Many companies in need of a Learning Management System (LMS) purchase third party applications and either install the application in-house or access it via a hosted model. While third-party apps might offer a few unique capabilities, the most important criteria to consider when building out an LMS are user familiarity and integration with existing tools. SharePoint not only satisfies both criteria—it revolutionizes them.
As one of our industry’s most trusted SharePoint consultants, we believe that the process toward developing an efficient LMS begins by defining objectively what it is as well as why your organization needs an LMS.
What Is a Learning Management System (LMS)?
A Learning Management System is software that enables your organization to administer training and e-learning programs via:
- Scheduling
- Documentation
- Progress tracking
- Compliance training
- Reporting
But what truly sets apart an LMS from basic document management is customization and personalization. An LMS normally contains a catalog of course content, including:
- Authoring tools
- Personalized programs
- Curricula
- Certifications
- Test material
- Administrative tools to manage all of the above
These tools allow your business to design learning journeys in a way that easily moves in parallel with the realities of daily operations. It’s inefficient and unrealistic to pull away veteran employees from client tasks in order to onboard and train new employees, or run tutorials on new software/strategies. By setting up a comprehensive LMS, stakeholders can review individual and collective employee progress across curricula.
Why Your Organization Needs an LMS
An LMS shouldn’t function as merely an information hub that’s siloed from growth objectives. By integrating an LMS into your overall HR and Performance Management models, you’ll be able to customize and automate the following core components to your daily operations:
Employee Onboarding
Automate your onboarding process by assigning curricula to a new employee based on their job role.
Employee Development
Keep your team engaged by providing opportunities for them to level up within your organization.
Compliance Training
Avoid costly security and compliance risks by delivering up-to-date compliance and regulation training.
Software Adoption
Combat low user adoption by building out comprehensive and interactive software training across job roles.
The success you’ll have in implementing any of the above initiatives, however, will depend upon which platform you use to house your LMS. Employee familiarity with the LMS platform itself will be essential to the ongoing efficacy of your initiatives, as transitioning back and forth between daily tasks and the LMS system should be seamless as possible.
Because so many organizations already hold some form of Microsoft 365 licensing, the easiest transition to an LMS platform would in the SharePoint platform—a secure and reliable system that’s familiar to most Microsoft users.
The Power of SharePoint LMS Solutions
Not only does SharePoint offer a familiar interface to most organizations—it’s designed for an intuitive, easy-to-use platform for any Learning Management System.
Enable your teams to become more self-sufficient, increasing efficiency and saving time by using SharePoint as your LMS base.
Easy LMS Buildout
- Easily manage content buildout through global view of entire knowledge base
- Create custom categories and tags to intuitively organize your knowledge base
- Update and edit content with easy-to-use editors that you can seamlessly share
Enhanced Reporting
- View what information/articles your members are searching for, results of individual searches, and click-through-rates on each article
- Automatically generate pie charts and bar graphs based on the topical content of your Knowledge Base
- Access a global view of all user questions and their status (resolved vs unresolved)
Secure User Management
- Designate users as knowledge base Admins or knowledge base Viewers
- Create a taxonomy of content access based on job roles
- Change content access for individual users in a matter of clicks
User Feedback & FAQs
- Allow end users to ask questions directly, and answer user questions directly, sending automatic notifications
- Automatically notify knowledge creators when a user question requires an article to be written
- Create a searchable repository of all questions that users can navigate much like the article database
How To Get the Most Out of Your SharePoint LMS
If you are looking for an LMS built on SharePoint, the selection of the right system can be a daunting task. However, it is very similar to the selection of any system or application. The major steps are:
1. Define Your Business Objective
How will the LMS system fit into your business strategy and drive business performance? What are your KPIs for the LMS?
2. Define Your LMS Scope
What LMS components are needed and how does it interface with your existing systems and/or content?
3. Define Key LMS Criteria
What are the must-have sets of functionality, such as SCORM compliance, testing and accreditations and/or multiple languages? What must-haves are unique to your organization?
4. Develop Proof of Concept
Is a proof of concept feasible in terms of both operational and financial resources? Could a proof of concept save you time and money in the long run?
5. Deploy & Roll Out LMS
How will you deploy the LMS across departments? What are the phases from build-out through roll-out that will ensure proper adoption of the LMS?
If you want to learn more about Learning Management Systems deployed within the SharePoint environment, reach out to us today and we’ll share more with you about our methodology for building out an LMS exactly as your organization needs it..
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