The Customer ranks as the world's No. 3 vendor for total PCs and No. 2 for branded notebooks. The Customer’s product lineup includes desktop and laptop PCs, PDAs, servers and storage, displays, peripherals, and e-business solutions for business, government, education, and home users. It employs more than 5,000 people supporting dealers and distributors in more than 100 countries. For its Middle East operations, the Customer conducts regular training for its Channel Sales Partners, Service Partners, and internal employees. The Channel Sales Partners need to be continuously updated and educated on innovations and upgrades to their solutions in the market. Service Partners need to get trained on providing various services like repair, refurbishment, and installation on various products. Internal employees participate in the Customer’s inhouse training conducted by the HR and Training department.

To reduce training costs and to address the increasing training needs of the Channel Sales Partners, Service Partners, and internal employees, the Customer wanted to deploy an eLearning solution to conduct training programs online. Development of an eLearning solution would address the following issues:

• Time and Effort: Conducting and attending onsite training requires significant time and effort from organizers and participants.
• Distance and Logistics: Since all the Channel Partners operate in various geographic locations, travelling to on-site training locations involves significant time and logistical planning.
• Cost: A considerable amount of money is spent for on-site training given the issues mentioned above about time, effort, distance, and logistics.

AgreeYa was engaged by the Customer to develop, customize, and implement an eLearning solution and provide post-implementation training. AgreeYa proposed a leading Open Source eLearning solution. This eLearning solution provides a range of functionality covering content creation and delivery, communication, collaboration, and management including tracking and assessment tools.

The project was completed in two phases. Phase 1 included development of the Customer’s eLearning portal site; Phase 2 included the development and publication of course material, automation of processes, and integration with Active Directory and Partner Portals. The key advantages delivered include:

• Decreased training costs by reducing travel and logistics expenses for partners across various geographies
• Self-paced learning environment which allows employees and partners to increase their knowledge on products at regular intervals and at their own pace
• Shared best practices of delivering global projects driven by CMMI Level 5 processes
• Easier management of training and reporting to identify the training needs of partners and employees.
• Increased understanding of products by Service and Channel Partners.

The application was developed using an Open Source Course Management System with PHP, HTML/ XML/ CSS as server and client side technologies. Oracle 9i is used as a database to handle large size courses.