Whether you are finding an LMS software company or are unhappy with the LMS you are currently using, this article is for you. Firstly, congratulations to you for deciding to buy an LMS for your online training program. An LMS can provide you with a cost-effective, streamlined, and fast-learning training program. It just makes the job very easy and manageable.
With the appropriate LMS and clever techniques, you can reduce corporate training expenditures while simultaneously increasing productivity in a variety of ways. It thus leads to a larger return on investment, which is profitable in the long term. However, selecting the appropriate LMS is crucial. One size fits all! No, it doesn’t. Here is a quick guide to how you can select the most ideal LMS for your organization.
How do I find the ideal LMS for my organization?
Analyze your need
Think of a situation where you bought a feature-heavy LMS for a soft skills training program. You may not require all the features available to run this program. What is the use of a feature-heavy LMS if you can’t use it to the best of its potential? You could have saved some money by investing in an LMS more suitable for your need and objective.
Take time to understand what you want to do with your online training program. What is it that you want to achieve? What are your business objectives? You can use the SMART objective method to find your answers. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound objectives. Once you have your objective in place you can move in the right direction.
Some common objectives are -
- Change in the company software
- Closing skill gaps
- Training the newly recruited employees
- Soft skills training
- Maintaining good relationships
Understand your audience
Once you are clear with the purpose, get a clear understanding of who is going to attend the training program as well. Study their age, size, location, role in the organization, and skill level. Why is this important? Based on their characteristics you will have to choose an LMS. For example, if you want to run a program for employees in different roles and skillsets, you need to have software that can help you with the personalization of the content. Similarly, if your online learners are spread across a wider geographical area, your LMS should be the one that can enable access in all those parts of the world.
Type of LMS
There are hundreds of LMS software companies in the market today. Each has its own USP and set of features. But these LMSes can be clubbed into categories to help you filter this long list of options.
Installed LMS
It is just as the name suggests, you have to install it on your computer. As an organization, you will need a good server and an in-house IT staff to manage the software. It will be accessible only on-site, that is, on your company devices.
Web-hosted or Cloud-based LMS
This is a more feasible option as compared to installed LMS and uses the cloud infrastructure. It leverages the internet to give access to anyone and anywhere. You can either host the LMS yourself or use a SaaS (software as a service) LMS that will do all the work for you.
Open-source LMS
An open-source LMS gives you more control over what features should be available for free and what will require an extra fee. You can view and modify the open-source code but you will require technical expertise on your team for the same.
Commercial LMS
An organization or institution will employ a commercial LMS. It is simpler to set up, has superior customer service, and includes more advanced features which are mostly required by organizations and not individual trainers.
Budget
You got to find an LMS software company that fits your online training budget. When deciding on a pricing model do make sure that you consider the size of your userbase. These are some common pricing models that you will come across.
Perpetual license + maintenance fees
You get complete ownership of your LMS, this is called a perpetual license. Once the LMS is set up (which also requires some fees), after a period of time you will need to pay extra money for the maintenance of the software. It is not a bad pricing model but is suited best in the long run. So if you are planning to conduct training programs for a longer duration and you are certain of an increasing number of online learners, then go for this model.
Paying per ‘n’ users
This is most common in the could-based LMS software. An LMS software company will have its method of pricing. Following are common methods.
Pay-per-user: You will have to pay for each user that uses your LMS, whether they register or not. This might be ideal for you if you have a fixed number of users.
Pay-per-registered user: You will have to pay for only registered users.
Pay-per-active user: You will pay for the number of users who will use your LMS in the said period. For example, if you have a monthly billing period you will pay per month based on how many users used your LMS. It is a cost-effective method if you conduct online training programs seasonally.
Unlimited users: This method has monthly or annual fees without any restriction on the number of users. You will be paying a fixed amount whether or not you use the LMS. Ideal for organizations that run online training programs frequently.
Customized pricing
You can have a customized price for a customized LMS. For someone who knows what features they need and what they don’t they can customize the LMS accordingly and avoid paying money for features they will not be requiring.
LMS must-haves
Although we did a lot of filtering to find the ideal LMS, there are some features that your LMS must have whether you are a small company, business giant, or an individual.
- Learner analytics: Your LMS must have a data tracking service to track the progress of your online trainers. It should also be able to reveal their learning patterns like, where they are facing difficulty and where they are acing.
- LMS integrations: Your LMS should provide seamless integration of additional tools that might be required.
- Personalized user experience: Personalized experience will create an easy-to-use and clutter-free environment for the online learner. It is one of the most important features of an LMS.
- House all online training material: An LMS brings all the online training material in one place but it should be able to store different types and sizes of data files.
- Mobile friendly: A lot of employees would like to take up training whenever they can and on any device. Mobile is also a more common device in any household. Hence it is crucial that your LMS is mobile friendly and can be accessed via any device.
- Support system: There might be chances that you need technical support while you are using your LMS. Hence an LMS software company with a robust support system is a necessity.
LMS good-to-haves
If you have special requirements from your LMS, these are some good-to-have features that will enhance your experience.
- Communities: LMS can help build communities of online learners. It is a great way to learn together, have online discussions, and motivate each other during the training.
- Test out: A test-out feature allows you to check prior knowledge of your employees so that you can speed up the process by skipping a few parts.
- Reminders and notifications: These are great to bring the online learners back to the LMS or to remind them of a scheduled test.
- Games: You can organize some contests, leaderboards, etc to encourage your learners. This is useful when your audience is the younger lot.
- Certificates: A handy feature to make certificates and upload them.
Conclusion
LMS is of great help if you find the right one and finding the right one isn’t that difficult. Let us sum it up.
- Analyze your needs and set a SMART goal.
- Study employee demographics to make a better selection.
- Decide which type of LMS will be ideal to meet your objective.
- Set a budget and select a pricing strategy based on that.
- Make sure your LMS has all the must-haves.
- Check out all the additional features that can enhance your online training program experience.