Training your team with Academy

1. What is in Academy

Academy sits under Learning in the sidebar, and everyone on your team can open it. It starts with four core courses: Service essentials, Floor fundamentals, Safety basics and Bar foundations. Each course is a handful of short lessons, a few minutes each.

• Every lesson ends with a quick check of two to four questions. Answer them all and press Check answers to see which you got right, with the reason for each one.
• A lesson counts as done once every answer is right. Try again resets the check, so anyone can go again until it sticks.
• A few lessons open with a question before the reading, to get people thinking. That one is answered and explained on the spot, and never marked.

2. Drills built from your own venue

Drills quiz the team on your venue rather than on general knowledge, and they change when your venue does.

• Cocktail specs: your cocktail list, meaning the library classics you show to staff plus your own recipes and edits. Drinks hidden from staff are left out.
• Tables and floor: your tables, rooms, floors and where each one sits on the plan.
• Menu and extras: your pre-order extras and experiences, such as set menus and events.

Some drill questions ask you to pick every right answer before checking. An item counts as known once it has been answered right three times in a row. When you change what a drill asks about, such as a cocktail's recipe or a table's seats or place, progress on that item starts over, so nobody is marked as knowing a spec that has changed. Editing a cocktail's notes does not reset anything.

3. Assigning a course

Only admins and management can assign training. Open Academy, choose Team progress, then Assign a course.

• Course: any core course, or one of your own published courses.
• Assign to: a whole role (all team members, hosts, management or admins), or one person. A role assignment includes anyone who joins later.
• Due: today or a later date. To move it later, use the calendar button beside the assignment on Team progress; the reminder emails move with it.

The people it is for see it under Assigned to you in Academy, on the Your training card on Home, and in the notification bell. They are emailed the day before it is due, then again one and seven days after if it is still not done, unless they have unticked Email me a reminder in their own Academy. Someone who joins after a role assignment was made gets at least seven days from joining.

Team progress shows where each person is up to, and the Team page has a Training progress button that opens the same view.

4. Writing your own courses

Admins and management can write courses for the things only your venue knows, such as house rules or opening and closing. Open Academy and choose Your courses.

• Start from a template, Opening checklist, House rules or Our menu, or from a Blank course.
• Build each lesson from blocks: Ask first, Paragraph, Subheading, List, Steps, Tip, and Say this, with an optional "Not this" line for the words to avoid at the door or the table.
• Each lesson needs two to four check questions. A course can be a single lesson.
• A course stays a draft until you publish it. Published courses appear for the team under From your venue.

5. Badges, certificates, streaks and the team goal

• Badges are earned for a first lesson, for each core course, for finishing all four (All-rounder), and for knowing every spec, every table or the whole menu in the drills. A drill badge needs at least five items in that drill.
• Each finished core course, and All-rounder, comes with a certificate. Open it from the badge to print or save it as a PDF, or save a square or story-sized image to share.
• A streak starts the first day someone answers a lesson check or a drill question, and counts every day since, with up to two rest days in any seven. A third missed day in a week ends it.
• The team goal is the role-wide assignment with the earliest due date, kept for up to two weeks after that date if it runs late, and shown to the whole team as a ring of how many are done. There is nothing separate to set up.

Your profile, at the top of Academy, opens your account profile, which keeps your course badges and certificates from one venue to the next. Drill badges stay with this venue's Academy page.

6. What your plan includes

Academy is on every venue plan, and the core courses, drills and everyone's progress are never limited. What steps up by plan is how many courses of your own you keep (drafts included) and how many assignments you have, finished ones included until you remove them.

During your free trial there is no limit, because the trial runs on Venue Pro. If the trial ends without a card on file, you get Venue Starter's limits. A limit only stops you adding a new one; on a smaller plan everything you already have keeps working. Delete a course you no longer need, or remove a finished assignment, to make room.

7. Asking Lessly

Anyone can ask Lessly about their own training or for a quick quiz from the drills; quiz answers in the chat are not recorded and don't count toward a streak. Admins and management can also ask who is overdue, how one person is going, or where the team is weakest. Lessly can suggest an assignment, and it is only made when you press its Assign button.

8. Common questions

Why didn't someone get a reminder email?

They may have unticked Email me a reminder, above Assigned to you in their own Academy.

Why can't we earn the Every table badge?

A drill badge needs at least five items in that drill, so a venue with four tables can't earn it yet.

We hit the assignment limit, but nothing is due. Why?

Finished and long-past assignments still count until you remove them on Team progress.

Can someone without a login take a course?

Not yet. Academy is for the people with a login to your venue.