Imagine this: You have a lab where the internet isn’t working on the VMs and you have no idea why.
How about a cloud lab that is failing to deploy resources but still giving the user access to a broken environment?
And how about a lab that isn’t available over the API because you forgot to assign it to a series?
Our Customer Support team has received all of those panicked phone calls and Skillable is proud to offer an always-on guide to remedying issues, optimizing functionality and finding the needle in a haystack.
Welcome to Lab Advisor.
What is lab advisor?
Released as a beta tool, Lab Advisor on Skillable Studio analyzes and evaluates virtual labs to identify possible improvements and provide actionable recommendations around best practices, potentially broken configurations and important statistics.
Watch the 4-minute video below for an overview and then continue reading for more details.
what will it identify?
Lab Advisor will help identify improvements that can be made to a virtual training lab around the following categories, including an example of each:
Example: Configured duration can be decreased to reflect actual usage.
Example: Automatic cloud login can be enabled for a smoother user experience.
Example: Lab profile needs a series assigned for easier management.
Example: Labs using old version of script execution engine.
Example: Static MAC addresses conflicting and causing network issues.
Example: Cloud lab’s security review was denied.
Figure 1: Screenshot of Lab Advisor Beta and the data it will identify in your labs.
What’s next?
First and foremost, more recommendations!
We will constantly add more lab optimization recommendations in future releases of Lab Advisor.
On some occasions, you may see nothing new if the recommendation doesn’t apply to your labs. Other times you may see one, two or 10 new recommendations!
Another focus area will be removing some of the recommendations that may not concern you and seem like “noise.”
Right now, Lab Advisor is evaluating all recommendations against all labs over which you have management access.
Future releases (already in active development!) will help in reducing the “noise” by evaluating labs only in production organizations, labs only with a development status of complete or labs that must meet both of those criteria.
Something is…off. Is that expected?
While in Beta, some aspects of Lab Advisor may work – or not – unexpectedly.
If you spot something you think is a bug, please use the Beta Feedback tool (shared below)!
I love it. How do I know if I have recommendations?
Great! You’ll see any and all recommendations right from your Skillable Studio user dashboard.
The new dashboard view includes a Lab Advisor widget that will tell you when you have any recommendations, especially if any have a high or critical impact rating.
i have feedback.
Excellent, we hoped you would!
We love hearing directly from customers as to what does/doesn’t work or even if there are more recommendations you think would be more applicable to you!
Lab Advisor is in public Beta stage while we continue to iterate on the vision and collect feedback.
And luckily, providing it couldn’t be easier!
When on the Lab Advisor page, you’ll notice a “Beta” label near the title. Hover or click your mouse on that label and a small feedback form will pop up.
You can submit feedback as often as you wish and all feedback goes directly to our product team for review.
We’re excited. and hope you are too.
The Skillable team is incredibly excited to share this new tool with you. You and your team spend too much time on your labs for them to not serve your learners the way in which you intend.
Explore Lab Advisor today and start taking action that will result in higher customer satisfaction, better utilization and more confident learners.
Ready to analyze your labs?
and take advantage of tools like Lab Advisor.
