Understanding Course Lab Access, Expiration, and Launch Limits?

This article will provide the user with information on how to use {{Glossary.Course}} labs on Skillable TMS and perform actions such as lab access, lab expiration, and lab launch limits.

Best Practices for Understanding Lab Launch Limits

• To extend your lab, it's recommended to open it before it expires and save the lab with a new date and time. If you have unlimited lab access, you can start a new lab anytime, as long as your expiration date is valid.

• It's essential to know that your launch count is not affected by canceling, saving or reopening labs. Only new labs use up launches.

Training Expiration

Training expiration is when access to the {{glossary.Class}} or {{glossary.Course Assignment}} has expired. Students with an expired class or course assignment will no longer be able to launch or resume any labs associated to those assignments. Students will need to reach out to their training {{glossary.Organization}} to inquire about any extensions.

Lab Access

Lab access is how long you have access to launch a new instance of a lab. Access to class labs begins at the start date and time of your class and may extend after a class is over based on the post class lab access that is set up. Access to labs for {{glossary.Self-Paced}} training through course assignments begins as soon as the assignment is created and ends 180 days after the creation date, regardless of if or when work on the assignment started.

Limits can be set on the number of times a lab can be launched, see Lab launch limits below. The class instructors and operations managers have access to their class labs at any time, course labs are sometimes restricted from instructor access.

Post-Class Lab Access

Many classes continue to allow access to labs after a class is over, this is referred to as post-class lab access. Normally, the access is set to 180 days after the end date of the class, but it can vary between no access at all to any number of days after a class is finished. When you have post-class lab access, the date your access expires is listed on your Class Enrollment page.

The Activities section on your enrollment displays when your access to launch the course's labs ends.

Lab Expiration

Lab expiration is when a lab you have saved expires. When you have launched a lab and then saved it, you are shown a date and time when it will be automatically cancelled from the system. If your lab is cancelled, you lose all the work you have done in the lab, but you may have the option to launch a fresh instance of the lab depending on your post-class lab access and any lab launch limits.

To avoid losing your lab, you need to open it again before it expires and save it with a new expiration date and time. This will extend the Duration of your lab. If you can launch labs without any limit, you can start a new lab anytime, even if your saved lab has expired. The only condition is that you are within the period of your class or post-class lab access.

Lab Launch Limits

There are different ways that a {{glossary.Course}} can limit how many times you can launch a lab. Some courses have unlimited lab launches, which means you can start a new lab whenever you want during the class and post-class lab access. Some courses have individual lab launch limits, which means each lab activity has a fixed number of times you can launch it. For example, you might be able to launch Lab activity 1 three times, Lab activity 2 five times, and Lab activity 3 as many times as you want. Some courses have a single limit for all labs, which means you have a total number of lab launches for the whole course. For example, if the course limit is six, you can launch any lab six times or mix and match the labs to add up to six launches.

The lab launch count only starts after you select the Launch button and wait for 60 seconds. If you cancel the lab before that, it won’t affect your launch count. If you save a lab and open it again, it won’t affect your launch count either. Only starting a new lab will use up one of your launches.

You can see how many launches you have left for each lab below the Launch button. If there is no limit, it will say Unlimited launch attempts. If there is a limit, it will say X of X launch attempts remaining.

When the maximum lab launches are met for either a lab activity or all lab activities in the course, the Launch button disappears and a message of Attempt Limit Reached displays in the affected lab activity. When the limit is reached, if the Launch button remains and is clicked a message of You have reached the maximum allowed attempts for this activity displays. Launches that are unused during the class may be used during any post-class lab access set for the class.

Disabled and Assigned Labs

Some courses let instructors choose which students can do which labs. Only those students will see the labs they can do in their activities. Instructors can also turn off labs, so you can’t do them. You will still see the lab activity, but it will be gray and there will be no launch button.

On some courses, instructor's have the ability to disable lab access, when a lab is disabled by an instructor the activity still displays, but is grayed out and has a message Disabled by instructor.

Reference Materials

Managing Labs in TMS: explains how to use Skillable TMS labs and their features.