Top 6 Must Have Features and Functionality for a Corporate
Learning Management System (LMS)

As companies are required to do more with less, deal with ever increasing regulatory compliance, fight to get a competitive edge, and, most of all, maximize the value of the enterprise's most critical asset, the employee, having a quality corporate learning management system (LMS) has never been a higher priority.

Finding the right LMS, however, can be simple if you start with the core features and functionality that every LMS should provide corporations. This short list highlights the most important ones that you want to be looking for, from top to bottom:

1. Content Availability and Delivery to the Learners

   The primary function of an LMS is the distribution and tracking of training and learning materials to the Learners (i.e., Employees) within your corporation. As such, the LMS architecture should be one that is based on a simple and intuitive user interface, and that facilitates both a learner-initiated or PULL process and a professional or corporate driven (PUSH) process of learning materials and assignments.

2. Managing and Reporting on Results and Outcomes

   Your business needs to have strong, effective reporting. And, an corporate LMS needs to have the ability to customize reports based on the different needs of a specific department or organization within a corporation. The best reporting should not only be able to track delivery and completion of training, but also track outcomes, certification, accreditations and regulatory compliance. Both a "grade book" approach to track course outcomes and a "transcript" approach to track an individual's aggregated results are now standard requirements.

3. Courseware and Learning Materials Management

   The organization of materials is very important. A good organizational structure will allow you to create intuitive workflows and learning plans, a quality search experience, and maintain a high quality revision control process and system.

   Additionally, an corporate LMS should allow you to:

   • Define an order of activities that may include prerequisites or defined work flows that the guide a learner through a learning plan.
   • Bundle learning materials and courses into a curriculum or certificate program.
   • Define automated email notifications to Learners, Instructors and Managers on the status of assignments, testing or other LMS system events.
   • Provide to the uses a personalized unified catalog of courses, learning materials and curriculum.
   • Assign due dates based on business rules customized by job title, time in position, organizational unit or other variables.


4. Integration with IT, HR and other Business Process Systems

   In the past few years, significant advances have been made in the areas of cross-systems integration and collaborative business tools. The modern LMS has moved beyond being a standalone monolithic application and is now built to participate in and with existing systems, policies and processes already deployed within your organization. For more information, see ShareKnowledge Integration.

5. Designed for SCORM Standards and Media Flexibility

   To insure maximum flexibility and compatibility, your LMS should be able to use the international e-Learning SCORM file formats. In addition, Microsoft Office, PDF and Flash have become defacto file formats for learning materials that any LMS should be designed to accommodate. Flexibility also means being ready for new technology and media formats as the future technologies become available.

6. End User Client Compatibility

   Accessibility is a foundational assumption of e-Learning. Your corporate LMS should not require users to download specific client software, or be required to be on a very specifically defined PC or system. While the LMS may be "served up" with some specific requirements (for example, SharePoint^® for our ShareKnowledge^TM LMS), the client access should be provided for multi-browser (Microsoft IE, Firefox, Safari, etc.), multi-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) accessibility.

Many more features and functionality beyond the top 6 are important to consider when selecting a corporate LMS solution. Because ShareKnowledge^TM LMS is based on Microsoft SharePoint, its features and functionality are very customizable and extensible without complexity. ShareKnowledge LMS is not just about e-Learning, it is a business management tool that drives optimization, efficiency and cost savings throughout your organization.