According to statistics, in 2020, the total value of the mobile learning market has reached $38 million and it keeps rising. Creating your personal custom LMS system and adding an LMS integration is a combo for new achievements.
What is LMS software?
It is a web-based technology, aimed at making a plan, implementation, and assessment of the learning process.
What does LMS mean in education?
It plays the role of an instructor with a way to develop, deliver content, monitor student participation, check their performance, give them the ability to use interactive features, threaded discussions, or video conferencing, for example. Nowadays, the number of LMS users is at 73.8 million. About 87% of active users have web-based LMS programs. And it is not a surprise, 90% of students choose to learn online.
Learning management system software is often used by businesses of all sizes to improve their staff education methods and save time and money. According to global research, the primary participants in learning management systems are exactly corporate-level executives (65%) and managers (35%)
Moreover, bringing all aspects of your business into one, creating the global system is what Learning Management System Integration can help you with. In other words, LMS integration is the compatibility of your LMS for business with the applications you already use. Need the staffers to use crucial JIT resources without having to leave the CRM and change the platforms? Or facilitate team collaboration? There are a variety of tasks the following LMS integrations can solve. In this article we will take a look at 8 tools that can ease your pains and boost your effectiveness:
Types of LMS integrations
1. CMS or Content Management System
One of the ways to organize, manage, and revise existing content in a single tool is CMS. Ensuring that everything is compatible, you can repurpose and store existing materials in a centralized location. For example, you’re developing a JIT online training library for a department and want to keep all resources in one place. Among the best CMS systems, there are CMS Hub, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and some others. While choosing the right CMS platform for your business, consider some of the most important factors: ease of use, customizability, and security.
2. CRM or Customer Relationship Management
While CMS helps you to create the content, the experience for your clients of employees, CRM helps you to track visitor experience. Both tools are often used together in conjunction. So this tool of LMS integration provides organizing scattered information. Contact data organization, sales reporting solution, forecast sales, or scaling up sales process – it can all be managed by one system.
In terms of educating the employees, this LMS integration tool will provide automatic online training recommendations or materials for employees to cover their gaps in their performance. According to the studies, adopting CRM tools helps increase productivity by up to 15% on average.
So, in case of a need to monitor any event completion such as a course, purchase, learning path completions, or exam/survey submissions, – CRM is the option.
SalesForce, Webhooks, Pipedrive, FreshSales, Zoho CRM, etc – there are various options to choose from, or you can get a customized CRM software for specific business needs. Most of the CRM software doesn’t need any additional technical expertise. You only need to install the software and pay for training sessions.
The thing you need to remember is that employees need to get a clear understanding of how the CRM system features are connected to their job responsibilities. It undoubtedly boosts efficiency when they are given online training on how to operate all of the tools at their disposal during their typical working routine.
3. API Integrations
An API provides an interface for developers to manage applications. Each API has a set of keys (credentials), just like a username and a password. API speeds up processes by making the manual steps automatic, connecting a company database to other internal systems, instead of leaving them isolated. For example, via an HR system, new employees with all the titles, office locations, training history info will be automatically added to the LMS. Securing and verifying APIs is a crucial step to protect information transfer. Most companies install APIs to their clients and partners to make sure that relevant data is shared seamlessly.
4. eCommerce integrations
This type of LMS integration is essential if you plan to sell your online training content. It includes everything from sales and conversion reports to payment procedure so that you can maximize the profits. Connections, customer, and sales order information from your online platform are automatically entered into your back-office ERP or accounting system. This type of integration is pretty simple, and it takes less than two minutes to set-up the integration and provides user-friendly payment options. PayPal, Shopify, and Stripe are the most popular eCommerce learning management system software integrations.
Another option is a custom eCommerce integration module, supporting PayPal in addition to CyberSource payment gateway.
