Buiding system eLearning

Normally I would steer clear of gamification in most elearning but systems training lends itself to this type of approach.

You could use an approach where the user is asked if they know how to use the system and work through the process without guidance (but do include feedback, they may get right but they are guessing) if they complete the section they gain a  prize. If the fail at any point they are branched to a tutorial that shows what they should have done and then branch back to work through the process again. This can create a loop if they never get it right. however it does reward those who already know the process and reduce their time in the training.

You could also incorporate a lives system to reduce the length of the loop, along with bonus stages where the user earns back some of their lives.

The other option is to break it down into a series of almost minigames where each process earns a specific reward. 

I built a series of these on system training and the reward was an iPad to the first person who got 100% on all three. Not surprisingly every member of staff completed the courses over a 2 day period

I also like putting the systems into context and showing why you would use certain features or tools. A step-by-step tutorial on Photoshop layer masks or Excel pivot tables can be useful, but it's often more useful to see a tutorial on how to blend two images together seamlessly or how to make a large data set easier to manage.

For every feature or function in the system, ask yourself, "What problem does this solve?" If you talk about that problem in your training, it's inherently more engaging and relevant for your users.

I would use the 80/20 rule and combine eLearning with job aids and short videos all housed on the same site. Starting with the most common, basic tasks then move to more complex tasks. I agree with Christy that you should address the why. We just did this for an SAP software implementation and used critical thinking  questions and scenarios that our folks encounter frequently. This is espeically important when the user may have to use more than one system to solve a problem.  We used questions like "A customer calls in with a question about their bill. What do you do?"... Then walked them through the overview of what to do with links to microlearnings on each step, so the user could customize their experience. We provided printable job aids with micro learnings and had videos avialable so that the user could watch them. We used the show, try, test modes of recording for those items our business sponsor wanted certified and ran them through our LMS.