Fuse functionality overview

This page provides an overview of Fuse functionality and features.

Basic functionality

Functionality	Description
Collaborative and social learning	Fuse goes beyond the typical functionality offered by Learning Management Systems or corporate social networking sites. Fuse includes intuitive, easy to use functionality that everyone expects from applications they use in their personal life and applies this to the workplace. Fuse focuses on simplicity, usability, and user engagement.
Digests	Automatic emails informing the user of what's happening on Fuse. Digest emails can be sent daily or weekly.
Personal profile	View of collated personal user data: Content Activity Events Courses Certificates Export My Goals Communities Evidence Portfolio Observations Surveys The user can view a fully filterable and searchable list of content such as videos, files, questions, links, and articles they have previously posted to Fuse.
Community experts	Allows users to automatically share questions with only the experts in the community, rather than sharing the question with all users. The question will still be accessible to everyone in the community.
Links	Users can post external links to Fuse with extra details such as a title, tags, thumbnail and a description. Fuse uses a service called Embedly, which scrapes the link for a description and thumbnail where possible.
Upload	Allows users to upload a wide variety of file types including videos files, documents, and audio files. All uploaded videos are transcoded to MP4 format for playback and streaming to any device. Fuse automatically creates a high quality and lower quality copy of a video to help users on low bandwidth connections. Virtually all video and audio codecs are supported, such as MPG, MOV, AVI, WMV. Fuse uses Telestream's encoding service, based in the Amazon AWS cloud.
Record	Fuse has a built-in screen recorder which allows users to record their screens, webcams, and system audio. Any recordings that are made can be edited directly in the screen recorder tool's built-in editing screen. Once the recording is complete, the user is taken through previewing and editing, after which they can upload the recorded file to Fuse. All recordings are automatically transcoded to MP4 format, so they can be replayed from any device. The recording function is based on a one-time downloadable Java applet.
Search	Fuse has a powerful searching and indexing engine, which helps users find the information they need quickly and easily. By default, the content title and description form part of the search look up. Users can also add tags to help other Fuse users find the content more quickly.
Like	A user can show appreciation by clicking the "Like" button underneath an item of content.
Share	A user can share an item of content with one or more users or communities, with the option of adding a personalised message.
Comment	Users can leave comments on content posted to Fuse. This includes the ability to mention one or more users in a comment.
Notifications	The "Notifications" button allows users to view a list of notifications they have received. A new notification will appear in the Notifications list when: Another user shares an item of content. Another user engages with content, such as commenting, liking, and reporting. Something occurs in the system, such as a missed learning plan deadline or when a scheduled event is about to start.
Articles	A quick and easy way to create text-based content for internal or public communities within the platform. Articles can be used to communicate, for example when giving a quick update or sharing a small amount of knowledge with one or more users or an entire community. Articles are an alternative to group email blasts and bulletins.
Communities	A community allows an admin to create a structured and personalised learning experience for each user, including relevant content such as learning plans, articles, questions, links, and files. For example, the IT department in an organisation might create a community to share useful content, ask questions, and house learning plans related to IT best practices. There are four types of community – Public, Open, Protected, and Private: Public: A community that is fully viewable on the web without the need for authentication. Open: A community that is open to any authenticated user in the Fuse instance. Users can add themselves as members of these communities, as well as remove themselves from these communities at any time, without the permission of the community admin. Protected: Non-members can view content that is in the community (such as in search results) but cannot directly access it. To gain access, non-members must request membership from one of the community admins. Private: A community that is hidden from all non-members. Non-members cannot see the community or the content that exists within it. Users must be invited or preregistered with the community to gain access. Creating communities means that specific content is only viewable by users who are authorised to access it.
Universal Content	Allows users to post multiple versions of the same content in different languages. This includes questions and articles composed directly on Fuse, as well as externally created files posted to Fuse.

