So, you’re running an online academy or own a customer education program, and you need to know if people are actually learning anything. Skilljar's analytics tools can help, but only if you know what to look for—and what to ignore. This is for admins, ops folks, and anyone who wants real answers from Skilljar data, not just pretty charts.
Let’s get into what works, what doesn’t, and how to set up reporting that gives you actual insight into learner progress.
What Is Skilljar Analytics, Really?
If you’re new to Skilljar, it’s a platform for hosting online courses, often used for onboarding, product training, or customer education. Its analytics features claim to help you track how people move through your courses, figure out what’s sticking, and spot where folks drop off. In reality? Skilljar’s analytics are fine for most needs, but don’t expect miracles. It’ll tell you who started, who finished, and who got stuck, but it’s not a full-on business intelligence tool.
If you’re looking for advanced data slicing, integration with complex CRM workflows, or deep engagement metrics, you’ll hit some limits. But for tracking learner progress—who’s doing what, where they struggle, and who’s acing it—Skilljar does the job.
Step 1: Get Your House in Order Before Tracking Anything
Before you touch a dashboard, do a sanity check:
- Are your courses and lessons set up logically? If your modules are a mess, your analytics will be, too.
- Do you know what you want to measure? “Track progress” is vague. Get specific: course completions, quiz pass rates, time spent, drop-off points.
- Is your content updated? Outdated material = misleading data on engagement.
Pro Tip: Jot down your top three questions about learner progress. For example: “How many users finish our onboarding course within a week?” Stick those somewhere visible. It’ll keep you from drowning in data you don’t care about.
Step 2: Understand Skilljar’s Reporting Tools
Skilljar offers a few ways to track learner progress:
- Dashboard Analytics: These live inside Skilljar and give you a snapshot—completions, enrollments, quiz scores, etc.
- Course Progress Reports: Downloadable spreadsheets with line-by-line records of user progress.
- Custom Reports & Integrations: For the technical crowd. You can pull data into Tableau, Power BI, or your own warehouse via APIs.
What’s useful: The built-in dashboard is quick and covers most use cases. The downloadable reports are ugly but allow for serious filtering and custom analysis in Excel or Google Sheets.
What to ignore: Don’t get distracted by “average time spent” unless it’s clearly tied to your goals. A high time-on-task can mean engagement—or just that someone left a tab open. Same goes for “total video views”—it’s surface-level.
Step 3: Tracking Individual Learner Progress
Here’s how to actually see who’s making it through your courses:
- Go to the Analytics tab in Skilljar.
- Select the course or curriculum you want to review.
- Look at completion rates. This is the big one: how many users finish the course?
- Dive deeper into lesson-level data. See which modules are skipped or cause a drop-off.
- Download the progress report. For detailed questions, pull the CSV and filter by user, date, or module.
What you get: A clear view of who’s enrolled, who’s started, who’s completed, and sometimes, who’s stuck partway. If you need to follow up with users, this is where you find the list.
What’s missing: You don’t get rich behavioral data (like clickstreams or detailed engagement metrics). Skilljar will tell you “User X completed Lesson 3,” but not “User X rewatched video Y five times.”
Step 4: Spotting Drop-Offs and Bottlenecks
If you want to fix your courses, you need to know where people bail out. Here’s the process:
- Look at lesson-by-lesson completion rates. Big drop between Lesson 2 and 3? That’s a red flag.
- Check quiz pass/fail rates. If lots of people fail a quiz, there’s either a content problem or a bad question.
- Compare cohorts. Did the new version of your course improve completion rates? Skilljar lets you segment by enrollment date.
Pro Tip: Don’t panic over single-digit drop-offs. Some attrition is normal. Focus on big gaps or sudden changes after you update content.
Step 5: Reporting Out—What to Share (And What to Skip)
You’ll probably need to report results to leadership or stakeholders. Here’s how to keep it honest and useful:
- Stick to the basics: Completions, time-to-completion, and key drop-off points.
- Context matters: “80% completion” is good, but only if you know the industry average or internal benchmarks.
- Skip vanity metrics: Huge enrollment numbers don’t mean much if nobody’s finishing.
What works: Use simple graphs and clear numbers. “Last month, 150 users enrolled, 120 completed, most drop-offs at Lesson 5 quiz.”
What to ignore: Don’t bother with “total page views” or “average time per session” unless those matter for your goals. It’s easy to drown in numbers that don’t change anything.
Step 6: Advanced Moves (If You Need Them)
Skilljar does offer APIs and integration options, but go here only if basic reporting isn’t enough.
- APIs let you pull raw data for custom dashboards or connect to tools like Tableau.
- Webhooks can automate notifications when key events happen (like course completions).
- Third-party integrations let you combine Skilljar data with Salesforce, Slack, or other systems, but setup can be a pain.
Honest take: Unless you have a real need (like syncing training records with HR or sales), stick with built-in reports. Advanced integrations are powerful, but they require dev time and ongoing maintenance. For most folks, it’s overkill.
Step 7: Avoiding Common Pitfalls
Some mistakes are easy to make. Save yourself the headache:
- Chasing “perfect” data. There will always be gaps—users who never log in, people who click through without learning, etc.
- Over-reporting. Too many dashboards = nobody pays attention. Focus on a handful of metrics that drive action.
- Ignoring feedback. Numbers are great, but sometimes you need to ask learners directly why they stopped.
Step 8: Iterate and Improve
No tracking setup is perfect on day one. Here’s how to keep things moving:
- Review your reports monthly. Look for trends, not just one-off spikes or dips.
- Update your courses based on data. If a module keeps tripping people up, fix or simplify it.
- Ask for feedback. Use surveys or emails to get qualitative data—sometimes the story behind the drop-off is more valuable than the number.
Keep It Simple and Stay Sane
Skilljar analytics can give you a real window into how learners move through your courses, but only if you focus on what matters. Don’t get lost in the weeds or chase shiny metrics. Track the basics, fix obvious issues, and update as you go. You don’t need a PhD in data science to see what’s working—just a clear question and the discipline to look at your reports every so often.
Remember: progress, not perfection. If you get stuck, go back to your top three questions and work from there. The rest is just noise.