JumpCloud University Enhancements!

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This is an edited transcript of the 05.10.24 IT Hour

Overview 

• Ella Rigoulot from the JumpCloud University team gives an update on the latest improvements to JumpCloud University
• Sign up for access to JumpCloud University here: https://university.jumpcloud.com/ 

Transcript 

Ella: I’m going to talk about some specific enhancements. My team works extremely hard to work with people like Trevor when we come out with our content and our feature releases and product releases to make sure that our content is up to date, but it’s a heavy task. I think I presented in December about a survey we did at the end of all of our courses and a lot of our feedback this last year was about “where do we start as an organization”, kind of making it a little bit clearer. So we listened to that and we developed some enhancements that I’m going to walk through. 

We have these really great new self guided onboarding courses. These are awesome if you’re implementing or self guiding or you have someone new at your company. Or if you’re an MSP, a partner, you’ve got somebody else coming on board, have them take a look at these onboarding courses. They really walk you through the steps to learn how to implement JumpCloud. The next thing we’ve got is our featured content. So anytime we have new courses, we’re going to have them in that featured content. 

One of the biggest things we listened to all of you about is the learning paths. They were a bit more focused a couple of years ago to where the product was at the time, so we’ve adjusted them for areas of product focus. So we’ve got the Foundations of JumpCloud which is brand new and kind of just “What is JumpCloud” courses. They’re foundations of Open Directory, really great for new employees you might have coming in underneath you or at your company to learn about JumpCloud. Then we have focused courses on Identity Management and Device Management, Access and Resource Management. The areas of the product that you might be looking at or utilizing more, we’ve put all of our courses that go around those topics, whether they’re foundational or advanced, in those specific learning paths. 

Then of course we have our certifications. Our Core Certification learning path and the Advanced Certification learning path. Those are still the same. We’re constantly maintaining these courses and updating them when there’s releases and feedback. So if you took the certification in 2021, the questions are extremely different than now, so highly recommend that you guys take a look at those and update them and keep your certifications fresh. 

I’m super big on hands-on learning and with my team I’m always like “How can we encourage them to go into the product and now do this?” and I would love to see us having a lab environment or a virtual machine where you can go in and practice. We’re not there yet but it’s something we would love to be able to do. 

Also when you go into My Dashboard now you can see visual progress. Like you can see that you’ve passed a certification exam, but when it comes to the self guided onboarding path, you’re only 35% complete so you can go back in and complete that. A lot of people weren’t really sure which courses they’ve completed and what the status was  so now you can see that visual. You can also see learning paths you’re registered in, ones you have in progress and ones that are not started. 

Then we have this really great new search feature. So let’s say you want something on Active Directory Integration, you can search for that. We’ve also enhanced our Resources page. We’ve got tutorials, simulations, and end user resources. So if you’re an IT Admin and you want to train your end users on how to use JumpCloud and the User Console, we’ve got a lot of information here. You have a visual here of a yellow person, that means it’s end user content, so you can show it to your end users or put it in an onboarding plan. 

We’ve also integrated our Help Center. So you can see Help Center articles here, you don’t have to go to support.jumpcloud.com to find those. So you can search and filter by types of content and by topics to find exactly what you’re looking for. 

Q&A

Q: How do we renew our certifications? 

A: We don’t have a full renewal certificate just yet. We didn’t have an audit process in place to ensure we were updating our certifications effectively but now that that’s in place you’ll probably start seeing more renewal information and recommendations for renewal. We do recommend that you retake our certifications every two years but the renewal process and a clear strategy for that will come out next year. 

Q: Do certifications expire and is there a plan to have them expire at some point? 

A: They’ll probably expire about every two years starting in 2025. 

Q: Do you have to complete the Core Certification before you can attempt the Advanced Certification? 

A: You do not. If you’ve been using JumpCloud for a while and you’re really deep into it, go ahead and take the Advanced practice exam. But if you’re just getting started then do the core foundational courses, get your core assessment, continue to use JumpCloud and then you can take a look at those advanced topics. 

Q: Is the Advanced Certification worth it because by that point you’re knee deep into the topics and can read the specifics when needed? 

A: I think it is. JumpCloud is gaining more and more clients and I think that the skill set and being able to showcase your skill set by showing you’re certified, you’ve passed the assessment, is worth it. All of our learning is free but if you want to showcase your skill set, talk to other employers, move to other companies that might use JumpCloud, having the Advanced Certification gives you that level up. Especially if you’re a partner and want to showcase those skill sets to your clients. If you’re working a helpdesk, having the Advanced Certification is a great way to say “Hey I know this off the top of my head. I don’t have to go in and look it up. I can get those tickets cleared up sooner than later.”

Q: Are the certifications available on Credly? 

A: Yes they are. If you’ve taken the exam and haven’t received an email about it please reach out to university@jumpcloud.com and we’ll make sure we get that awarded to you.