This article takes you through the steps involved in creating a custom hands-on lab in Content Engine. Content Engine is available in enterprise accounts. Any user in an enterprise account can create a custom hands-on lab, but only administrators can complete the final step of publishing the lab.

This article contains the following sections:

• What Is a Custom Hands-on Lab
• How to Create a Custom Hands-on Lab
• How to Set Permissions for a Custom Lab
• How to Find Where a Custom Hands-on Lab Is Used

What Is a Custom Hands-on Lab

A custom hands-on lab is a hands-on lab that you create to train your own company's employees on the specifics of your technology stack.

When you create a custom hands-on lab, you can start from scratch or start with a copy of an existing hands-on lab and adjust it to apply to your own company's technology stack.

After you create and publish your hands-on lab, you can include it in a custom training plan. You can update a custom hands-on lab after it is published.

How to Create a Custom Hands-on Lab

You create your custom hands-on lab in Content Engine. Use the following steps to create a custom hands-on lab:

1. From the dashboard, click the building icon to open the management dashboard.
   
2. Click Content Engine from the menu on the left, and then click Hands-on Labs. The Labs screen appears.
3. Hover over the Create button in the upper right corner. Click the option you want from the menu that appears.
   
   A form appears where you enter the information about your new hands-on lab. The Content tab appears first.
   
4. Select whether you want to start the hands-on lab from scratch or clone an existing lab and edit it.
5. Add steps, either from the existing list on the left site by dragging them to the right or select Create Step to create your own. Click Next.
   The Info tab becomes active.
   
6. Fill out the Basic Info: Difficulty, Categories, Skill Objectives, and Cover Image. Then click the Provisioning tab.
   Tip: If you need a skill that doesn't already exist in Cloud Academy, you can click the Request a custom skill objective link to contact support. Adding a custom skill takes at least 24 hours..
   The Provisioning tab becomes active.
   
7. Provide a provisioning template and save the hands-on lab. See Provisioning Templates for Custom Hands-on Labs for more details. The following templates are supported, per provider:
   • AWS: CloudFormation templates
   • Azure: ARM templates
   • GCP: Deployment Manager templates
   Note: Terraform and other solutions are not directly supported but can be deployed as part of a provider template. For example, you could create a CloudFormation template that deploys an EC2 instance and runs Terraform.

If you are an administrator, you can publish the hands-on lab at this point. Otherwise, you can only save it and an administrator must publish it. The lab must be published before it is available to use in learning paths and training plans.

How to Set Permissions for a Custom Lab

You can control who has access to your custom hands-on lab by setting the permissions. To change the permissions, open the lab in Content Engine and choose Permissions from the Actions menu.

A window appears where you can choose to make your lab available to the entire company or to select teams that you specify.

How to Find Where a Custom Hands-on Lab Is Used

When you have a hands-on lab open in Content Engine, you can use the List parents option on the Actions menu to see where the lab has been used.