LMS Integration Is What The Future Holds For Training Businesses
While we think there are many things on the horizon which will make Learning Management Systems better for the training businesses who purchase them and the students who use them, today we’re just going to focus on one—LMS integration with Training Management Systems (TMS).
Why Integrate?
It makes sense for Learning Management Systems to integrate with other systems which training companies will find useful in the future rather than come as a standalone product. Having to work across lots of different pieces of software can create a lot of manual work for your staff, so ideally you would want to have everything in one place, so everything can be managed centrally.
If you want to manage everything in one place, then the best way to do this is through a Training Management System. Sure, there will be other systems which will integrate with your LMS, but you will still have to manage data in multiple places at the same time, not to mention paying for multiple systems rather than just one. A TMS has everything you need to manage your training in one place, so adding an LMS to this solution just makes sense!
Let’s take a look at some of the ways your LMS could integrate with the different elements of a TMS to make the perfect solution to all your training management worries!
1. LMS And Reporting
Being able to report on the data from your LMS is vital to any training business that offers eLearning, as it provides you with detailed insight into that side of your business. If your LMS integrates with your reporting system, it means that you can also easily compare other data from across your business with your eLearning data, all without having to export or import any data or do any additional manual work.
Here are just some of the data points you can pull from LMS reporting which will help with your training measurement:
- How many students have you serviced in total through your LMS?
- How many students have taken a particular class?
- Compile feedback from student surveys.
- Completion rates for particular classes or modules.
- Assessment results.
- Mini assessment and quiz results.
- Split assessment results by class or by teacher for easy comparison.
2. LMS And Online Course Sales
Training Management Systems which integrate with your website will allow you to sell your courses online and take online payment all in one step. This is great if you offer eLearning because you will obviously be selling your courses to students through your website.
Setting up all your courses through your TMS, whether they are eLearning, classroom-based, or blended learning, will be exactly the same process. This makes it really easy to get all of your classes up on your website without having to worry about pulling data from different systems or making sure you’ve got all the data correct, as everything will be pulled directly from your TMS with no additional work.
It also means that if you make any edits to your course catalog within your TMS, the changes will automatically be updated on your website in real-time, so you don’t need to worry about checking that you’ve updated the data in various places.
3. LMS And Sales System
As a training business, it’s so important to keep track of all your sales. If you offer different training methods and have different ways people can book their class with you (such as online, over the phone, or via email), it’s important to have one central system where you can store all your sales data.
Having everything in one place means it’s easy to find exactly the data you're looking for, as well making it really simple to pull data from all over your business into the reports you need to see without having to source data from lots of different places.
If you have your LMS integrated with your Training Management System’s sales system, it means every sale you make through your website will automatically be pulled back into your TMS so everything is nice and organized. Not only will this store all the details of the sales (such as customer name and contact information), but it will also record the details of the specific sale. This information will be exactly what you need when it comes to reporting and things like working out your revenue and profits for the year. However, you will also have the ability to enter any other sales manually, such as those that come in over the phone, so you still have visibility over everything.
4. LMS And CRM
As we mentioned above, keeping track of everything in your training company is vital, and this also includes contact details. This could be your customers, your staff, or your suppliers, but either way, it’s important to have a centralized system where all this data is stored and managed.
Keeping everything in one place is so important because not only does it mean everyone will know where to look when they need to go and find something, it also means that there is only one place where details can be edited, so you can be confident you are always using the correct contact details.
As with the sales system, whenever a customer buys with you through your website, all their details will automatically be pulled back into your CRM and stored as a new customer contact. This also means that if these students make further purchases with you in the future, their contact record will be updated, so everything is stored in that one place and easy to reference at a later date.
Next Steps
If you’re interested in integrating an LMS with a TMS, why not have a shop around just now and see what there is on offer? Training Management Systems, like Administrate, come with an LMS already built-in to their product, so you don’t even need to worry about shopping around for separate products that will work with each other!
