Skills, prerequisites, and progress: The new way to onboarding

Hedi Chouayakh

October 23, 2025

Employee onboarding is a critical process that sets the tone for a new hire’s success, engagement, and retention. Yet onboarding often comes with challenges: new hires face information overload, managers struggle with tracking each individual’s progress, and there’s always a need to share the right information securely. Confluence is widely used as a knowledge hub to introduce new employees to company information and processes. While Confluence’s pages, templates, and checklists help organize content and tasks, it is not a complete solution for structured training on its own. This is where integrating a Learning Management System (LMS) like Smart Courses for Confluence becomes invaluable.

Why use Confluence for onboarding

Keeping all onboarding content within Confluence offers significant advantages. First, it is cost-effective: instead of purchasing a separate LMS platform, businesses can leverage Confluence with an LMS app to deliver training, saving the time and money associated with a standalone LMS. Second, it provides an exceptional user experience; new hires don’t need to switch to another system or remember extra logins. They can access all training materials directly inside Confluence without leaving the platform, making it easier to find the content they need. This convenience increases user satisfaction and reduces friction in the learning process.
Finally, integrating an LMS adds flexibility to content creation. Many traditional LMS platforms lack robust authoring tools. Still, with Confluence, you can easily design and update training content (wiki pages, how-to guides, etc.), and then use the LMS plugin to deliver that content efficiently. In short, Confluence combined with an LMS plugin transforms your wiki into a one-stop onboarding and training portal.

Bringing structured learning into Confluence with Smart Courses

Smart Courses for Confluence is an LMS app that adds powerful training capabilities to Confluence. It allows HR teams and team leads to create customized courses, quizzes, and even certifications, all within Confluence’s interface.
With Smart Courses, you can build engaging training modules using rich content: embed Confluence pages, images, videos, and even import SCORM e-learning packages. New hires can browse a global or space catalog to find required training, and a modern course player lets them progress at their own pace. Behind the scenes, Smart Courses provides insights and reporting dashboards, so you can track each learner’s activity, quiz scores, and course completion rates. This integration essentially turns Confluence into a full-fledged LMS, eliminating the need for external training systems.

Key benefits of integrating Smart Courses with Confluence include:

• Easy content creation: Smart Courses provides a straightforward course editor directly within Confluence. Team leads can easily assemble pages, videos, and quizzes into sections and lessons without technical expertise.
• Centralized course catalog: All training materials reside in Confluence. New hires have a one-stop catalog to find their onboarding courses or reference materials, with robust search and filtering.
• Progress tracking and reporting: Both learners and managers can track training progress. Smart Courses’ Insights give a clear view of each employee’s completions, quiz scores, and overall progression.
• Unique Confluence experience: Since training occurs within Confluence, new hires can access learning materials alongside documentation and collaboration tools .

Overall, integrating Smart Courses with Confluence ensures that onboarding is not just a documentation exercise, but an interactive learning journey embedded in the tools your team already uses daily.

New skills and prerequisites: building a skills-based onboarding path

Defining key skills for structured learning

One of the added features in the latest Smart Courses release is the introduction of Skills & Course Prerequisites. This feature brings structure and personalization to onboarding. It allows you to define key skills that your organization wants every learner to acquire and link those skills to courses and exams. For example, an onboarding program might define a skill called “Product Knowledge Basics.” As an admin, you can configure Smart Courses to grant learners a skill upon completion of specific introductory courses.

Controlling learning progress with prerequisites

You can now set prerequisites on courses based on these skills. For instance, an advanced course like “Product Advanced Features” can be locked until the new hire has earned the Product Knowledge Basics skill. Learners cannot start a course unless they already hold the required skill, ensuring they build on a solid foundation instead of skipping ahead. This sequence ensures employees receive the right content at the right time and progress at a steady, structured pace.

Empowering learners through visibility

Each course landing page clearly displays which skills are required before a learner can start. Employees can see their earned skills and track growth through a user dashboard. This transparency helps them see progress as a meaningful journey rather than a checklist, turning training into a motivating, skill-building experience.

Aligning training with business competencies

For team leads and HR, you can add custom Skills & Prerequisites to align onboarding with core competencies. Courses can be mapped to key skills like Security Awareness, Product Knowledge, or Compliance Basics, ensuring new hires develop the right capabilities in the right order. This structured, skills-based approach prevents knowledge gaps and improves long-term retention.

Keeping learners engaged and informed

Motivating learners with progress tracking and user dashboard

Smart Courses’ skill-tracking increases engagement by breaking onboarding into achievable milestones. Learners receive automated notifications when they gain or lose a new skill, helping them stay informed and motivated throughout the process, and they can check them out through the user dashboard.

Managing progress with the User Insights board

The new User Insights board gives team leads and HR full visibility into learners’ progress. It displays course completions, time spent learning, expired course, and earned skills. This makes it easier to track onboarding progress, identify gaps, and provide timely support.

Additional features that enhance onboarding and training

Reinforcing learning through quizzes and certifications

Smart Courses supports multiple quiz formats, exams, and certifications to reinforce learning. Each skill can be linked to measurable assessments, ensuring employees demonstrate knowledge before progressing.

Managing timelines and multilingual learning

Courses can include assignments, due dates, and reminders to keep learners on schedule. Smart Courses also supports SCORM packages and multiple languages, allowing global teams to access training in their preferred language within Confluence.

Fostering continuous learning

Beyond onboarding, Smart Courses supports recurring training for compliance or upskilling. This transforms Confluence into a continuous learning hub where employees can grow, refresh skills, and discover new courses throughout their careers.

Effective onboarding with skills that drive growth

Integrating Smart Courses LMS into Confluence transforms onboarding from a one-off orientation into an ongoing, skills-driven journey. With Skills, Prerequisites, and Progress features, new hires get the right content at the right time, see the skills they’re building, and stay motivated. Managers gain confidence that training aligns with key skills and can track development precisely, reducing knowledge gaps and improving retention.

Smart Courses makes learning engaging with bite-sized courses, interactive quizzes, and visible skill achievements. It fosters continuous learning, boosts engagement, and creates a culture of growth. By combining Confluence’s collaborative power with LMS structure, organizations can onboard more effectively, build real skills, and help employees grow in the right direction.