Sidebar navigation

Functionality	Description
Home	When clicked, takes the user to their homepage in Fuse.
News Feed	Displays content, links, and questions recently posted to communities the user is a member of.
All topics	Displays recently created topics from communities the user is a member of.
My Communities	Displays all communities the user is a member of and suggests other communities that the user might want to join.
My Learning Plans	Displays a list of learning plans the user has been assigned to. Learning plans are a combination of topics and content. The user's learning plan progress is tracked by Fuse and when the user reaches 100% they have completed the learning plan.
Events	Allows designated users to create events with one or more occurrences. This enables them to have the same overarching event information and prerequisite learning across all occurrences. Each occurrence can have unique details such as host, location, and capacity. Tags can be added to an event so that it can be categorised and so that it is easier to find when searching.
One-to-Ones	Managers can schedule one-to-ones with their reportees to track performance goals. Managers and reportees can view previously set goals, as well as view a list of previous one-to-ones they have participated in. When goals are marked as completed, both managers and reportees are sent notifications informing them. Goals can be assigned to both a manager and a reportee during a one-to-one.
My Dashboard	Shows the user's activity, comparing it to group leaders, group average by date, and engagement type. The user can also see the top content contributions.
Observations	Managers can carry out an observation for each of their reportees to assess their performance. These can be viewed retrospectively by both the manager and reportee. This functionality is only accessible if the user is a manager of another user.
Surveys	Users can view and take surveys that are available to them. Based on the setup of the survey, a survey can be filled in anonymously or with user ID fully visible. Users can also access to all surveys they have taken previously. Surveys can be triggered on completion of an event, learning plan, or topic.
Favourites	The user can view a list of content they have bookmarked/favourited by clicking the star icon on the homepage for an item of content.
Recently visited	Displays a list of content the user has recently viewed.
My Content	Sends the user to their personal profile page.
New Topic	Allows an admin to create a new topic containing content from Fuse and share it with a community. Topics can be used to group related content together in chapters. For example, a topic called "Health and safety" might contain content related to health and safety, divided into chapters to help organise and break down this information.
Manager dashboard	Allows a manager to review requests, as well as view reports about their staff. If a user is not a manager, no information will be displayed when viewing the manager dashboard.
Analytics	Everything on Fuse is tracked and the information shown on charts/graphs. Analytics shows engagements and interactions for each community and every bit of content. Analytics consists of: Analytics (Legacy): The legacy Analytics screen in the Admin dashboard allows admins to view graphs illustrating trends in user engagement with Fuse content across a company instance within a specific period of time. Universal Analytics: Universal Analytics is Fuse's embedded analytics offering which has replaced the legacy Analytics (Legacy) widget and reporting engine. Customers spend an average of 4 hours per week answering the same questions, and so Fuse now provides them with a dashboard which allows them to gain relevant and detailed insights from their Fuse data quickly and easily in one place.
Admin	Displays a range of administrative tools (listed in the Admin section below) available based on Administration rights assigned to the user.
Settings	Edit user personal settings.
Log out	Allows users to log out of Fuse.

Admin

Options available are dependant on administrators' level of access.

