CATEGORY: Training

To succeed in today’s competitive construction environment and ever-changing digital landscape, architects, engineers, and construction professionals must lean on online learning to help them obtain the skills they need to stay ahead – especially considering the increase in remote working.

Whether you’re an architect, engineer, contractor, or subcontractor, this educational platform is fully customizable for various roles and goal paths that share educational content specifically targeted toward each user’s unique skills gaps, roles, or projects.

In this article, we will be sharing some best practices and tips for architectural and engineering professional staff hiring, onboarding, upskilling, and retention.

Hiring

A résumé that says a potential employee knows a software program is essentially worthless. How deep is their knowledge? How well do their actual skill sets align with the specific roles or projects you are hiring for?

Pre-hire assessments are a powerful way to prove that candidates have the requisite skill set for the job. Links to pre-hire assessments can be sent to external users, with no need to enter them into the CADLearning system. You can then easily compare results to see which users perform the best. You can even drill down to see which questions candidates answered correctly, and which they struggled with.

Onboarding

Do you have the same onboarding process for each new employee? How much time do they waste covering content they have already mastered?

CADLearning lets administrators create playlists with just the content that a new hire needs to know to get to work in a specific role, task, or workflow. By starting with the assessment, new hires eliminate lessons they already know from their learning paths, providing them with the exact content they need to get to work and start contributing to the team quicker.

Upskilling

When we talk to customers, most say that they can only let employees train for about 20 minutes each day while keeping them billable.

How do you ensure that your teams continue to progress in this limited timeframe?

CADLearning offers fully customizable roles and goals paths that automatically surface content specifically targeted toward each user’s unique skills gaps, roles, or projects.

Because of the unique taxonomy of CADLearning content, it’s not tied to an artificial course construct. Instead, we can map competencies and skills to roles, tasks, and projects to surface custom learning paths. Users are also offered stock certification paths that align with Autodesk Certification Exams or role-specific content.

As users answer questions from their dashboard or take assessments to establish their current knowledge base, their progress is recorded. When questions are answered correctly, those lessons are automatically completed in the certification path. If that same lesson appears in another certification path, it’s completed there too, eliminating redundant learning.

Before certification is completed, users must demonstrate that they have reached full mastery. Otherwise, their knowledge gaps are just going to grow, causing problems down the line. The iterative process exposes and eliminates knowledge gaps until users have exhibited full comprehension and, thus, full certification.

Employee Retention

We all know how expensive it is to find and train a new employee. When you add in the loss of productivity as they upskill, the cost is even more substantial—from 20% to up to 200% for high-level executives.

Do you know that 60% of employees leave their current position because they don’t feel that they are learning or growing?

Providing employees with the tools that they need to learn and progress in their roles is the best way to limit churn. CADLearning Roles and Goals give employees the power to not only continuously refine their current skills but also choose their own path for progressing into new roles and responsibilities.

Knowledge Retention

Training programs are expensive, yet they are often ineffective. Within a week of live training, more than 50% of knowledge is lost.
CADLearning provides on-demand learning from anywhere, at any time, on any device. CADLearning is a great companion to in-person training. Distribute playlists with prerequisite knowledge before a training session. Afterward, provide a playlist with information that was covered during the session for quick references and ongoing learning.

Adoption

Firms spend thousands of dollars on software, and they want to secure their ROI on that purchase. If a user gets lost in the program or has trouble getting started, adoption suffers.

CADLearning Assist provides immediate answers at the point of need so users can overcome obstacles without frustration.
Contextual content suggestions are surfaced based upon the commands, tools, and functions currently in use, and relevant content is populated automatically.

Users can also search the full CADLearning library right inside of Assist. Video lessons and scrolling narration play directly in the Plugin—no need to open a browser.

The AI expert, which can be added to CADLearning Assist, answers natural language questions by leveraging more than 35,000 lessons in the CADLearning Library. Answers are accompanied by lesson suggestions. If the AI doesn’t know the answer, the question can be escalated to a subject matter expert. The expert only answers the question once, and the AI will know the answer next time.

