, Educe Group worked with the State of New Jersey to gather requirements across each group and identify areas of alignment as well as areas where process changes would be needed.
Educe Group held separate configuration workshops with each group to collect information and make key decisions for the platform. After these meetings, Educe Group configured the Saba Cloud system to address the State of New Jersey’s core requirements. Educe Group created custom microsites and domains, identified custom security roles and audience types, and set up notifications and reporting in the system. The custom solutions allowed the three groups to share the LMS environment while leveraging different business processes, user types, login methods, training assignments, and branding.
Apart from migrating data from the three different systems into Saba Cloud, Educe Group provided integration support to help the State of New Jersey enhance their LMS. These integrations included:
- HRIS integration from multiple sources
- Single sign-on (SSO) integrations to allow users to seamlessly access numerous applications with one single username and password for the state employees
- Open Sesame integration to provide external learning content to users
- Web services integrations to build extended solutions
In addition to setting up these integrations, Educe Group worked closely with the State of New Jersey to deploy their eCommerce solutions, including setting up a chargeback functionality across departments and providing an invoicing tool to bill external agencies. It was during this time that the pandemic began and the State of New Jersey had to cease in person operations and move to remote working. As the core team members adapted to working remotely, Educe Group helped the team become acclimated and complete their remaining implementation responsibilities, including testing and finalizing business processes, all in a virtual environment. The team swiftly adapted to the new normal and completed all the activities with a quick turnaround time.
During the implementation, Educe Group worked closely with the State of New Jersey’s Center for Learning and Improving Performance (CLIP) team to train them on the system and ensure they had the knowledge to manage Saba Cloud and train their external administrators on the system. The CLIP team trained 80+ agency administrators who then were responsible for managing training for their agencies.
Results
The State of New Jersey officially went live with all three teams in June 2020, a feat that reflected a timeline of less than 8 months (33% shorter than the originally planned project duration). After just a few months, the teams were successful in increasing user adoption and driving users to complete training. The launch of mandated cyber security awareness training in the new system was successful leading to high increase in rate of completion within a short timeframe. While the focus of the platform was originally intended for internal state government staff use, many program areas found the system so user-friendly and adaptable that they secured use for their program providers. With a new modern platform, managers are informed and empowered to cater training development for their employees.
What’s Next
The State of New Jersey will be leveraging Educe Group’s ongoing access services through 2025 to help them maintain their Saba Cloud platform and provide post go-live support, including:
- Expanding the learning curriculum across their three groups
- Providing support to handle credit card processing for external agencies
- Pilot External Virtual Learning using Zoom Integration
- Integrate with LinkedIn Learning to have all learnings in one platform
- Proactively managing the Saba Cloud release cycle to take maximum advantage of ongoing enhancements
Over the course of this project, the LMS has undergone not only holistic, system-wide integration, but cutting-edge innovation and modernization. These updates will facilitate a renewed focus on learning cohesion and accessibility without sacrificing complexity or diversity. New Jersey state workers have time and again demonstrated their remarkable ability to grow and evolve. Now, finally, the same can be said of the systems tasked with guiding their growth.”
Kim Rogers-McLean, Chief Executive Director
Civil Service Commission