Functionality	Details
Manage Users	Allows an admin to create and manage all users. This includes the ability to disable/ re-enable, and change a user's details.
Import	Allows an admin to bulk import/update users, user details, and learning data to Fuse.
Featured content	Allows an admin to add content to and remove content from the main banner on all Fuse home pages.
New community	Allows admins to create new communities in the Fuse instance.
Audience Management	The Audience Management screen allows admins to create different types of audiences for content posted on Fuse, based on defined filters, as well as edit, copy, and delete existing audiences. An audience is a dynamic group of users that match a defined set of criteria based on profile fields, such as location (London, Tokyo, Stockholm), creation date (new starters), or role (User and Admin). Creating an audience ensures that specific categories of users see content intended for them.
Edit learning plans	Allows admins to view, manage and/or delete learning plans.
Edit side menu	Allows admins to add custom links to the side menu in Fuse. Admins can add links to external sites or to other pages in Fuse.
Design studio	Allows admins to customise the layout of the Default homepage, Audience specific homepages, Default Manager dashboards, Manager Specific dashboards, Community specific screens, and User Dashboards by adding and configuring widgets and custom HTML/CSS.
Reporting	Allows admins to generate reports, in the form of a CSV file.
Profile custom options	Allows admins to displays profile custom options / allows admins to edit the options found on a user's profile screen.
Community mapping	Allows admins to change default communities for users.
Landing communities	Allows admins to define default communities for a newly added user.
Copy topics	Allows admins to copy a topic from one community to another.
Event logging	A Live log of activity from across the Fuse instance.
Site moderation	Allows admins to monitor a company instance for offensive and abusive language. When an item is flagged/reported, the user who posted the offending item receives a notification informing them. The Site moderation screen consists of the following: Keyword detector tab: Allows admins to add one or more keywords that the organisation considers inappropriate or offensive. If a listed keyword appears in an item of content, or comment, Fuse will flag and report it to the community admin. Manage reports tab: Allows admins to view and resolve flagged items of content. Notification settings tab: Allows admins to configure the notifications sent to community admins and the offending user when content is flagged.
Admin groups	Allows admins to create, manage, and set permissions for groups of users within Fuse.
Analytics	Everything on Fuse is tracked and the information shown on charts/graphs. Analytics will show engagements and interactions for each community and every bit of content. Analytics consists of: Analytics (Legacy): The legacy Analytics screen in the Admin dashboard allows admins to view graphs illustrating trends in user engagement with Fuse content across a company instance within a specific period of time. Universal Analytics: Universal Analytics is Fuse's embedded analytics offering which has replaced the legacy Analytics (Legacy) widget and reporting engine. Customers spend an average of 4 hours per week answering the same questions, and so Fuse now provides them with a dashboard which allows them to gain relevant and detailed insights from their Fuse data quickly and easily in one place.
Observations	Allows admins to create and manage observations, including editing, copying, enabling/disabling, archiving, and running reports on existing observations.
Surveys	Allows admins to create and manage surveys, including editing, copying, enabling/disabling, archiving, and running reports on existing surveys.
Scheduling	Allows admins to specify when an item of content is shared, as well as manage existing shares. For example, an admin might want to share an item of content they have created today, on a specific date in the near future. Admins can schedule an item of content to be shared once or on a recurring basis.
File host	Allows admins to create folders of content.
Certificates	Allows admins to create custom certificates.
Notifications	Allows admins to configure and manage notification settings.
User Defaults	Allows admins to control which notifications users receive, as well as reset all users to a new configuration.
Site Configuration	Allows admins to customise the styling of the Fuse login screen. Admins can customise the login screen to match their organisation's branding and colour scheme. This includes being able to customise: Company logo Background image Favicon Button text and colours Support contact details Display additional information such as links and phone numbers in the footer

CSV importing

Functionality	Description
Bulk users	Allows admins to bulk add users to Fuse by uploading a CSV file.
Views data loader	Allows admins to bulk upload data previously attributed to users. For example, details of the training users have already completed.
Events	Allows admins to upload previous events as a CSV file.
Manager/Report	Enables manager/report relationships to be set up in bulk, by uploading a CSV file that contains the details of manager/reportee relationships.

