How to create Lessons for Employee Training
Lessons are the individual building blocks of a 7shifts Employee Training Course and can be created manually or generated using AI tools.
7shifts Employee Training is now available on the Premium plan! Admins and Managers can still create Lessons and Courses, but publishing, assigning, and other key actions require a Premium plan. You'll be prompted to upgrade when you hit one of these actions. Employees will no longer have access to Training on web or mobile until the account upgrades. All content and progress data is preserved, and once you're on Premium, you and your team can pick up right where you left off.
Things to Know
Important: Managers and Assistant Managers require the permission "Can manage training" to create and manage content and "Can view training" to view courses, approve tasks, grade quizzes and access training reporting.
- Employees must complete lessons in the specific sequence set by the manager.
- Training is built and managed on the 7shifts web app, while employees complete their assigned courses through the 7shifts mobile app.
- Save time by using AI to instantly convert existing PDFs/DOCs, text prompts, or a combination of both into structured lessons and quizzes. AI-generated content should be reviewed for accuracy before publishing.
- Video content is not supported by AI file uploads at this time.
- Ask AI works on text only and does not support video lessons.
- Editing a lesson will automatically update it across all courses where it is currently used.
- Deleting a lesson is a permanent action. Once deleted, lessons and their associated data cannot be restored.
Creating Lessons with AI
You can use the AI-powered lesson builder in 7shifts to create training lesson content without starting from scratch. In the Lesson Library, you can attach documents, add a prompt, or both, and the AI generates lesson pages and quizzes based on what you provide.
- In the Lesson Library, select + Create Lesson.
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Add your content. You can:
- Attach up to 3 PDF or Word documents (up to 20 MB total combined) for the AI to build the lesson from. The AI may pull graphics from your attached files to include in the new lesson.
- Type a prompt to tell the AI what to focus on, like "Create a lesson on safe food handling."
- Attach documents and include a prompt together so the AI knows exactly what to extract and prioritize.
- Select the microphone icon to dictate your prompt instead of typing it. Your browser will ask for microphone permission the first time you use this option.
- Select Generate to create your lesson pages and quizzes.
The AI organizes content based on your description and documents—usually mapping each document to its own section, but it may restructure for clarity. Be specific in your description to guide the organization. You can always edit the lesson after creation to adjust sections or content to suit your needs.
If you'd rather skip the AI draft, select Start from scratch to build the lesson step by step.
Tip: If you have a resource that you would like the team to be able to view as-is, upload it to the Resource Library for employees to access on the mobile app.
Creating Lessons Manually
To create lessons manually, select +Create Lesson within the Lesson Library and choose Start from Scratch.
Once you're in the lesson content builder, you can manually add your sections, content, quizzes and acknowledgements.
- Mixed Content pages provide a flexible layout for adding text instructions, images, and video files.
- Quiz pages allow you to create multiple-choice, sorting order, matching, or short answer questions.
- Acknowledgement pages are a formal verifications requiring users to confirm they have read and understood a policy or document.
Tip: To change the order of your pages, click and hold the six-dot icon (⋮⋮) next to the page name and drag it to your preferred position.
Refining lesson content with AI
You can use Ask AI in the lesson content builder to polish, rewrite, shorten, or expand text on a Content page.
- In the lesson content builder, select the Content page you want to refine from the left-hand navigation.
- Highlight the passage you want to change. If you don't highlight anything, Ask AI will update all text in this Page Content section.
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Click Ask AI in the Page Content toolbar. The top of the menu confirms where your change will apply, either "Selected passage" or "All content on this page."
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Select one of these options:
- Polish fixes grammar and tightens phrasing, so your message stays the same but reads more smoothly.
- Rewrite says the same thing in new words.
- Shorten cuts the length while keeping the key facts.
- Expand adds depth, drawing on the rest of your lesson content.
- Review the result, then click Accept to keep the changes or Undo to restore your original content.
Tip: Not sure which Ask AI option to pick? Start with Polish for a quick cleanup. Use Shorten on long Content pages so they're easier to read on the 7shifts mobile app. You can also turn a Content page into quiz questions from the same Ask AI menu. See Building quizzes from content with AI under Quiz question types
Note: Edits to a lesson update it in every course that uses it, including changes made with Ask AI. Review AI-refined text for accuracy before publishing.
Quiz question types
When manually adding a quiz page to your lesson, you'll choose a quiz type before building it.
Note: The question type can't be changed after creation, so you'll need to delete and re-add the question to switch types.
Below are the available quiz types:
Employees select the correct answer(s) from a list of options.
