As more companies adopt a learning management system (LMS) to help them organize and manage corporate training, we are receiving more requests for integrations between the LMS and other corporate systems. The goal: Maximize ROI by creating a unified talent management suite. Most often, we perform integrations with human resource management or ‘talent’ management systems for corporate clients and student information systems in the case of educational institutions. Systems integration is important for following reasons.
For large corporate clients, the main reasons are to allow performance management, learning management, and succession planning. Information about course completion and progress toward certifications stored in the LMS is accessible through HRM systems to allow human resources, managers and employees themselves to see how training programs fit into larger corporate, department and individual goals. Employees can determine what they should focus on in terms of training and management can see who is up to date, and who might need encouragement.
On the flip side, management can determine where there may be gaps in training programs that would lead to improved employee performance -- based on goals in the HRM that are not supported by training in the LMS. By combining information from the LMS and HRM system, you can create revealing reports that might show, for example, that training supports the corporate goal to expand sales, but does not support the goal to expand marketing efforts through social media.
For post-secondary institutions, integrating information from the LMS into your existing student information system is imperative in order to keep student records up to date. Information about grades and course completion feeds into the SIS to allow schools to keep track of student progress. With reliable, real-time integration, students, faculty, and administrators can rely on up-to-the-minute data to support critical information services, including course catalog management, class scheduling, class enrollment, registration, course adds and drops, and grade books. Integration also makes creating reports that cross systems easier.
Second, it is a simply good practice in information technology that no information from one system is re-keyed into another system. Apart from the obvious waste of time that re-entering information represents, re-keying can lead to error. Integration provides seamless bi-directional information transfer and when the integration is done by experts, it will not introduce errors.
Third, adopting an integration strategy allows your company to select from among the best solutions based on your unique requirements. At this stage in the development of online learning for corporations, most LMS’s are standalone offerings and require some degree of integration with other software systems. However, if you are looking to adopt an LMS and do not already have a human resources system, you might consider Totara LMS. This latest version introduces a built-in performance management solution that means you don’t have to buy an LMS and a separate HRM. You get a complete learning management suite and integration becomes unnecessary. Looking to find out more? Contact our Totara experts for a demo.