Besides, there is an option to measure your store’s performance, statistics, page click tracking, and other powerful data to boost eCommerce conversions by integrating Google Analytics. It allows you to understand what kind of work you’re doing is valuable and what kind of return on investment you can expect.
5. Single Sign-On
Single Sign-On, or SSO, is the tool to integrate with a central authentication platform. It makes the login easier and allows your employees to use a single set of login info for both the training portal and other digital properties. Thus, it is perfect if you need to centralize access management and maintain better security, preventing data breaches, this type of LMS Integration will be a good choice. Other benefits include a decline in password fatigue, reduced IT costs, and reduced risk because it helps users to choose hard-to-guess complex passwords. At the same time, admins feel comfortable knowing only those with the right privileges can access accounts.
eFront, for example, allows you to connect the eLearning portal’s authentication with any LDAP, SAML 2.0, or Active Directory.
Some of the best single Sign-On solutions are:
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AWS Single Sign-On;
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Lastpass Enterprise;
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Idaptive Single Sign-On;
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Okta Single Sign-On;
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SecureAuth Identity Platform;
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Microsoft Azure Active Directory;
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OneLogin Secure Single Sign-On;
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Symantec VIP Access Manager SSO;
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Rippling Single Sign-On;
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RSA SecureID Access
6. Collaboration Tools
Collaboration LMS integrations are meant to bring people together in a digital space with the help of various tools, from shared calendars to PM platforms. From a technical perspective, it saves time and provides open communication. Mixing it up with the video conferencing tool will be a boost in productivity and efficiency.
Here are some examples of such LMS integrations for your business: mind mapping, using the diagrams to represent ideas, linked items, in other words structuring the info helps to develop new ideas. Another peculiar tool is Wrike, which can come in handy to Project Managers and other mentors in terms of distributing the material among members, collaborating, setting and monitoring the deadlines, having post-work discussions, and so on.
7. Video Conferencing
Without any doubt, participation in online video training is the most effective way to bring people together and get them more involved personally. So this LMS integration type helps to combine your favorite web conferencing software to organize live events and increase participation. Having the opportunity to ask questions, share experience and get the insider tips and tricks inspire remote coworkers to collaborate better and learn faster, easier, and get that sense of belonging which people may lack in the lockdown era.
There is an option to market live events, adding them to the group calendar, recording for later viewing, and uploading them to the learning management system software library just right on the platform.
8. Social Media LMS integrations
It is no secret Social media has become a built-in part of our daily lives, so it must be an integral part of your LMS too. Social Media LMS integrations allow you to add plenty of small necessary details to your LMS. Online discussion forums, online training resource sharing, peer eLearning feedback, and support can all be integrated. One of the benefits is that according to statistics, users who display their certification achievement on LinkedIn get up to six times more profile reviews.
Everyone knows Twitter. Embedding the company’s Twitter feed will help learners and future clients to stay tuned for the company news. Next, learners will be able to tweet about their progress in studies and the courses they’ve completed.
LMS for nonprofits can also leverage social media integrations to enhance their training programs and community engagement.
To sum up, a great learning management system shouldn’t be too complicated. Choosing the right LMS integrations, you’re getting multiple benefits:
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they seamline L&D tasks;
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improve online training ROI;
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reduce redundancies and human error;
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boost customer service and sales;
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improve cooperation;
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gain clear actionable business insights and so much more
The more integrated your systems are, the easier it will be for employees, teams, departments to collaborate, achieve their objectives, and the better user-experience your clients will have.
For the best choice of the learning management system software integration tool, we recommend you to do the following steps:
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First, get the analytics of the current needs of the company, eLearning in particular;
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Focus on your unique online training requirements;
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Evaluate the parameters;
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Get the test experience of the tools you’re choosing from.
Keep in mind that most companies offer free trials or demos, so you can choose the best LMS for your business. So, making a thorough research, consider the features, all pros, and cons and you will make the best choice of the LMS integration. It is time to boost the success of your company.
