Hooray! I finished my WalkMe training and am now a qualified WalkMe Builder.

But hold on a sec, what is WalkMe? Continue reading to find out!

WalkMe is a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) – something I’d not heard of until recently. Digital Adoption Platforms are basically layers of software that are placed on top of existing web-based software. In WalkMe, additional JavaScript is attached to existing HTML elements. This extra code allows you to create a digital walk thru.

For example, say you wanted to create a tutorial for your shopping website. You can create a walk thru using WalkMe and attach it to your website (via a script that is placed in the page header). So when a new user comes to your website and starts creating a new account, a walk thru is launched that provides the user with useful balloon tooltips during the account creation process. WalkMe isn’t just used for walkthroughs, it can also be used to create:

• Resources – Additional help for the user that can present articles and videos
• Shuttles – Links to direct users to another page
• Launchers – Buttons that can be placed on the page
• Shout Outs – That can be used for announcements (to inform users of a special offer or an update)
• Onboarding – Task list type walk thru

I like the idea of WalkMe and I can see it’s potential. I can also see it being a nightmare to use if not implemented correctly. After I’d completed my training I realised that I’d encountered DAP platforms on webpages I’d visited, so I’ve become more aware of their presence.

Depending on what your business needs are depends on what WalkMe solution you implement on your site. You start planning by identifying different use cases:

• Onboarding and Training
• Customer care / support
• Feature Adoption/ change Management
• Retention
• Data integrity

There are lots of different reasons you might want to implement a walkthrough (WalkMe uses ‘thru’ but for some reason I just prefer ‘through’). For example, the client I am currently working with wants to use it for training staff on using their payroll software.

WalkMe isn’t the only DAP out there, Pendo is another platform, but I’ve not really researched it in depth.

WalkMe University

WalkMe University is the name of the training suite for WalkMe. The training was pretty good, I really enjoyed it and felt really engaged. The training was self-paced and courses were broken up into modules. The course material was modular, so even though it was advised to complete modules in order if you were trying to obtain a qualification (such as the WalkMe Builder certificate) you could take the modules in any order. Although some of the training did have dependencies and it would be confusing to complete some parts without completing the introductions first.

The materials were a mix of e-learning (created in Rise) video’s, job aids, multiple choice questions and practical work. After completing the course material there was an exam. The exam was a 2-hour, open book practical where you were given five scenarios to complete. The scenarios were all very similar – you had to create a solution using WalkMe.

The only thing I would change about the training is the job aids – I would often access the training material on different devices. The job aids are located alongside the material when you access it. There doesn’t seem to be a separate area to go to download the job aids after you’ve finished a module, which meant I ended up having to sift through the content again just to find a template or a guidance sheet.

Overall I’m happy to say I passed the exam! However WalkMe is quite a feature-full application and I’m sure I’m going to need to refer back to my notes (and the tutorials) to remember all the available features and implementations.