Applies To:
KnowledgeSmart Principal Administrators and Library Administrators.
Common Causes/Issues:
You want to make offline edits to existing KnowledgeSmart assessment library content, and/or create custom questions for batch uploading into the Draft content area of your KnowledgeSmart admin dashboard.
Solution Overview:
Batch edit functionality is available for draft assessments and questions. It does not work with published KnowledgeSmart ‘off-the-shelf’ assessments.
Editing Questions
The starting point for downloading and offline editing of questions is in the Test > Library > Draft content > Draft tests area. The green ‘X’ icon to download the questions is highlighted below. Hover your mouse pointer over that icon and it will display 'Batch edit question export'.
Click on the icon to download the questions for a test. You will see an information notice, as below:
Only these question types will be downloaded and can then be edited and uploaded using Batch edit.
Other question types must be edited using the normal question editing tools within the KnowledgeSmart dashboard. Note: these question types comprise the majority of KnowledgeSmart ‘off-the-shelf’ assessments.
The first few columns of the download file are shown below:
Note that the Question ID has been downloaded. Do not change this number as it will be used by the KnowledgeSmart system during the upload process to look for updates to existing questions.
Where there is downloaded text, such as in the QuestionSummary and QuestionText columns, the formatting tags are also downloaded. Examples of formatting tags are <p> and <span style="font-style: italic;">. Retaining these formatting tags means the questions will be automatically formatted upon upload. If these tags are omitted then the questions will upload without error, however they will need formatting later using the normal KnowledgeSmart question editing tools.
Adding Links to Learning Material
Columns AA and AB of the downloaded file are where you may add links to external learning material. This content may be part of an eLearning subscription, publicly available material, or generated within your own firm. It needs to be accessible using an external or internal URL.
As an example, here is a link of a question about the Revit User interface to an Autodesk video available on YouTube.
When the edited file is uploaded this link will automatically be inserted into the question at Step 6.
When you have completed all the question editing, save the edited file.
Uploading the edited questions
Go to Library > Draft Content > Batch Edit, as below, to find the Batch Import function.
Locate your edited question file and upload it. Click in the white box (marked with a blue arrow above) and you will be taken to File Explorer to locate the file to be imported.
Click on the 'Upload' button. You will be presented with a list of all questions to be uploaded.
At the bottom of the list is an orange 'Import Questions' button. Click on this button.
The KnowledgeSmart system will automatically create a new group for all imported questions from this file.
You will be able to view imported questions using the link below:
Changes made to questions can be previewed in the normal way.
Creating New Questions
The same download file used for editing questions can also be used for creating new questions.
When creating a new question, complete all the required columns for each question type, except, leave rows under the following columns empty: QuestionID, UsedInModules and UsedInTests.
During the import process the KnowledgeSmart system will know that this is a new question and assign it a Question ID. You will then distribute the newly imported questions to modules and tests.
Using the downloaded file for creating new questions
The first column denotes the question type. This can be one of 5 values: FT, MC, PL, OL, or TF.
These represent the question types: Free text, Multiple choice, Pick list, Order list and True or false, respectively.
For all questions, the QuestionName, QuestionSummary and QuestionText values are mandatory.
Enter your category tags and training tags in the fields provided. Separate each entry with a comma.
Enter your category tags and training tags in the fields provided. Separate each entry with a comma.
Free Text
For free text questions, enter your answer into the Answer1 column. With free text questions, you can also provide the following details:
FTNumeric - enter True if the answer is numeric.
FTCaseWhitespaceVariance - enter True to enable case and white space variance. When true, the marking will disregard incorrect case and white spacing.
FTAllowVariance - for numeric questions, enter True to enable variance.
FTPercent - when variance is true, you can enter a percentage value.
FTLower - when variance is true, enter the lower threshold.
FTUpper - when variance is true, enter the upper threshold.
FTPrecisionHint - for numeric questions, enter True to enable precision hint.
True or False
For True or False questions, enter the correct answer into the Answer1 column. Valid values are True or False.
Multiple Choice
For Multiple choice questions, enter the available options in the columns Answer1 through to Answer10. Prefix the correct answer with a * symbol. If more than one column contains a * symbol, the import process records the first answer with a * symbol as the correct option.
Pick List
For Pick list questions, enter the available options in the columns Answer1 through to Answer10. You can prefix multiple correct answers with a * symbol.
PLPartialScoring - for Pick list questions, enter 'True' to enable partial scoring.
Order List
For order list questions, enter the answers in the columns Answer1 through to Answer10. You should enter the answers in the correct sequence.
Batch Edit Character Limits
When editing existing questions or creating new ones it is important to keep the contents of each column in the Batch Edit Excel file within the limit for the number of characters for that field within the KnowledgeSmart Library.
Exceeding the character limit may lead to an error at Upload, or truncation of the text within the question.
These limits are as set out below. Columns in Batch Edit Excel file:
QuestionName, All Answers for Free Text, Pick List, Multiple Choice and Order List:
50 characters limit
QuestionSummary, QuestionText, CoachingText and LearningText:
3,000 characters limit
CategoryTags and TrainingTags:
400 characters limit
Related Article(s):
How to customize a KnowledgeSmart assessment
KnowledgeSmart library question types
Adding additional titles to your KnowledgeSmart library
How to invite users to a Skills assessment, Survey or Skills audit
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