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Role play is a critical part of learning reinforcement and on-the-job training. Role play activities offer a dynamic and interactive way for sales reps to practice and refine their skills in a controlled and supportive environment. Rather than passively absorbing information, learners must actively engage with their learning partners, improving comprehension and retention of the material. Trainers can add role play practice activities to lessons, paths, and certifications.

When learners and their partners undertake these activities, role play guides, not unlike playscripts, give both parties all of the information they need to adopt their respective roles and convincingly enact real-world business scenarios.

Navigate to the lesson builder > select Add Element > hover over Practice to expand the element menu > under Non-Graded Practice select Role Play.

To create a role play exercise, complete each of the fields pictured below. Required fields are denoted by an asterisk.

See that checkbox at the top of the element, the one that reads Require partner feedback submission for lesson completion? Enabling this will prevent learners from continuing the lesson until the role play is completed.

After completing each field, you can see what partners will see by selecting Preview Role Play Guide at the bottom of the element. The role play guide gives training partners all the information they need to convincingly play their part of the scenario.

When learners encounter role play activities in their lessons they'll be given a link to the role play guide. They must share this guide with their partner to commence the activity. Learners cannot see or alter the role play guide. Learn more about this in the Learner Point of View and Role Play for Partners sections below.

Select the Partner Resources tab within the role play element, then click Add Feedback Criteria.

These criteria help partners provide constructive feedback when evaluating role play scenarios. See this article for more information on feedback criteria.

Within a lesson, learners will see the role play activity's title, scenario, and goal. They will also be given four instructions to follow:

If the role play element was marked as required in the lesson builder, learners will see a required label at the top of the element.

On the role play guide, which learners send to their partners, partners will see the activity's title, scenario, and goal. They'll also see the role they're meant to play and the context surrounding the scenario. This will help partners slip into their roles. 🎭

The role play guide also includes a section for giving feedback. Partners should use this portion of the guide to evaluate a learner's performance. The feedback form includes:

When learner and partner have finished role playing, the partner must select Submit Feedback to complete the activity. "Your feedback has been submitted" will appear at the bottom of the role play guide, confirming that partner feedback was successfully submitted.

Once feedback has been submitted, learners will receive an email like the one pictured below.

If role play activities are included within lessons containing manually graded questions, learners won't receive their lesson scores until those questions are graded by their manager or a specified grader.

A. Role play performance data is not currently recorded on a learner’s report card or on the lesson overview page. This enhancement is in development, however.

A. Role play elements aren't graded. You won't see them in the grading station.

A. The role play guide will still solicit the partner's overall rating and any free-response comments they wish to leave.

A. Not at this time.

A. Yes, learners can complete the same activity as many times as they like. But once a partner has submitted feedback for a given activity, they cannot continue to submit feedback for the same role play scenario. Instead, the user must role play with and receive feedback from a new partner.

A. Once a learner has completed and submitted a lesson containing a role play element, the link to the role play guide will expire. Each time a partner follows a link to the role play guide, Learning will verify that the guide is associated with a role play activity that has not been completed. If a partner tries to access an expired guide link, they will be redirected to the landing page of the Learning app.

A. No. Role playing is a non-punitive way to build learner skills and confidence, and is therefore ungraded. Once learners complete a role play activity and receive feedback from their partners, they're able to proceed with the lesson in which the activity is embedded. Of course, nothing prevents you from setting internal expectations about how role play activities should be used in your organization. For example, partner-trainers could be empowered to require rehearsal of any skills they deem weak or in need of improvement.