Assessments and evaluation features

Functionality	Description
Formal questions	Formal assessments allow a site or community admin to gain visibility around answers users have submitted in assessments. Assessments consist of multiple-choice questions, with either one or many correct answers that can be marked by the system. A CSV spreadsheet can be downloaded by site or community admins, with a summary of each user’s results and details of each user's answers to each question. Admins can limit the number of times a formal assessment can be taken, as well as set an expiry date by which the assessment must be taken.
Comprehension questions	Comprehension questions is an assessment type in Fuse, that helps extend the way in which learners can prove competency and ability to apply their learning. Rather than a predefined wrong or right answer that can be marked by the system, comprehension questions require sign off from a manager. The learner is required to answer questions that can be supported by an additional upload of a file, screencast recording, or an audio explanation. For example, a learner who has just completed a sales induction learning plan, may be asked to prove their comprehension by recording an audio of them doing a 1 minute elevator pitch, a file upload of an email chain where they had articulated a proposition, or a screen-cast/video of them demoing a product. Comprehension questions can be marked as correct by being 'signed off’. In order to sign off a user's comprehension question, the user must have a manager assigned to them on their profile page.
Survey questions	Survey questions involve users being asked questions, which don’t have a predefined right or wrong answer but can be answered on a scale instead. For example, the question might be: "On a scale of 1-5, how well did the employee complete the assignment?". The user's manager would then select a number on a scale of 1-5. 1 might be labelled as "Awfully" and 5 might be labelled as "Brilliantly". A CSV spreadsheet of results can be downloaded by site or community admins, with a summary of each user’s results and details of their answers to each question.
Informal questions	Informal questions allow a user to test their knowledge in an informal way. Informal questions/assessments can be taken multiple times, as is necessary. Informal questions are designed to help with a user's personal development, in order to identify gaps in knowledge, instead of formally assessing the user's knowledge.

Community admin panel

Functionality	Description
About	Allows a community admin to change the details of the community such as the name, description, community type (Public, Private, Open, Protected), knowledge experts, cost, and default tabs.
Content	Allows a community admin to view all content that exists in the community, as well as add content to the community that exists elsewhere in the Fuse instance.
Featured content	Allows a community admin to control the content displayed on the Featured content banner, at the top of the community homepage. A maximum of 3 items of content can be displayed on the Featured content banner in a community.
Bulk content operations	Allows a community admin to remove one or more items of content from a community, as well as move content that exists in the community to another community in the Fuse instance.
New Topic	Allows a community to group related content into a single topic, organised into chapters.
Delete community	Gives community admins the ability to remove the community from the Fuse instance, for example when a community is no longer needed. Content in the community is permanently deleted, unless it exists in another community in the Fuse instance.
Promotional page	Advertises the community to potential members. Community admins can add a promotional video and a maximum of three featured topics to the promotional page. Promotional content is a useful way to showcase the community to non-members and encourage them to join.
Members	A community admin can add new members to the community and remove existing members from the community.
Analytics	Provides a breakdown of community-specific engagements and interactions with content.
Events	Allows a community admin to create, view, and manage events for the community.
Learning Plans	Allows a community admin to create, view, and manage learning plans for a community. Learning plans allow community admins to group topics, events, event occurrences, and SCORM courses related to a specific subject area, together in a meaningful and logical order. The community admin can then assign the learning plan to community members and audiences. The following can be added to a learning plan: Topic: A topic can consist of multiple items of content, SCORM courses, and assessments. Each object inside a topic counts individually towards a user’s learning plan progress score. SCORM course: A SCORM course can be added to a learning plan as an independent object, as well as part of a topic. The user must complete the SCORM course in order for it to count towards their progress score. SCORM courses are created externally and uploaded to Fuse. Fuse is not responsible for the maintenance or configuration of SCORM courses, and so, clients must ensure SCORM courses are formatted correctly and that they follow universal standards. Event: An event might be face-to-face or virtual meeting/gathering, such as an All company training day. If an event is part of a learning plan, the user must be marked as “Attended” for one of the event’s occurrences, in order for it to count towards their progress score.
Scheduling	Allows an admin to schedule content shares within the community, as well as view previously scheduled shares. Community admins can share content on a recurring basis.
Notification Settings	Allows admins to configure notification settings for the community.
Reported items	Allows admins to view items of content that exist in the community, that have been reported by other users, as well as delete a reported item of content from the community if necessary.
Widget Settings	Allows community admins to Customise the look, feel, and layout of the community using custom HTML and by selecting and configuring widgets in Design Studio.

