Development Plans provide a way to assign training to learners by using goals that contain any number of activities. Activities are training objects in the system; web-based training courses, instructor-led training courses, certifications, curricula, or custom activities. A goal is not limited to one type of activity. It can consist of any mix of all available activity types. Target start and completion dates can be set for activities such that learners and managers can see how they are tracking to the plan.
The administrator creates a training goal and populates it with activities. Then the goal is assigned to a learner's development or learning plan.
Goal Templates can be assigned to a user or group of users’ Learning Plan. This can be a manual process, but Goals are more commonly used to assign training automatically. They provide a means for managers and administrators to automate the assignment of goals to users based on job role, organization membership and other attributes. Other help articles expand on these concepts.