Upskilling your employees is a critical success factor in business. However, it is becoming increasingly relevant in today’s corporate landscape, where technological advances and the changing preferences of consumers often result in businesses falling behind their competition – if they don’t take measures to keep pace with the evolution.

Any business that aspires to be a market leader, or at least maintain a significant presence within it, must invest major resources towards the professional development of their employees. Doing this will enable them to keep their most valuable staff, increase productivity and move the business forward.

One of the best ways companies can help their employees upskill is to embrace the power of a learning management system (LMS). This type of training platform has significantly grown in popularity over the last decade as more organisations centralise their employee training platforms and streamline the process of creating and delivering professional development content.

However, like any software platform, if your LMS is not integrated adequately into your company’s existing tech stack it can cause issues. So, for this reason, you need to take steps to make sure your chosen learning management system is integrated, to benefit from its full capabilities.

But what exactly is an LMS and how do you ensure its integration has been seamless?

Please keep on reading until the end to find out.

What is a Learning Management System?

A learning management system is a web-based technology or software application that is predominantly used by businesses, educational institutions and government agencies to help employees or students plan and set up a specific programme for learning.

Predominantly, it is used for e-learning and typically comprises two elements – a server that performs the basic functionality and a UI (user interface) that is accessed and used by administrators, instructors, and employees/students.

The great thing about an LMS is that it enables organisations to curate and deliver learning content, keep tabs on employee/student participation rates and assess the individual performance of those who undertook specific educational tutorials or workshops. 

Additionally, the system might provide the learners with a suite of interactive features including video conferencing, discussion forums and threaded discussions.

Not all LMS are created equally. However, the most efficient systems allow administrators and instructors to more effectively manage a range of elements including content, user registration and access, communication, calendars, notifications, quizzes and certifications.

What is LMS integration?

The term LMS integration refers to the connection of your learning management system to other platforms and tools your company might have in their tech stack. Without this amalgamation, you won’t be able to effectively facilitate data transfer between any of these systems.

Although LMS platforms differ in nature, the best ones tend to offer smooth workings with your content creation tools. They also can unify with HCM (Human Capital Management) applications, learning tools and video conferencing tools, and various other software applications.

The main objective of these integrations is to ensure your employees (or students) enjoy a maximal learning experience. By combining various educational tools into one centralised platform, it means they do not have to flick between apps and that their data is not subsequently lost in the mix.

Overall, LMS integration enables companies to streamline their training programmes and processes. At the same time, it also improves the learner’s overall educational experience and helps the organisation to create sleeker processes for managing data. 

Benefits of LMS Integrations

LMS Integrations provide several benefits to businesses. Here are three of the main ones.

1. Better user experience

For your employees, successful LMS integrations provide a better user experience.

Your employees are familiar already with the pre-existing platforms. So, by merging them with the LMS it reduces the potential for misunderstanding or friction and encourages them to devote more time to exploring the training resources and materials.

2. Reduces mundane tasks

Most of us have mundane tasks in some element of our remit. However, through LMS integrations, staff can directly pull information from databases, therefore reducing the necessity to enter information manually between platforms.

Additionally, LMS integrations can draw upon to automatically monitor, rate, and analyse learning modules.

3. Better evaluate training methods

Integrating your LMS platform with your existing systems will go a long way towards improving your training evaluations. It does this by reducing the risk of human error and making sure modules are correctly marked.

This provides organisations with a truer indication of employee performance.

The Best Way to Integrate Your LMS

If you want your business to profit from the benefits that LMS integration can bring to your organisation you will need to do a few things.

Firstly, you should identify what your objectives for the integration are. You should also establish what functionality you want to have, what types of data you want to share and which of your workflows you would like to automate.

Once you have done this, you can take these five steps to oversee the integration.

1. Choose your Learning Management System

There are plenty of learning management systems available on the market, including 360 Learning, Absorb, Brightspace Pulse and eFront.

You will need to invest the time to determine which LMS best meets your integration needs. Try to find one with an open API that will easily unify with most other software applications (even if you don’t currently have them in your tech stack).

2. Pick your integration tools

If the LMS doesn’t automatically integrate with your tech stack, you will need to source a tool that does the job for you.

One tool that could work is Microsoft Power Automate. If it doesn’t, you may have to get a custom tool developed.

3. Plan the integration

It is a good idea to devise a plan for the integration process to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible.

To do this, you will need to establish what resources you require and what, if any, security measures are needed to be put in place to safeguard the data.

Once you have done this, you can lay down a timeframe for the new system to be rolled out.

4. Test the integration

Before using the system, you should ensure everything has been integrated properly. 

Doing this usually involves the rigorous testing of the workflows, data exchange and security protocols to ensure there aren’t any glitches or snags.

5. Train your employees

When you are satisfied that the integration has been successful, you can start to roll out the training for your employees on how to use it.

It is worth paying particular attention to workflows that have been automated, so your staff can see the new system’s immediate value.

You should also try and offer online support and training materials to them to help them get quickly to grips with the new system.

If you have picked an LMS that has both an open API and in-built integration functionality, you can begin to create seamless integrations immediately.

FAQs

What is LMS in the UK?

A Learning Management System is a software or web-based application that businesses, schools, universities and government bodies use to help employees or students learn most effectively.

How to integrate an LMS?

To integrate an LMS you’ll first need to find one that meets your needs. You’ll need to choose an LMS with an open AI that seamlessly integrates with third-party software applications. 

Should your LMS not automatically integrate with your tech stack, you will then need to source an integration tool which will be able to do it for you.