Tip: You can use this quiz type to create true/false questions.
When building a multiple choice question:
- Set the Answer type to either Single answer or Multiple answers depending on how many correct answers exist.
- Enter your answer options in the Options fields.
- Select the indicator to the right of each correct option under Mark the correct answer.
After submission, correct answers turn green and incorrect answers turn red.
Employees tap an item in the left column and then tap its correct match in the right column. A number badge confirms each pair is linked. Tapping a paired item again undoes it. All pairs must be completed before employees can submit their answers.
When building a matching question:
- Create up to 8 match pairs (minimum 2 required).
- The right column will be automatically shuffled for every employee.
- Tip: 4 to 6 pairs work best on mobile.
After submission, correct pairs turn green, and incorrect pairs turn red.
Employees drag and drop steps into the correct sequence.
When building a sorting order question:
- Create up to 8 steps (minimum 2 required) and arrange in the correct top-to-bottom order.
- Steps will be automatically shuffled for every employee.
After submission, correct order placement pairs turn green, and incorrect placements turn red.
Employees type a written response in their own words. A manager reviews and grades these manually — they're not auto-graded.
Note: An employee's course progress won't be blocked while their answer is awaiting review.
When building a short answer question:
- Enter your question and, optionally, add question details to give employees more context.
- Adjust the character limit between 20–500 characters (default is 280).
- Optionally, add a rubric describing what a correct answer should include. Only managers can see it — employees won't.
To grade a short answer response:
You can grade an employee's short answer response from a course's Tracking and Reports tab or from the Needs review tab under Training > Courses, whichever is easier to find in the moment. Managers get an email notification whenever an employee submits a short answer that needs grading.
You can click Grade Answer in the email notification to go directly to the employee's response. Otherwise, follow one of these paths in the web app.
Option 1: Grade from the course:
- Go to Training and select the course you want to grade.
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Click the Tracking and Reports tab, set the filter to Needs grading, and select the employee's name.
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Click Grade next to the short answer question marked Needs Grading.
Option 2: Grade from the Needs review tab:
- Go to Training > Courses and select the Needs review tab.
- Search by the employee's name or request title, or use the status filter (it defaults to Pending).
- Select the row to open the employee's submitted response.
- Review their answer against the rubric, and select Correct or Incorrect.
However you get there, review the employee's answer against the rubric, leave feedback if you would like to keep a record for yourself, and select Correct or Incorrect. Employees do not receive submitted feedback at this time.
Note: The rubric for a short answer question only appears if details were added when the quiz was created.
Building quizzes from content with AI
You can use Ask AI to turn the text on a Content page into quiz questions in a few clicks.
- From the Lesson Library, open the lesson.
- Select the Content page you want to use.
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Click Ask AI in the Page Content toolbar, then select Build quiz. The AI chooses the question type (multiple choice, matching, or sorting order) that it thinks fits the content best, and decides how many questions to create, up to 5.
- Review the new questions under the Content page. AI-generated questions show a sparkle icon in the left-hand navigation until you open them.
- Make any adjustments you need, then select Save in the top-right corner of the Content builder screen to keep your changes.
Each generation creates 1 to 5 questions. Questions are only built from the content on that page, so if you want more, you can add text to the page and generate again.
Note: The AI can create multiple choice, sorting order, and matching questions. Short answer questions aren't supported by AI yet. To add a short answer question, create it manually in the quiz editor.
Tip: If a page doesn't have enough content to build a quiz, you'll see an error instead of questions. Add more detail to the page and try again.
Adding and Editing Media
You can add media up to 500MB on any Content page. Supported file types include images (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .webp, .svg), videos (.mp4, .webm, .mov), PDFs (.pdf), YouTube links, and Vimeo links.
Tip: Images display best on the mobile app at a 4:3 aspect ratio with a minimum size of 750×560 pixels.
- In the Lesson content builder, select the page you want to edit from the left-hand navigation.
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To add or edit media, click the pencil icon in the top-right corner of the media block, select your file, and click Add Media.
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To remove media, click the trash icon on the media block.
App Preview
As you build or edit your lesson, you can visualize exactly how your content will look to your team.
- The App Preview panel on the right side of the lesson screen automatically updates to reflect your changes, showing you a live mock-up of the mobile app interface.
- Click the Preview button (represented by the eye icon at the top of the page) to see an interactive, full-screen rendering of how employees will progress through pages, view media, and complete quizzes on their mobile devices.
Next Steps
After creating your lessons, you can build out your Training Course and assign them to your team!