How to Determine the Best LMS platform

How to Determine the Best LMS Platform

Companies have been hearing about digital transformation — replacing legacy systems with digital platforms — for over a decade. And while digital transformation is a goal that every company should be aggressively pursuing — and indeed, that the most competitive companies have already achieved — it’s only the beginning.

Missing the forest for the trees.

Digitization is a critical first step, but it can too easily miss the forest for the trees. So, what’s the forest, you might ask? It’s gaining a true digital-first advantage by leveraging advanced digital LMS (learning management systems) that create positive, user-optimized digital experiences that help your company tap and harness the latent potential of your talent base, partners, and customers. Digital experience has become the preferred form of brand interaction and the most effective strategy for getting your people the critical information, learning experiences, and training materials they need. For these reasons and more, next-generation digital LMS plays a central role in helping you deliver the digital-first experience that is central to your company’s organizational health, talent development and retention, productivity, brand reputation, customer relations, and sustained growth. Deploying an advanced digital LMS is now table stakes for companies looking to out-maneuver their competition. With all the different e-learning platforms on the market, it can be difficult to feel confident about which one is right for you. In this piece, we’ll be showcasing just a small slice of the features and functionalities of the ExpertusONE next-generation digital LMS software. This is our platform, and naturally, we believe it’s the top choice — and we’re not the only one to think so. But our real intention here is to give you the information you need to decide for yourself. With this in mind, here is a brief guide to what to look for.

Simple, seamless, and streamlined platforms deliver the best digital experiences.

When you’re on the hunt for a next-generation digital LMS, simple, seamless, and streamlined is the ideal combination. You want a sophisticated system that makes it easy for learners and training managers to navigate easily, engage, monitor, and manage every form of content — videos, quizzes, guides, presentations, interactive assets, etc. — all from within a single platform that seamlessly bridges desktop and mobile. The ExpertusONE LMS is so simple, seamless, and streamlined that training managers can instantly get insight into employees’ learning status and even send course completion reminders to employees from within the platform With legacy LMS platforms, one of the biggest challenges is the need for users to open multiple tabs, download documents, click links that redirect to new browser windows, or take quizzes on separate platforms. This can quickly leave learners feeling like they’re playing digital hopscotch or navigating a digital maze, introducing a ton of unnecessary friction (and frustration) into what should be a positive, productive, digital-first learning experience. These negative digital experiences can adversely impact learner outcomes and morale, talent retention, company culture, brand experience, client relations, and more. But by clearing roadblocks and greasing the wheels of the learning journey with an advanced digital LMS, your company can reap all the positives without the negatives.

One platform with extensible apps to simplify learners’ experiences.

ExpertusONE takes simple, seamless, and streamlined to a whole new level with Slack LMS, Salesforce LMS, and Microsoft Teams extensible apps. So, not only is the entire ExpertusONE platform and its wealth of features and functionalities available on a dedicated mobile LMS app, but it also seamlessly interfaces with the most popular training, onboarding, and synchronous communication platforms. Each app extension is conveniently connected to the ExpertusONE digital LMS parent platform — the one platform to rule them all for ultimate digital-first advantage from absolutely anywhere. The Slack, Salesforce, and Microsoft Teams apps make it easy for your company to extend and amplify the impact of your digital training strategy by meeting learners where they already are — on their preferred platforms. This puts an end to the productivity-killing and headache-inducing context-switching that is the bane of legacy LMS.

Upskilling, reskilling, and employee development are enabled with a digital LMS.

If you dig deep into the research, you’ll find plenty of evidence for why culture eats strategy for breakfast. Said differently, the number one indicator of job satisfaction consistently turns out to be whether employees feel a sense of belonging and whether they feel they are making a meaningful contribution to the organizational mission. (A contribution that aligns with their personal goals and values.) But whether employees feel this sense of belonging and forward movement has everything to do with the degree to which companies invest in them, providing collaborative learning opportunities, pathways for upskilling, and resources for personal and professional development. A next-generation digital LMS is crucial in helping companies demonstrate this investment. The ExpertusONE platform provides extensive collaborative learning opportunities to increase cultural cohesion and enhance employees’ sense of belonging. It also deploys AI-driven personalization to match the right employees with the right upskilling courses (depending on their role, learning style, peer cohort, credentialing needs, and so forth). Last, it lets employees take advantage of a wide range of “extra-curricular” or “elective” courses tailored to their individual interests and learning pursuits that fuel their personal and professional development. That’s the power of digital-first advantage.