Reports

Allows admins to generate reports on a variety of areas. Produces a CSV file that can be downloaded or shared with a community. All reports also contain user profile information that is unique to all clients.

Functionality	Description
All comments	Limited to a two-month period. Information included in the report: Content ID User ID Comment Time
All communities	Information included in the report: Community ID Community name Date created Number of Contents Number of Members Community admins
All content	Information included in the report: Content ID Content name Content type Owner ID Views count Likes count Shares count Comments count Unique views count Time Community ID URL of content Owner name Owner email Owner username
All event precipitation requests	Information included in the report: Request ID Event ID Event name Occurrence ID Occurrence name Occurrence host name Participant ID Participant name Prerequisite learning completed Creator approval status Manager approval status Specified approval status Status Start date End date
All likes	Information included in the report: Content ID User ID Time
All shares	Information included in the report: Shared object ID Shared object type Message User ID Shared with users Shared with communities Shared with user groups Time
All Users	Information included in the report: User ID Email Username Last login Last activity Registration date Date of deactivation Terms accepted Manager ID 1 Manager ID 2 Manager ID 3 Using Fuse Key Collaborators Gurus of Knowledge Total Also reports user profile field which can include, but are not limited to: Given name Surname Phone Start Year Location Department Role
All Views	Limited to 2 month intervals. Information included in the report: Viewed object ID Viewed object type User ID Time
Formal assessments	Information included in the report: Topic ID Topic name User ID Email Username Last login Last activity Registration date Status Number of attempts Uncompleted Completed Expired Last completion Raw score Formula result Also reports user profile fields which can include, but are not limited to: Given name Surname Phone Start Year Location Department Role
Formal assessments by chapters	Information included in the report is dependant on information available.
Formal assessment scores	Information included in the report is dependant on information available.
Learning plan completion	Information included in the report: ID Title User ID Email Given name Family name Username Last login Last activity Registration date Date of deactivation Terms accepted Status Completeness Complete date Also reports user profile fields which can include, but are not limited to: Given name Surname Phone Start Year Location Department Role
One-to-ones	Information included in the report: Session ID Time Manager Reportee Number of Notes Number of Goals
One-to-one objectives	Information included in the report: Session ID Manager Reportee Note/Goal Title Number of Tasks Completed Tasks Tags Date
Reportee observations	Information included in the report is dependant on information available.
SCORM courses	Information included in the report: Content ID Content name User ID Email Username Last login Last activity Registration date Date course started SCORM course status Test score Session time Time spent on test Date course completed Suspend data Creator approver Manager approver Specified approver Approval date Community name Also reports user profile fields which can include, but are not limited to: Given name Surname Phone Start Year Location Department Role
Self-observations	Information included in the report is dependant on information available.
Transactional	Limited to 2 month intervals Information included in the report: Given name Family name Object type Object ID Object name Owner ID User ID Email Username Last login Last activity Activity type Time Comment Also reports profile fields which can include, but not limited to: Given name Surname Phone Start Year Location Department Role

General

Functionality

Description

Multiple languages

The Fuse UI is available in the following languages:

