If you’re responsible for making sure people finish their training, you need more than “Yeah, it looks like folks clicked through.” You need to know who is learning, what they’re actually doing, and where people get stuck. This guide is for anyone who wants to use Brainshark analytics to really track learner progress—not just check a box.
Why Use Brainshark Analytics in the First Place?
If you’re using Brainshark to deliver training, you already know it’s not just about uploading slides or videos. The real value is knowing if your people are learning what they need to learn, so you can step in before problems snowball. Analytics is where the rubber meets the road.
But let’s be real: Brainshark’s dashboards can get overwhelming, and not every number matters. Most folks just want clear, actionable answers—without wasting hours poking around.
Step 1: Know What You Actually Need to Track
Before you touch a report, get clear on your goals. Otherwise, you’ll drown in useless charts.
Ask yourself: - Do I just need to know who’s done the training? - Am I looking for knowledge gaps? - Is it about compliance, skills, or sales readiness? - Am I reporting for a manager, or trying to actually help learners improve?
Pro tip: Don’t overcomplicate it. Start with completion, scores, and engagement.
Step 2: Get Oriented—What Brainshark Tracks (and What It Doesn’t)
Brainshark analytics can track a lot, but it’s not magic. Here’s what you can actually see:
What you get: - Presentation views: Who watched, when, and for how long. - Completion rates: Did they finish the course? - Quiz scores and attempts: How well did they do, and did they have to retake it? - Slide-by-slide analytics: Where did people drop off? Which slides got skipped? - Content engagement: Time spent, interactions, replays. - Certifications and badges: If you’ve set them up.
What you don’t get: - Deep behavior insights (like “Were they multitasking?” Nope.) - Real-time collaboration or chat data. - Sophisticated skills gap analysis (unless you export and crunch in Excel).
Honest take: The basics are solid, but don’t expect Brainshark to read minds. It’s good for “who did what, when, and how well.” For deeper diagnostics, you’ll need to export and slice the data yourself.
Step 3: The Analytics Dashboard—What’s Worth Your Time?
When you log in, you’ll see a jungle of tabs: “My Content,” “Reports,” “Dashboards,” etc. Here’s a quick breakdown so you don’t waste time:
- My Content: Good for checking stats on a single course or presentation.
- Dashboards: High-level view for managers; good for spotting trends.
- Reports: Where the real detail lives. You can get granular—by user, group, date, content, attempts, and more.
If you’re short on time, focus on: - Course Completion Report: Who’s finished, who’s lagging. - Quiz Summary Report: Average scores, pass/fail numbers. - Slide Engagement Report: Where people tune out.
Step 4: Pulling Reports that Matter
Here’s how to get to what you actually care about:
1. Completion Tracking
- Go to Reports > Course Completion or Presentation Completion.
- Filter by date range, group, or individual as needed.
- Export to CSV if you want to do more (Excel is your friend here).
Tip: Set up scheduled reports to land in your email. Saves you from logging in just to see “Yep, still not done.”
2. Score Analysis
- Use the Quiz Summary report.
- Look for:
- Low scores (are the questions unclear, or is the content too tough?)
- Multiple retakes (a sign that learners are struggling or just clicking through)
- Drill down to specific questions to see common wrong answers.
3. Engagement/Drop-Off Points
- The Slide Engagement report shows where people drop off. If slide 8 has a huge exit rate, that’s your bottleneck.
- If people are skipping videos or rushing through, you’ll see lower time-on-slide numbers.
Ignore: Vanity metrics like “number of opens” or “total logins.” Unless you’re trying to impress someone who doesn’t understand training, these don’t mean much.
Step 5: Spot Patterns, Not Just Gaps
The real power of analytics is seeing patterns:
- Are certain teams or roles always behind?
- Is there a quiz that trips up everyone?
- Does a particular piece of content get skipped or bombed every time?
Don’t just flag non-completers. Look for trends that suggest you need to rewrite, re-record, or offer extra help.
Pro tip: One bad quiz question can tank your whole course’s numbers. If everyone misses question 4, it’s probably your question, not your people.
Step 6: Share Insights (Without Drowning People in Data)
Don’t just dump spreadsheets on your boss or team. Summarize what matters:
- “80% finished on time. The rest are all in Team B.”
- “Slide 9 is a drop-off spot—will rewrite.”
- “Quiz average dropped after we updated the content.”
Keep it actionable: What do you want people to do with this info? Follow up with laggards? Tweak the content? Schedule a live session?
Step 7: Automate the Boring Stuff
No one wants to babysit dashboards. Use Brainshark’s scheduling features:
- Automate regular reports: Weekly or monthly, whatever fits.
- Set up alerts: For overdue learners or low scores, if available.
- Integrate: If you’ve hooked Brainshark into your LMS or HR system, pull the data there and set up your own tracking.
If you’re still copying and pasting into Excel every week, you’re working too hard.
What to Ignore (Seriously)
- “Engagement score”: This is often just a blend of clicks and time, not real learning.
- “Views per user”: Doesn’t matter unless you care about repeat training.
- Charts with no clear action: If you can’t explain what you’d do differently with the info, skip it.
Common Gotchas and How to Avoid Them
- Late data updates: Sometimes Brainshark reports lag behind. Don’t panic if someone looks overdue—double-check after a few hours.
- Incomplete data: If you import users or content from elsewhere, not all data syncs perfectly.
- Quiz settings: If you allow unlimited retakes, your “pass rate” could be meaningless. Set limits if you care about first-time learning.
Bottom line: Trust, but verify. Always sanity-check what Brainshark tells you, especially if something looks weird.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate as Needed
You don’t need to be a data scientist to track learner progress in Brainshark. Start with the basics—completion, scores, and obvious drop-offs. Ignore vanity stats. Make one change at a time, see if it helps, and don’t get sucked into dashboard rabbit holes.
If you find yourself spending more time reporting than improving training, take a step back. The goal is to help people learn, not just to generate pretty charts. Stick to what works, and tune up your process as you go.