What Features Are Needed In An Extended Enterprise LMS?
When you’re on the hunt for a Learning Management System for your organization, you’ll quickly learn that no two vendors are the same. There’s a colossal range of features on offer, making it a challenge to narrow them down and find a solution that delivers exactly what you want. So, let’s strip it back. This list has 6 must-have features that will help you achieve training success.
1. Integrations
As a team member in an organization delivering training, the best thing an LMS can do for you is put time back in your day. Managing training can take a lot of effort, therefore having an LMS that integrates your preferred tools is a must. By integrating your LMS with your Partner or Customer Relationship Management System, you have the ability to automate how users are added and removed from your LMS. For example, you can connect your LMS to Salesforce. This means that when a new customer comes aboard and is added to your CRM, they’re automatically added to the customer training portal in your LMS. And, if they decide to move on, and you remove them from your CRM, they’re automatically removed from the LMS too. This simple action saves you time as you don't have to manually add every new customer. It also helps you scale how you train too, as large numbers of extended enterprise learners can be added to the training program quickly and easily. Connecting with your Partner or Customer Relationship Management System isn’t the only integration available to your organization. If required, you can create a whole training ecosystem with your webinar tool, Single SignOn authentication, your eCommerce platform, your authoring tool, and more.
2. Course Delivery
The top-selling point of an LMS is that it allows your organization to deliver formalized learning to your extended enterprise LMS. However, not all LMSs are created equally when it comes to creating courses. A great LMS will have features that enable you to upload your courses quickly and easily. You should also be able to upload the content types you want, including documents, slide decks, videos, podcasts, and more. And if you’re creating SCORM or xAPI courses, built using an authoring tool, that shouldn’t be an issue. Any good solution will support this type of content so you can provide a dynamic and engaging experience for your learners.
3. Automated extended enterprise LMS Notifications
Once users have been added to your LMS, you need an equally efficient way to invite them to start learning and notify them that they’ve been enrolled in courses. This is where automated notifications come in. Within your LMS you can set generic or custom emails to be automatically sent to a user to inform them of any action they need to take. You can set these notifications to send when:
- A user has been added to a portal.
- A learner has been enrolled in a course.
- A learner needs reminding that a course needs to be completed by a set due date.
Once set up and scheduled, the notifications are all automated and sent when triggered by an event, enabling you to spend less time micromanaging your extended enterprise learning programs.
4. Extended Enterprise LMS Certifications
Training your extended enterprise LMS usually means that you want your learners to reach a certain standard of knowledge. When they meet this standard, they can best represent your company and have the best chance of success, particularly when it comes to your partners. To prove they have reached this level, you can certify your learners once they’ve completed the training. Automated and effortless once initially set up, the certification feature works by rewarding learners with a certificate based on rules you establish within your LMS. This can be anything from passing an exam to completing several courses. Once done, they’ll be awarded a certificate and a record of this achievement will be tracked in your LMS. To ensure your audiences are staying current with your products and guidelines, you can choose to set a date for the certifications to expire. It can be six months, a year, two years, or more, but once this time has passed, your learner is then automatically re-enrolled in the training program. This ensures that they’re always up-to-date with their certification.
5. Mobile-Friendly Learning
Extended enterprise learning differs from standard employee training as you don't have as much control over how someone learns. Or they need to be able to learn on-the-go when a desktop or laptop isn't always within reach. This is where an LMS that supports mobile-friendly learning comes in. A mobile-responsive solution grants learners the ability to learn when and where they want. It increases the accessibility of your training and furthers learning opportunities as your partners and customers can learn on-site, on the bus, or wherever suits them best on the device they choose.
6. Reporting
It's vital that your organization's extended enterprise LMS training is measurable so you can accurately track the impact. You need to know how each course and each audience is performing. You can track your learning goals with your LMS reports. Everything from completion rates to exam results to user progression, the actionable data you need is right at your fingertips. Conveniently, you can run reports in two ways—manually or automatically. Simply, log into the LMS and run the report you want or set a time for reports to be automatically sent to you and your teammates’ inboxes. Either way, you'll be guaranteed to have valuable training data that helps measure each program’s success. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to LMS features. However, these 6 must-have features will help your team deliver training in ways that matter the most. Each feature makes managing training simpler, more efficient, and scalable.
This list of 6 must-have features that will help you achieve training success should push you in the right direction. Showing you the range of features on offer, making it easier to narrow them down and find a solution that delivers exactly what you want. For more valuable insights, download this eBook "The Ultimate Guide To Delivering Extended Enterprise Training For Business Growth"
Effective extended enterprise training has a ripple effect. Not only does it guide your customer and partner success, but its benefits are also far-reaching, impacting everything from sales to engagement to retention. In case you are looking to learn how to increase your business's growth by creating extended enterprise training programs, definitely do check the Webinar: "Fuel Your Business’s Growth With Extended Enterprise Training.". The webinar is sponsored by eLearning Industry and presented by Phily Hayes, LearnUpon's Outbound Sales Manager.