How to create and assign Courses for Employee Training

Updated

Employee Training lets you build and assign structured training Courses for your team directly in the 7shifts app. A Course is built from Lessons and Tasks arranged in a set order, and employees work through each step on the 7shifts mobile app until the Course is complete.

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, and access training reporting.

  • Managers and Assistant Managers can only view or edit Courses that match the Locations assigned to their employee profile.
  • Courses are built and published on the 7shifts web app. Employees complete Courses through the 7shifts mobile app.
  • Employees must complete each step of a Course in order. A step stays locked until the previous one is finished.
  • Courses can be edited at any time. Publishing updates to a Course will apply to everyone currently assigned to it. However, if an employee has already marked the Course as completed, they will not be prompted to take it again or complete any newly added material.

Create a Course

7shifts Training has two Course types. A Full Course lets you sequence existing Lessons and Tasks into a structured training path. A Bite-sized Course is built directly in the Content Builder for quick, single-topic training, and you can send it to your team as an announcement when you're done.

Tip: On the Courses page, you can use the All, Published, and Draft tabs to filter your view, search for a specific Course by name, or switch between card and list view.

Learn more about each course type below: 

Full Course
  1. From the web app, navigate to Training > Courses.
  2. Select + Create course, then choose Full Course.
  3. Enter a Course title and Course description. 
  4. Under Course Sequence, build the Course by adding at least one Lesson or Task. 
    • Use the Add lesson dropdown to select an existing Lesson from your Lesson Library.
    • Select + Add task to add an off-screen action employees need to complete.
  5. Drag and drop Lessons and Tasks to adjust the order. The step count at the top of the page updates as you add items.
  6. Click Save Changes to save your Course draft. 
  7. When ready, click Publish to publish the Course.
Bite-sized 

Bite-sized Courses are designed for quick, focused training on a single topic — such as a new menu item or policy reminder. They are built directly in the Content Builder.

  1. From the web app, navigate to Training > Courses.
  2. Select + Create course, then choose Bite-sized.
  3. In the Lesson Builder, choose how to create a Lesson:
    • Text Prompt: Enter a specific prompt, such as "Create a lesson on making a Shirley Temple," and AI will generate instructional content and quizzes.
    • Document Upload: Upload a PDF or DOCX file (up to 10MB). AI will extract content and images to create sections and quizzes.
    • Manual (Start from Scratch): Add sections, pages, and content manually into the Lesson.
  4. In the Content Builder, add a title and page content. You can upload media (PDFs, images, or videos) to support the lesson.
  5. When finished, click Save & Assign. 

Send Bite-sized Course as an announcement to your team: 

  1. In the Assign and publish Course modal, choose who should receive the Bite-sized Course:
    • Location
    • Department
    • Role
    • Specific employees
  2. Toggle on Send an announcement to notify your team with a message and direct link to the Course. 
  3. Click Assign & publish.

Employees will receive an Announcement with a direct link to complete the Course. 

Configure Course settings

The Settings tab lets you control how a Course is categorized (Mandatory vs Optional), when it's due, and how quizzes are scored. Any changes made after a Course is published require you to click Publish Changes to apply them.

Completion type

  1. While viewing the selected Course, click the Settings tab.
  2. Under Completion type, you the toggle to choose how the Course should be categorized:
    • Mandatory: The Course must be completed by everyone assigned. Employees see Mandatory courses in a dedicated section on their training dashboard.
    • Optional: The Course is recommended but not required. Employees see Optional courses in a separate section on their training dashboard.
  3. If course type is Mandatory, you will need to choose when learners must complete the Course:
    • No due date: Employees can complete the Course at any time.
    • By specific date: Everyone assigned must complete the Course by the same calendar date, regardless of when they were assigned.
    • Number of days after assigned: The due date is calculated individually from the date each employee is assigned, so each person gets their own deadline.
  4. If Course was previously published, click Publish Changes to update the settings.

Note: Employees receive an automatic reminder the day before a mandatory Course is due. If a Course is missed, managers receive a batched email listing all newly overdue employees. Training notifications can be configured on the web and mobile app notification settings.

Quizzes

  1. Under the Quizzes section, select your preferred Grading option:
    • Graded: Records each learner's score. Learners get one shot per quiz with no retakes. Note that failing a quiz does not block course completion.
    • Practice: The quiz counts as complete once answered, and no score is recorded.
  2. Quiz settings apply to all quizzes within the selected Course.
  3. If Course was previously published, click Publish Changes to update the settings.

Assign a Course

Once a Course is published, you can assign it to your team and track completion in real time.

  1. Open the published Course and select Assign Course.
  2. Choose who should receive the Course:
    • Location
    • Department
    • Role
    • Specific employees

  3. Toggle on Auto-assign to new members of these groups if you want anyone added to the selected group (Location, Department, Role) in the future to receive this Course automatically. When enabled, choose how the auto-assignment applies:

    • New members only assigns the Course only to people who join the selected group after this point. Anyone already in the group won't be assigned.
    • Existing members too assigns the Course to both current and future members of the selected group
  4. Click Save Assignments to confirm.

Assigned employees will receive an email and push notification (if enabled) on their mobile device once a Course has been assigned. The Course card on the Courses page will show the assigned group (for example, "BOH" or "7shifts Cafe, FOH") along with the number of Lessons and Tasks it contains.

Reassign or Unassign a Course

Once a Course is assigned, you can reassign or unassign it for individual employees directly from the Tracking and Reports tab. 

Tip: Use reassign when an employee needs to retake a Course they didn't pass, or to send it again as a skills refresher. Use unassign to remove a Course that was assigned by mistake or is no longer relevant.

  1. Open the published Course and select Tracking and Reports.
  2. Find the employee in the list and select the three-dot menu next to their name.

  3. Choose Reassign course to reset their progress and reassign the Course, or Unassign course to remove it from their training entirely.

Caution: Reassigning or unassigning a Course permanently removes that employee's previous progress and completion records.

Next Steps

Related Articles

Getting started with Employee Training
How to create Lessons for Employee Training
How to track Employee Training progress in 7shifts
How to add and manage resources in the Employee Training Resource Library
How to Complete a Training Course in 7shifts (For Employees)

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