Skillsoft Learning App

I greatly appreciate the range and quality of the materials available through Skillsoft. I'm relying on them now that ACM and O'Reilly have parted ways -- and I suspect that their app will get a LOT more traffic from July 1, 2022 onwards (when ACM members no longer have access to O'Reilly). And, so, I am pleading with the powers-that-be who decide how much money and how many resources the app gets: PLEASE be generous to this app development team! Your brand is about to get much more attention and this app is one of the main points of contact with your customer base.

If you are in the army and enlisted like me, I’m sure chances are you are looking for every possible way to get points. And those ATTRS courses are so boring it’s impossible to get through them without falling asleep (at least for me they are). But there are courses on Skillsoft that you can take that will give you promotion points. For me, it’s helpful to have courses that teach about Microsoft programs because I’m HR so I work with excel, word, PowerPoint, outlook, etc. and the great thing is, I can do courses anywhere now. So if I’m driving around with my wife doing errands, I can sit there and do courses while my wife drives. A lot of the courses will only give you 1 hour. Make sure you only do ones over 30 mins or it won’t give you the hour. There are longer courses too. But there are so many courses and this app makes it so convenient to do them that maxing correspondence courses is easy and not so boring anymore. I hope a lot of people who are looking to max correspondence courses find this. Just make sure you have your skillport login info. When it asks for the domain, it should just be usarmy. And then it will ask for your log in information and you’re all set. There are so many other courses as well and resources that are completely free to any and all soldiers (I know active for a fact, not sure about National Guard or Reserves sorry).

Great app for sure. The only bug I see so far is any time I want to save and exit a module whether its been 2 min or an hour, I get the blue screen that says skillsoft on it and I have to close the app and reopen it and log back in. Which brings me to another problem I have, can you enable saved password? Having to sign in every time is a pain. Enable stored passwords so at least all I have to do is a fingerprint or Face ID. For now I’ll be using the website because safari does allow saved password. The app is also a little sluggish. The buttons used to view the topic or course transcript don’t work. They send me to the login screen and then my password doesn’t work. I have to close the app and again re-login. Over all, it’s a great app. When I’m logged in and I get to the module I want to watch, the video playback is very smooth with no buffering issues. Auto play is a great feature. Again I like the app but will continue on safari until there is an update.

This app has so many bugs and missing features that seems to be unfinished. From errors like closed caption disappearing from one video to the next one in auto play mode to the excessively difficult process to create and populate a group in Favorites (which requires so many taps to add each class and then manually sort, not saying that there is not enough information to know the position of each class and the app doesn’t sort it by itself) to the play button that is not shown in certain cases when changing the view mode to most incredible requirement I have seen in these kind of apps: it doesn’t work if you’re not connected to WiFi. It means that if you’re on the road and want to watch your videos, you will need a second device providing WiFi through a personal hotspot because otherwise the app does not even open the screen to see the list of videos of the course. This is just a sample or bugs and bad design, but there are many more. I will be happy to share it with the programmers since I use a lot the app because I need it and want to see a much better version soon.

I love the app as far as its variety and selection of books. I do think they have room to improve as far as making the app more user friendly. Two of the improvements I would recommend for the developer is first to implement a section where you can highlight and note take as you read directly within the app and where you later have the option to export your notes to store or print. And secondly, if there is a book that also has an audio to it. It should be synced with each other, so we have the choice to pay the audio as we read along. These are just some of my personal preferences that I have encountered and think would benefit others as well.

For a learning platform that provides a lot of content on software development and IT, this app is lacking in its technical continuity. It may be caused by the recent iOS update, it may be the new app update. Regardless, it crashes immediately after being opened. After attempts to remedy by re-installing the app, the problem persisted. It’s not like there’s “amazing content” that users are missing out on, because Skillsoft does not create the most engaging course videos. Most people receive the content free through work, so no valid complaint there really. One would be looking forward to using the courses and other information, only to be halted by a malfunction in application software.

I have two area that needs improvement. The programs need to be grouped together. If there 20 videos that tie together then why can I not just add the one program into my studies? For example, a single instructor covering a certification. How many videos are a part of their learning curriculum and in what order? No idea. The second one is for reading books on my tablet. Why does the book only cover 50% of my screen? It’s this tiny box in the middle of tablet with no option to expand it full size. Just really poor user experience. Please fix these areas because the content itself is great.

Slow to load. I’m unable to access audiobooks that are marked available offline. Search does not seem to work all the way. Very limited features related to audiobooks. Can’t see where you are in book. Can’t rewind or go forward. No controls for adding a bookmark so you can go back easily. Would be really cool if you could do somehow mark a point in audiobook and be able to go back to it in audio or electronic print version. Would really like to take advantage of more but hard with so many bugs.