Optionally, an enterprise can program CADLearning Assist with common workflows. When Assist recognizes that the workflow is in progress, it will provide suggested next steps and surface playlists of content on that specific workflow.

Without leaving the Autodesk application, without losing valuable time on a manual search, users find the answers that they need to keep designing.

Competency Paths are another way to suggest a wider slate of Autodesk products. Content creators can input a variety of criteria, such as required skills, competencies, and programs.

CADLearning will then generate a custom learning path. Just syndicate the content and point the API toward a web page. Add your messaging, and you have a fully formatted help, role-based, or workflow-specific page in moments.

Help Desk

How many hours do you spend answering internal emails that ask the same few questions over and over again?

CADLearning Help gives you these hours back by providing real-time, natural language answers.

Train the AI expert to answer your own frequently-asked questions. Custom content and workflows are surfaced automatically. CADLearning content is leveraged to provide instant Autodesk answers and suggest relevant videos.

Questions CADLearning Help doesn’t know the answer to can be escalated to your experts or CADLeanring experts. Help will learn the answer for next time.

Help links into tools like Skype, Slack, Teams, and SharePoint to destroy silos of information.

Stop answering redundant questions and give yourself the time to start focusing on the important tasks that will lead to real productivity gains.

Global Teams

How do you localize learning content across global teams that speak multiple languages?

CADLearning neural translations, available in more than 60 languages, provide a seamless learning experience in the language of your choice. Build custom courses and playlists in the language you are comfortable working in, and viewers can choose to view the content in the language they prefer. Website fields are also translated, providing a seamless user experience.

Project Management

How do you identify the most qualified team members for each unique project?

CADLearning project placement functionality will remove all the guesswork by leveraging analytics to identify the perfect candidate for each position.

Putting the project functionality to work in your organization is simple—just add a few details to create a project, then input the positions you want to fill. Each position can be completely customized with its own software and competency requirements, so you can pinpoint the most qualified team members at every level.
If you already know the perfect person for the job, assign them immediately.

Have standard positions that repeat across projects?

Create a template with roles and project requirements, then add it to a new project search with one click.

If you find the perfect internal match, click the checkbox, and an email will automatically be sent to that employee, letting him or her know that they have been assigned to the project.

Didn’t find anybody internally who fits your criteria?

Quickly create an assessment to help you identify the perfect external candidate.

When a project needs change, you can easily update software and competency requirements, remove employees from the project, and search for new matches.

The CADLearning portal already has the most comprehensive data about your employees’ current skills and knowledge, as well as their skills and knowledge gaps.

With projects, you can put that data to work for you, saving time and money while ensuring that each unique project has the most qualified team.

Product Help

Nobody wants to spend hours wading through content to find answers. They want to immediately find the exact content they need to get back to work.

With more than 35,000 videos on more than 50 products, CADLearning offers the most comprehensive library of Autodesk learning content in the world. Because CADLearning’s content is uniquely atomized to focus on just one tool, command, or feature, when combined with the 4D Technologies platforms, lessons can be used as building blocks for everything from A-Z training, to product support, to just-in-time training.

The integrated assessment engine quickly identifies user skill and knowledge gaps and provides just the content they need to fill those gaps. Generate a playlist from that assessment for a learning path specifically targeted to each user.

Users and administrators can create custom playlists and share them with other users. With one click, users can generate an assessment from the playlist. Through an iterative process of reassessment and building new playlists, users can continue until they reach full mastery.

Convert to Subscription Model

The introduction of subscription models paired with the rapid growth of the industry means that traditional e-learning is no longer enough to keep up with modern learning needs.

Today’s enterprises require ongoing performance support that upskills workers and improves productivity in a way that creates tangible outcomes.

CADLearning content is atomized to focus on just one concept or feature per video, providing short, digestible microlearning that is immediately actionable and leads to better knowledge retention.

When combined with the 4D platforms, CADLearning content can be used as building blocks for everything from traditional A-Z training, to flipped classrooms, to in-application performance support.

Customers have the flexibility to create pre-hire assessments, individualized onboarding, and upskilling learning paths, and project-based workflows, making their enterprise portal a unified talent, knowledge, and competency management solution available to users whenever, wherever, on any device.

