Lack of in depth training for end users

[BlakeRichardson]

Now I know this has been talked about by a few people but I feel nothing is happening. As an end user and owner of the equipment I find it frustrating that resellers and distributors have access to better training. I don't know of any of vendor that operates like this. 

There is a demand for better end user training, simply look at this view count for this one forum post.

Most resellers are simply only interested in selling the equipment and making their profit. They are not interested in the nitty gritty of networking let alone how the products work in the field.

Numerous users on the forum have asked for training which they have said they are happy to pay for myself included. I have bought this up with my Meraki account manager as well as marketing. 

When I first tried Meraki which is over 2 years ago now one of the first questions I asked was about training. We keep being told its being worked on but nothing has come of it.

I'm sorry if this sounds grumpy but you have the training completely around the wrong way, you have forgotten that its the customer that purchases the equipment not the reseller. Its the customer who is making the investment in your company NOT the reseller.

Rant over

[PhilipDAth]

Perhaps buy some training from a reseller ... I know no certification.  There is of course the CMNO course, but you know about that already.

Perhaps a "Video on Demand" training course with an online exam might be an option.

Another option would be to have WebEx hosted training events - buy trying to cover all the timezones around the world - what an effort that would be.

The trickiest bit is you really need a virtual training lab, and these need lots of resources, and consequently are only available to Cisco partners.

Maybe Cisco Meraki could create a much more basic HTML5 simulator for each part of a course, that provides extremely limited capability, but enough to show what to click on.  Still, that would be a lot of work.

Well out of all that, only the video on demand training course seems feasible.

[BlakeRichardson]

Nice ideas @PhilipDAth I have completed training with other vendors in the past that has been week long course where the instructor arrived with all of the hardware so thats not an impossible thing 

Now I am not suggesting that a single training course should cover every single product line for Meraki on a detailed level, that would be silly especially if someone only has MS units. I think courses broken down into each product line is the best option. Some product lines i.e. MV could be done via web based training 

Those who want the training will pay for it the same as every other vendor

Buying training from a reseller is tricky because if someone is given wrong information that could cause issues. 

[PhilipDAth]

The problem with that is Meraki would have to hugely scale up their training people.  Their simply isn't the resource available to offer training at "scale" by sending people all over the global with suitcases of kit.

But if someone wants a business opportunity, and think they could get 1,000 trainers working around the world I'm sure Meraki would be interested ...

[BlakeRichardson]

@PhilipDAth They could outsource to training providers... At the end of the day its their business but if they dont want to listen to their customers its their loss.

I consider Meraki a premium product given the cost compared to other options yet I can easily get training on a lower cost alternative. That makes no sense to me. 

[PhilipDAth]

Using external training providers is a great idea!  It would be the only scalable approach.

You could have permanently setup classes with the kit then.

[GavinMcMenemy]

If Meraki is part of Cisco now then surely the behemoth can assign some resources for this?

[nextgenconcepts]

There is training out there for sure. Not all by Meraki but it’s still there. End users can take the cmno to help learn for example. I do agree that a lot of resellers should do more training. I am a reseller and I always make sure to spend time with the client and go over everything plus provide links to various YouTube videos and other FAQs. I have had new clients that had existing MXs and MRs and had no idea how to use them when I started working with them and this can indeed be frustrating for both myself and the client.

[GiacomoS]

Hi all,

Once again, I would like to thank you for this feedback. It is great to see interest in expanding the knowledge and training of the Meraki environment.

We strive to try and make our products as plug and play and easy as possible, so that you could potentially give it to my 90 years old grandfather and he would be able to set it up 🙂 

The truth is somewhat more complex as networking is not that straight forward and each of us has a different approach and preference to the way we like to set things up; the features also go quite in depth at times and cover topics that your average Joe wouldn't know about or that Meraki handles slightly differently and this is, I think where we find the need for training. 

We do offer the CMNO training for the Meraki customers and partners ( https://community.meraki.com/t5/CMNO-Resources/Course-Information/ba-p/12520 ) and that's specifically targeted to end users to give them the foundations to manage their network.

The target of the CMNA is pre-sales engineers and that is why the eligibility includes partners and solutions providers. 

I wouldn't class the CMNA as a better training compared to the CMNO; the two sessions are different and have different audiences. 

We also need to keep in mind that we have a very comprehensive documentation website and that we have resources to help with design advice. 

I think @BlakeRichardson is actually doing the best thing he can and the one we appreciate the most, which is being transparent and provide us feedback every step of the way. This is the way Meraki evolves and revolves around you as customers. 

I know you might have been waiting for a long time now, but we want to ensure that if we introduce something, we do it properly. 

Keep on showing your interest on receiving more in depth training and I recommend also writing (this topic is a good place to start) what subjects you feel we should expand on. 

Thanks!

Giacomo

[Adam]

@BlakeRichardson what specific types of things would you like to see in the more in-depth training course?  The CMNO course was pretty brief but I found it moderately in depth.  The documentation is also solid.  

@CarolineS looks like we have an opportunity to crowdsource some training videos via the community ;).  Big undertaking but with the right outline and assignments it could be pretty cool. 

[GiacomoS]

Spoiler

@Adam @CarolineS , it's CONTEST TIME!!! 😄

[BlakeRichardson]

@Adam the CMNO course didn't cover stacking just off the top of my head, I am sure  if I have a good think about it I can find a lot more it didn't cover and thats just on the swithches. Ideally a course should cover most features of a product. I am just comparing whats offered in CMNO to other courses I have completed in the past.

I feel I have raised my point and its up to Meraki to decide what direction they wish to head in. My problem is I have 3 staff that need to learn the platform and I don't have time to teach time or fix any errors they might cause. This is where training comes in. 

[Ben]

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@GiacomoS wrote:

Hi all,

....

Keep on showing your interest on receiving more in depth training and I recommend also writing (this topic is a good place to start) what subjects you feel we should expand on. 

Thanks!

Giacomo

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I think this is the hardest part of in depth trainings.

Because most users who ask for more in depth trainings have a certain set of things in mind that they want to be able to do. 

When you have a community like this I personally don't really feel the need for "certifications" ..

Have an issue? Shoot! 

Have a question? Shoot!

There will be someone there to help and you'll learn by working with the product. 

I'de rather spend most of my time on a community learning about a certain product with enthusiasts as I go than spend half a day or a day somewhere in a training center or an online course with the perfect demo environment setup.

[MeredithW]

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