Code	Langauge
ar-SA	Arabic Strings in the Arabic translation read correctly from right-to-left, however they do not align to the right side of the screen in the Fuse UI.
bs-BA	Bosnian
bg-BG	Bulgarian
hr-HR	Croatian
cs-CZ	Czech
da-DK	Danish
et-EE	Estonian
fp-PH	Filipino
de-DE	German
el-GR	Greek
en-GB	British English
en-US	American English
es-ES	Peninsular Spanish
es-MX	Mexican Spanish
fi-FI	Finnish
fr-FR	French
gu-IN	Gujarati
hu-HU	Hungarian
he-IL	Hebrew Strings in the Hebrew translation read correctly from right-to-left, however they do not align to the right side of the screen in the Fuse UI.
id-ID	Indonesian
it-IT	Italian
ja-JP	Japanese
ka-GE	Georgian
kk-KZ	Kazakh
ko-KR	Korean
lv-LV	Latvian
lt-LT	Lithuanian
mk-MK	Macedonian
me-ME	Montenegrin
ms-MY	Malaysian
nl-NL	Dutch
nn-NO	Norwegian
pl-PL	Polish
pt-BR	Brazilian Portuguese
pt-PT	European Portuguese
ro-RO	Romanian
ru-RU	Russian
sk-SK	Slovak
sq-AL	Albanian
sl-SI	Slovenian
sr-SP	Serbian
sv-SE	Swedish
th-TH	Thai
tr-TR	Turkish
uk-UA	Ukrainian
vi-VN	Vietnamese
zh-CN	Simplified Chinese characters
zh-TW	Traditional Chinese characters

For more information, see Supported languages.

SCORM course

A Sharable Content Object (SCORM) is an industry-recognised standard, used to create and structure online training material. Admins can upload a ZIP file containing the contents of a SCORM course, allowing users to access and take part in it via the Fuse platform.

Fuse currently supports SCORM 1.2 (Single SCO 1.2).

SSO/integration

Fuse supports Single Sign On (SSO) via our SSO provider - Ping Identity. By integrating the Ping Federate API, Fuse can support SAML (1.0, 2.0) and OAuth-based SSO authentication to customer identity providers (IDP), such as Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), Google, and NetIQ. This means no user passwords are stored on Fuse. Fuse also supports user provisioning via SSO.

Doc viewer

Allows users to preview documents within Fuse without downloading them.

Previewed documents may sometimes appear differently when compared to the original uploaded file. For example, formatting and fonts may look slightly different when viewing the preview of a document.

Mobile access

Access Fuse via the native iOS and Android mobile app.

Users can:

View learning plans, communities, topics, events, and favourites.
Participate in one-to-ones, observations, and surveys.
Change their password and profile picture.

Admins can:

Create and configure observations, surveys, and one-to-ones.

Admins cannot access the Admin dashboard via the Fuse mobile app.

Versioning

Ability to update a piece of content at any time once uploaded to the platform

Widgets

Admins can create completely customisable views of the platform by configuring and adding widgets to pages in Design Studio.

Anonymous mode

Allows users to post comments in communities anonymously.

Password controls

Fuse requires each user to have a unique username with password. Typically, an email address but can be any unique ID, such as employee number/code etc. Password security can be configured to set the following minimum password requirements:

Minimum password length
Minimum number of upper case characters
Minimum number of lower case characters
Minimum number of numerical characters
Minimum number of special characters
Maximum number of same characters
Unique passwords (limits of previously used passwords)
Password expiry time
Invalid login attempts
Auto timeout setting
Force Password change on first login

User passwords are stored using a one-way hashing algorithm (SHA-256) and are never transmitted unencrypted. There is an option on the sign in page which allows users to reset their password, if they accidentally forgot their original password.

Admins can only reset passwords and cannot view existing passwords.

The only mandatory details for each user details are as follows:

Unique username (if email address is not applicable)
First name
Last name
Email address.

All other user details are optional. Admins can configure these user detail fields as required and add more if required.

In all cases, Fuse complies with the relevant data protection and data storage legislation, notably Directive 95/46/EC (and consequently with SafeHarbour). For more information, consult Fuse's data protection policy.

Custom HTML

Users can customise articles, widgets and landing pages using HTML.

Terms and conditions

Users must accept the terms and conditions to access Fuse.

Signature

Digital signatures can be added to items of content.

Customisable roles

The roles that exist in one organisation may differ to roles that exist in another. Admins in Fuse can create custom roles that are unique to their organisation.

Customisable profiles

Admins can specify the information displayed on the profile page for users in the Fuse instance. For example, some organisations might want the first name, surname, email address, phone number and role to be displayed on the profile page for all users in the instance.