Frequently Asked Training Questions

What are the benefits of NI training?

NI training courses are the fastest, most certain route to productivity with NI tools and successful application development. They:

• Shorten your learning curve and increase your application-development success when using NI products
• Save you development time and cost over the application life cycle by teaching you important techniques and key features to architect your application
• Help you develop larger, scalable applications that you can easily maintain and reuse
• Give you the opportunity to interact with an experienced certificed instructor and discuss ideas and problems with the instructor and fellow students
• Provide you with multiple formats to learn the material whether it be in a local classroom setting, on-site at your company, online or using self-paced tools

 

Does NI provide a guarantee for their training courses?

NI offers a money-back guarantee and a success guarantee for all courses in the United Kingdom and Ireland. With the money-back guarantee, NI ensures a positive training course experience and gives you a complete refund if you are not satisfied. With the success guarantee, you can confidently measure and gain recognition for your skills from your training by earning professional NI credentials.

 

NI tools are easy to use, so why do I need training?

NI products, such as NI LabVIEW software, are easy to use compared to other products on the market. However, the complexity of many user applications requires in-depth guidance and design concepts, which you learn in NI training. Training ensures you have a good understanding of the products before you design and develop your applications.

NI has invested more than 20 years in buillding the fastest, most thorough and effective approach to learning NI tools. Training reduces your application costs becuase you learn how to write applications that are easier to maintain and reuse. Learning these scalable techniques and features in the early stages of your LabVIEW application development project helps you meet schedule, cost and quality objectives.

 

I attended an NI seminar. How is that different from a training course?

NI seminars are typically a few hours in duration, keep you abreast of the latest technologies and trends in measurement and automation. Seminars also demonstrate NI product functionality and applicability. You recieve helpful NI product overviews, but not the skills and expertise needed to become proficient using Ni tools - especially if you have a complex application. You can acquire these skills and expertise by attending a two or three day products-specific training course taught by certified instructors.

 

How can I justify training costs and time? I have neither the budget nor the time to train.

To meet your schedule and cost objectives, you need to find the time and budget to become effective and skilful in using NI products. NI hands-on courses are the fastest way to gain the knowledge to become productive with NI tools. Formal training helps you become proficient much quicker than using the trial-and-error approach. NI training helps you make deadlines and eliminate development costs associated with redesign and code rewrite due to poor application design and organisation.

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Can't I learn on my own?

When you learn on your own, you build your own training programme (consiciously or not). NI has invested years developing courses to the highest level for you to successfully learn NI tools. You learn much more thoroughly, quickly and cost-effectively by attending NI classes. Self-learning is often a hit or miss proposition, which can create problems for the development effort such as redesign, code reqrites and reduced application performance. The self-learning process can also suffer from the everyday distractions in the workplace.

 

Your training is too expensive, why?

NI has invested substantial resources in a dedicated staff, which develops professional training courses. When you take an NI class, you gain the full benefit of this investment while the cost is amortised across many students and many companies. Each course is constantly being rewritten and improved as the product is enhanced and techniques advance. NI strives to keep its per-day training fees in line with or lower than other companies offering similar tehnical training.

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I've sent my development staff members to train at other companies and they sometimes say it wasn't very useful. How is NI training different?

Unlike classes offered by some companies, NI classes have a dedicated training staff. NI instructors are professionally trained and are either experienced NI applications engineers or NI Certified Professional Instructors. NI has provided training for its test and measurement software and hardware for nearly 20 years and instructed more than 120,000 customers. NI experience and training expertise have evolved with its products over the years. NI instructors can answer questions beyond the pages of the student materials and discuss solutions for your specific applications.

 

How many people do I need to have a class held on-site at our facility?

NI holds all formal training courses on-site at your facility for as few as five students or as many as ten per class. If you have eight or more students to train, or if travel and lodging costs are prohibitive, on-site training is more cost-effective for your organisation versus attending public scheduled classes. Another advantage of having classes at your facility is that NI can tailor classes to meet your specific training needs.

What is the NI cancellation policy for training classes?

If you need to cancel or reschedule:

We understand that changes in circumstances mean that it is not always possible for an individual booked on a course to attend. However, cancellations can cause us difficulties and are therefore subject to the following conditions.

- At least 30 days before the beginning of the course: No fee

- Less then 30 days but more than 7 days before the beginning of the course: 20% of the course fee

- Within 7 days of the beginning of the course or no show: 30% of the course fee

This will be payable by you or may, at the discretion of National Instruments, be deducted from any refund of fees due.

- An alternative delegate may be substituted at any time but pelase try to let us know in advance of the course.

If we need to cancel:

We know that the cancellation of a course by us causes inconvenience and we therefore make every endeavour to run published programmes. In the event that a course is unavailable, for what ever reason, we reserve the right to cancel the course at our discretion in which case our liability shall be restricted to a refund of any fees paid to us. National Instruments is not liable for any consequential loss, including but not limited to travelling and lodging expenses.

 

Should I buy Training Credits or a Training and Certification Membership?

If you are an individual looking for a cost effective training solution to develop your skills, then NI Training and Certification Membership is the solution for you. Companies that need to send employees to training courses, but have yet to determine which employees to send or the dates for training, should oder NI training credits. A minimum of 10 Training Credits must be purchased.

 

Can I use Training Credits for Online Training?

You can use each training credit for eight hours of online training.

 

Are Members or Training Credit customers charged cancellation fees for courses?

The same cancellation/reschedule fees listed above apply if students fail to follow the correct process for cancelling their seats in a class, including online courses. NI incurs costs for every seat in a class.