Exercises are a new way to capture learnings and assess learners. A bit like homework, but for work. Exercises are extremely useful for sales enablement programs or any courses that require certification. You decide what you want learners to submit, choose who should review the exercise, and let the submissions roll in. The person who reviews the exercise will grade it as a pass or fail.
💡 Exercise cards are only available in self-paced courses
What should I use Exercises for?
Exercises work across a wide range of learning use cases. You can use them in any situation where it's beneficial for the Learner to apply their knowledge. Some examples include:
Presentation training - get sales reps to record a pitch and test their presentation skills
Set the course concepts into practice - stimulate the learner's reflection skills by asking the learner to use the course concepts and reflect upon how they would act in a scenario, where the learnings are set into practice.
Certifications - demonstrate that your learners have successfully passed a course by testing them on the most important concepts and then officially certify them if they pass
Research Presentations: For professional development courses, instruct learners can upload their research presentation slides or posters in PDF format to showcase their findings and analytical skills.
How do I create an Exercise?
In the course editor, add a new card and choose Exercise
First add the instructions for the Learner
Secondly, choose what type of exercise you want (more about exercise types here)
File upload: lets the learner add a video, document or image as their submission
Free text: lets the learner write a text to submit directly in the exercise card in Sana
Video recording: allows learners to record a video directly in Sana
In responsible reviewers Add the learner's direct manager or another specific user (Admin or Group Admin) who will review the Learner's submissions
Optional
In review instructions below, write a description for the reviewer to assist them with evaluating submissions
Add custom grading criteria: the admin reviewing can then score those criteria out of 5 (more about custom grading criteria here)
Submission limit- Choose the allowed numbers of resubmissions. Learners can only add one submission for review at the time but have the option to resubmit their work if it is failed. You can choose to have submissions limited or unlimited.
Notify admin - If there is a limit to how many resubmissions the learner can make, select which admins to alert when a learner needs help after failing all attempts
And when you’re ready - Publish and assign the course to Learners!
See the video below that demonstrates how to create an exercise card
💡Pro-tip: If adding instructions with many steps, you can create a /checklist or a /numberedlist
Exercise types
In the exercise card choose between file upload, free text and video recording exercises:
File upload exercises are suitable for when uploading videos, images or filling in pre-created files or questionnaires. If the latter is the case, you can easily upload the empty version of what is to be filled in by typing /file in the instructions, and attach the file there for the learner to download, fill in and submit.
Supported file submission formats: .pdf .jpeg .png .mp4 .gif .zip
Max file size: 2GB
See the learners perspective below.
Free text exercises are ideal for any exercise that requires a text-based response. This could be an essay question, a short-answer exercise, a reflection activity, or any other task that requires learners to write out their answers. By allowing learners to type their responses directly into the exercise card, the process is simpler and more efficient for everyone involved.
See the learners perspective below.
Video recording offers a dynamic and engaging way for learners to showcase their communication and presentation skills in a practical format all without leaving the Sana platform, enhancing the learning experience beyond traditional text-based responses.
See the learners perspective below.
Choose custom grading criteria
With Custom grade criteria you can choose how an exercise is graded by the reviewer. Simply enter the criteria for the grade and when the reviewer is grading they will be presented with a 1-5 rating option.
Here's what the custom grade rating looks like when the reviewer is grading an exercise
Pending review
Upon arriving on the exercise card in the course, learners will see instructions and submission options.
Learners can upload files, submit free text, or record videos depending on the exercise type
Once a submission is made, learners will see a "pending review" status in My Library
Courses will disappear from the home page "to-do" list after submission, but they will reappear if the learner is required to resubmit after a failed attempt, if the exercise allows retries after a failure. It will also show in My Library with prompt to retry the exercise
Learners will no longer receive a due date reminder if the course content has been consumed but a review is pending
💡 The exercise card does not trigger full progress until the learner has received a passing review, meaning that non-completion is always accompanied by <100% progress until the learner has received a passed grade
How does a reviewer review submissions?
If you are set as a reviewer for an exercise and a learner has submit an exercise for you to review you will find a notification in your Manage > Exercise tab, follow the steps below to review the submission:
Go to Manage > Exercise
By default the Ready for review and Assigned to you drop downs are selected
Choose a submission you would like to review and click Review
You see that learners most recent submission and have the option to grade their work
Courses will no longer show 100% progress if an exercise is pending review. Progress will instead be less than 100%. 100% progress now always equals course completion.
Insights and Course detail pages will display new status pills showing the exercise status.
See the video below to see how a you can rate, grade and comment on a submission
Managers as exercise reviewers
Setting managers as exercise reviewers streamlines feedback by automatically connecting learners with their direct managers for exercise review.
You can assign the learner's direct manager to review submissions. The manager will receive notifications and see an indicator in Sana about the learner's submissions.
Learner perspective
Received a 'Passed' grade
The course will be marked as complete:
When the learner clicks revisit to see the course. they will be presented with the grading and any comments you left
Recieved a 'Failed' grade
When the learner next visits their My library, they will see the course with 'Exercise not passed' noted under the title. If they click View, the exercise card opens presenting the comments you left for them.
If you did not give them the option to resubmit then they have failed the exercise and will be notified. If you have selected a notified admin for the exercise, that user will be notified as well.
If you gave learners the option to resubmit they will be able to retry the exercise. Once they do this they make another submission ready for review.
Congratulations! You've now now mastered the use of the Exercise Card. This is crucial for creating engaging, active learning experiences across various contexts. Continue leveraging it to reinforce learners' understanding and promote knowledge retention.
FAQ
What are the supported files that can be uploaded?
The supported formats are: .pdf .jpeg .png .mp4 .gif .zip
Max file size: 2GB
Who can see the submissions for an exercise in Sana Manage?
Users set as reviewers in the exercise card will be able to see all submissions made on that exercise by all users
What is a group admins visibility?
Group admins visibility has two states:
Default: Group admins can see and review submissions from everyone in the org, but they only get notifications for the exercises where they are set as reviewers (if they have the email notifications switched on for reviews, this can be checked in your user settings in the menu in the top left)
Restrict Group Admin flag: If Sana have enabled the feature flag Group admins can only see and review submissions from users they administer. They still only get notifications for the exercises where they are set as reviewers
NOTE: if a group admin is set as reviewer on an exercise, they will be able to see and review submissions from everyone in the org for that exercise.