Combine digital documentation and credentialing with the ONE-Profile Card.

The hiring process has traditionally involved a host of complexities for applicants, hiring managers, and HR. The reasons for this have been twofold. First, traditional paper documentation and the back-and-forth it frequently entails represent a highly fragmented approach to documentation. Second, digital documentation — for current applicants and existing employees alike — poses its own challenges since it’s rarely been integrated with companies’ existing training systems. (This means that relevant parties have no centralized system for easily verifying existing credentials or certifications or monitoring and managing them.) But the ExpertusONE ONE-Profile Card — a digital-first, QR-code solution to credentialing and certification — lets you kill both birds with one stone. Managers can easily access team members’ certifications and learner history from within the ExpertusONE platform. And for companies already taking advantage of our enterprise LMS, the ONE-Profile Card is already built in, which means any updated certifications automatically populate to employees’ records.

Integrated video conferencing makes the most of training experiences.

Video conferencing is now a central pillar of the post-pandemic world, and platforms like Zoom have witnessed increased adoption thanks to companies’ need for this functionality. But does your company really want to take on the expense of an external conferencing platform? Instead, the ExpertusONE Meetings feature lets companies take advantage of digital-first advantage and collect significant cost-savings with on-demand LMS video conferencing that’s built right into the platform. It easily and seamlessly connects learners, training managers, and diverse stakeholders for collaborative strategy sessions, daily scrums, check-ins, sales huddles, and other synchronous work sessions. You can easily schedule, host, and join meetings from anywhere within the platform. In-meeting data capture lets you get more bang for your training buck by making it a cinch to repurpose your “greatest hits” across the broader training ecosystem. The Meetings feature also automates admin activities, consolidates systems, and auto-syncs all content to LMS. Other benefits include greater ease of scheduling, error reduction, simplified roster management, and auto-capture of attendance and completion data.

Interactive content keeps learners engaged.

Lackluster content is enough to make learners pull a Ferris Bueller. (“Bueller…. Bueller…. Bueller….”) Even if they don’t vacate the premises, uninspiring instructional assets will make most learners mentally push snooze. After all, why sit through a droning lecture when you can have a lively conversation? Interactive learning — learning that puts learners in an active rather than passive role— is one of the best ways to see the benefits of a positive digital-first experience. While legacy LMS essentially puts learners in the passenger seat, ExpertusONE’s HTML5 LMS rapid Authoring Tool makes it easy for instructional designers and training managers to add interactive elements that put learners in the driver’s seat.

Capitalize on training data with the Learning Record Store.

Get a bird’s eye view of the entire learning journey with ExpertusONE’s Learning Record Store. It lets you capture and standardize learning data to take your upskilling and other training initiatives into the stratosphere by making it easy to track training outcomes to pinpoint opportunities for improvement. It works by collecting data from multiple sources, including the LMS, additional platforms, and even other LRSs. This enables training managers to store learning interactions from web pages, eLearning, VR simulations, games, and more. Because learning data is consolidated within the LRS as xAPI statements, you get eagle-eye visibility for a complete picture of mobile app interactions, real-world activities, learning achievements, and other variables. This way, you can easily identify the key components of positive, effective digital experiences. The race is on for true digital-first advantage driven by next-generation digital LMS. Companies that take advantage of everything they have to offer will readily reap the benefits across areas that include company culture, talent development and retention, productivity, brand reputation, customer relationships, and market position. With so many digital LMS platforms to choose from, it’s important to know what you’re looking for and why. If you’d like to learn more about how ExpertusONE can help capture value from a digital-first experience, schedule your free demo of our award-winning digital learning platform.