Where to begin. The search function won’t turn up the results of what you’re looking for. I’ve put in the full title and even parts of the title and get nothing in the ball park of what was searched for. The only way I could find what I was looking for is by typing the author and the year and then sifting through about 100 other books that don’t even share a name of the author I’m looking for. Than the fact that the app keeps crashing and you have to keep deleting it and reinstalling it doesn’t help matters either. I’m highly disappointed in the performance of this app.

So far, I am happy with the app. It allows me to read books anywhere and stick to my goals. The only reason I give (4) stars is a little trouble with scrolling down and be able to see the content prior to turning the page. More feedback as I progress through the rest of the features.

Can’t start an auto book unless started in an area with WiFi connection. I would like to use cellular data without having to rely on WiFi. Reported bug but was round around. Every time I reported the suggested solution wasn’t working, a new person responded but again give me answers that are not useful. Nobody asked basic IT troubleshooting questions like “are you doing this? Are you selecting this setting? What error are you seeing? When does this happen? What leads to you this conclusion that you can’t use cellular data?” Not impressed.

At the least, I would like to take notes when reading a book. And highlight important passages. I can find no note taking feature, and you are allowed to highlight only 200 characters (!) for the entire book. Often the whole page of text does not fit in the display window. It I didn’t get access to free content through work, I don’t see myself using this.

This app is so bad its almost impossible to use. Audiobooks are the worst for me. I listen one day for an hour and come back the next day and it’s almost at the exact same spot as the previous day! To make matters worse, there is no way to skip forward or reverse. Additionally, I download books so that I can use them offline but if I don’t have internet the book list won’t even load! And when I click on the book from the recently viewed section on the home page it starts a different instance of the book- not the one I downloaded. Just Garbage

This software has a defect which manifests in the forward and reverse buttons not working. When this occurs, the progress slider in playback mode stays at 0:00 and doesn’t show progress. At this point, all you can do is play or pause; going back to review a section is not possible. This has happened multiple time to me, and the only remedy I have found is to delete BOTH the app AND the books in my downloaded (offline) library and start over. Very frustrating.

I’ve found some really great videos and ebook resources to learn about networking and other IT related topics. I would rate this app higher if it wasn’t so slow to load and if there was also an option to download the videos for offline use. It would also be great if there was a bookmark option when having to leave a video and then coming back to it later

For those that are always on the move and need to continue their learning well this is the APP to use. It’s very user friendly and easy to navigate through. I have not had any issues with the app syncing with my desk top PC all are there and I can pick up where I left off.

I love getting this service free from my employer, by two years between updates is too long. You need to 1) fix bookmarks so they actually take you back to the page you were reading, and 2) fix syncing between devices. Currently, opening a book I was just reading, even on the same device, always opens to page one of the book I’m reading. This is just disappointing.

The favorites section duplicates and is extremely slow. The courses need to be better organized (same issue on desktop site), so if you search for a course on cehv10, instead of 1 course with all the videos listed in order along with the supplemental info, it just gives you a bunch of videos and they are not listed in order.

The content and pace are the best. That said, I wish the videos were more adapted for mobile phones. Make the text bigger and focus on the active content with the option to pan around if desired.

So far I have studied for the Sec+ (CompTIA) and I have yet to find any difference between Messer, Myers, and this. It’s quality content, but it’s redundant, and offers me nothing different. I wish there were audiobooks too. I purchased the Cybex Sec+ bundle and saw layer it was available as an audiobook, so I purchased it... went into the book and so far I have no audio options.

It’s a good application to play videos but it doesn’t work on LTE even after checking the option of play on data networks. Another option that would be nice to have is the continuous auto play. The reason I’m saying that is because I listen to it while driving and I do not want to look at my phone to play the next video.

This is an awesome app, but it crashes constantly. I saw the same review from 2 yrs ago and thought that it was fixed by now. I guess that I was wrong. Hopefully it gets fixed anytime soon. Just for the content that you can find in the app, which is great, I’m going to give it a 2 star. If the crashes get fixed, I’ll update this review with a 5 star.

The main issue with this app is that it is slow. If it has to find anything on its backend, sit back and relax cause it is going to take a while. I find it weird that an app to improve your programming skills seems to have been written by a team which needs to use the app themselves. Come on Skillsoft up your game!

Content an stability are great. I truly enjoy this app. It is company sponsored and it has been a great way to make the best of an y wait time where I can open it and complete training or read books anywhere I go.

This is an very poorly made app. In fact everything about skillsoft seems poorly made. Doesn’t complete the login process correctly so I can’t use the app. It tells me to contact my training manager. There is no training manager, and if one did exist I doubt they can rewrite this app to make it work correctly. The web site’s link to open in app is broken, as is their link to download the app.