CADLearning has the ability to release content incrementally in alignment with Autodesk dot releases. This provides immediate value, while also ensuring that users are taking full advantage of the latest and greatest features in each release.

Microsol Resources is a proud partner of CADLearning by 4D Technologies and a perfect extension to our current live Autodesk Certified Instructor-led training classes.

An Authorized Autodesk Publisher, CADLearning is your premier learning partner for all things Autodesk. CADLearning provides online access to thousands of video lessons for more than 40 Autodesk products including Revit, AutoCAD, BIM 360 products, and many more.

Interested to try out the CADLearning on-demand platform, you can request your free 30-day trial today.

Need more information?

By now you may have heard that Autodesk is fully adopting the Named User Subscription licensing model and ending support for multiuser or network licenses as well as the need for serial numbers. Your subscription is now associated with your email address and Autodesk ID (If you want to know more about the Transition to Named User, click here).

In this article, I’ll be explaining where you can go to access your Autodesk account and subscription.

You can access your software through your Autodesk Account, which you can find at manage.autodesk.com.

If you have a license assigned to you, you’ll be able to access the software and subscription services under “All Products and Services” manage.autodesk.com. What we see in the image below is the navigation bar on the left-hand side of the Autodesk account.

If you’re an administrator or contract manager, your Autodesk account will look a bit different, as you’ll be able to access the User Management tab as shown in the screenshot below. There you can add users and assign licenses right to your Autodesk account. To learn more about managing the users in your firm, inviting other administrators to your account, and controlling users’ access to specific software and services, check out Setting Up your Autodesk Software Subscriptions.

At this point, you’ve logged in and had the ability to access the Products and Services you’re managing or those that are assigned to you.

Don’t hesitate to call our support team if you have any further questions or concerns. We’re here to help. While you’re still in the Autodesk account, you can also click on the questions mark if you want to learn more from Autodesk.

Pursue the path that’s right for you. Autodesk on-demand self-paced training offer self-paced, modular courses designed for a range of skill levels, roles, and career ambitions. Begin—or continue—the learning journey that’s right for you, at your own pace, on your own time.

CADLearning Individual

From pre-hire assessments and onboarding to upskilling and refresher training, CADLearning makes your employees more productive every step of the way.

Find the exact content you need to maximize your productivity with tools like global search, custom learning paths, and in-application contextual lessons. Assessments generate individualized learning paths targeted to your knowledge gaps, providing just the content you need to overcome roadblocks in your design work, master tasks, and avoid redundant learning.

CADLearning Enterprise

Pairing the most comprehensive Autodesk learning library with tools that integrate custom content allows for hyper-personalized learning to help your employees master your organization’s workflows and procedures.

Every job has specific tasks and competencies that define it. Roles and Goals customize learning solutions that are unique to each user, team, and organization, by identifying required job competencies and mapping those competencies to desired outcomes. The resulting individualized learning experiences provide incremental achievements, which are validated and measured for 100% competency.

Comparison Matrix between CADLearning Individual vs. Enterprise

Build, validate, and showcase in-demand skills to succeed in today’s evolving architecture, engineering, and construction industry. Whether you’re starting your career or expanding your skill set, take immediate steps toward your goals.

Which CADLearning platform is right for you and your team? Check out this comparison matrix.

Benefits	Individual		Enterprise
Access to the full CADLearning Library
Targeted learning paths to fill skills and knowledge gaps
Stock overall knowledge and skills assessments
Exercise files for hands-on practice
The ability to build and share playlists
The CADLearning Assist plug-in
Mobile apps for iOS and Android
The ability to customize courses and workflows
Targeted pre-hire assessments
Access to reports and analytics
Flexible subscriptions
Ideal for teams with 2 – 25 Autodesk users
Most cost-effective option for large teams
Ability to add and manage custom video content
Access to targeted AI and machine learning solutions

CADLearning features over 35,000 lessons on more than 50 Autodesk software programs, and helps you to quickly master your preferred Autodesk software from AutoCAD to Revit, Civil 3D, and more! To find out what Autodesk software you have access to CADLearning, check out this article.