This app makes an attempt at being good, but half the time the features do not work. I use audio books often while on business travel. The audible app work flawlessly every time, this one has yet to work once with all the features. Very buggy, I feel like a beta tester. 2 stars because it does function but leaves a lot to be desired.

Slow. Has issues loading audiobooks about 50% of the time. Doesn't have ability to bookmark. Doesn't play the last played audiobook quickly, you have to search for it again. Look at Overdrive and Audible as examples of how to build a better app, product team.

One of the worst iOS apps I have ever used. Every page takes about 10-60 seconds to load on a normal internet connection. Extremely frustrating and unproductive when trying to spend time reading or learning new topics on this app. Very disappointed. My company provides this Skillsoft access free of cost. However, the apps make it extremely difficult to derive any good benefit from the good content available.

The app was okay, but Skillsoft has not bothered to update it for iOS 11. The app crashes almost immediately. It took them a little while, but the developer finally updated the app to run under iOS 11.

Very easy to use, some audio books have minor background noise/feedback issues. Could be my device or connection though too.

I can not seem to open anything on the app, every time I open it up, it crashes after few seconds

Rotating the device or even backgrounding and later restoring it, it seems this app simply cannot keep or remember where I was reading, jumping to seemingly random pages nowhere near where I was. There’s also no syncing between devices, even though this is an account-based app. It doesn’t know what I was reading, let alone where I was at.

New to using the app but a lot doesn’t seem to work right for my audio book. Doesn’t seem to save book for offline. Can’t navigate the book - like can’t even fast forward or go back, let alone go to chapter or sections. Can’t see progress. It’s basically a recording that I hope will play ok that I just listen to...

Have been using the app for about 3 years. Last month I was finally able to rewind audiobooks but only for about 2 days, not anymore, making navigation impossible. Multiple network failure pop up alerts stopping the experience altogether

Constant crashing of the app. I have to open the app, switch to another app, then switch back just to get the “Great Lets Go” button to accept a touch. Then the app crashes whenever I try to search for interests. Only way around was to blanket grab some generic interests. I’m sure this is just the start of the bugs. Please update and fix these issues to make app usable!

This app gives me access to several great books, but it’s very slow. When I switch from the main view to my personal folders, the cursor spins much longer than I would expect to wait.

I’m glad I know longer have to get on my computer to use Skillsoft but the “Options” menu doesn’t display the actual options, just the switches. The title font is the worst with the background and it won’t let me change it. Not user friendly in general and you can’t take the course tests.

App is useless. On launch it asks to add 3 or more interests. However no matter what I search for nothing shows for results. I can’t skip past this so app isn’t useable. A force quit and reload of app does not resolve same problem over and over. This is on iOS 11.3 and many earlier versions of iOS on an iPhone X. Update- newest Skillsoft update still doesn’t fix.

App functions well within itself. Keyboard shortcuts and picture-in-picture functionality would make this app feel a lot more modern and versatile.

It’s obvious they never use the app. If they did they would see all the bugs that aren’t an issue on other reading apps. My last place I read doesn’t hold. Audiobooks are glitchy and don’t stay where you left off. They have amazing content and horrible execution. Please improve.

The app is intuitive and allows a person to learn at their own pace. My only improvement would be to add the functionality to take the Skillsoft tests on mobile devices.

I really enjoy this app and I get it through work too. It was a little difficult trying to login the first time but that’s been fixed. I love the depth and range of knowledge I can retrieve in this app.

After I upgraded to IOS 11 this app stopped working completely, I have uninstalled this app from my device numerous times and done different workarounds and still couldn’t managed to get to work, It works fine on my IOS 10 devices

This is an app that very very slow on each and every functionality we use. It has issues in scrolling after you make a search as the contents does not get scrolled automatically. IT team needs to seriously look into these if they want this app to give professional look and take it to next level.

For books the app does not use voiceover effectively. When it gets to the end of a section the voiceover stops, if you start voiceover again it goes all the way to the beginning of the book. Very bad and very inaccessible.

Downloaded this app to try and utilize capabilities when I am not at my home computer and I can't even log into the site through the app. It keeps giving me network error ecen when my wifi signal is on max and I've also tried turning my wifi off to use my lte data and still the same error...pointless app 😏

I have to wait for scrolling to load every couple of pages. I really like the website, however the iPad will not let me load a book on a browser insisting that I open the app or cancel.

I find myself using this app all the time! The audio books are my go to source of information to keep me on my game! Thank you for developing this!

All the formats are good but the audio books helps me take information when i am on the go

Doesn’t fit the words on the screen. Horizontal or vertical. Always some missing. Scrolling through pages things don’t scroll down or the window closes. Could be much better than this.