LMS Reporting Problems – Getting to the Source

Are Your Reporting Problems Really Reporting Problems – or Something Else?

By John Schneble, Product Director, Technology Solutions, Expertus

John Schneble, Product Director, Technology Solutions, Expertus

Of all the challenges associated with legacy learning management systems, reporting is almost always cited as the toughest.

If you’re familiar with any enterprise LMS, I’m sure you’re not surprised. And if you’re responsible for responding to numerous executives who request complex, multifaceted LMS reports on-the-fly, you know exactly where the difficulties lie.

We’ve all encountered technical issues (such as system downtime) and stale data (delays of a day or even a week are not uncommon). But there are 3 other key concerns: limited data access, costly/complex reporting tools and “dirty” data.

Top 3 Reasons for Reporting Headaches

1. Limited Data Access – Your reports don’t have access to necessary data captured in LMS fields, or the LMS doesn’t capture this needed data.
2. Costly Reporting Tools – Too often the tools required to generate the reports you need are sophisticated 3rd party reporting tools that require licenses (money) and expertise (money).
3. Dirty Data – If you don’t know it before you deliver a new report, you will hear about it soon after. Data integrity is a challenge in any enterprise-wide platform, and especially in an LMS.

Now, estimate the sum of all of this effort, and then take an honest look at what you are delivering – incomplete or invalid information, after the fact! Here are suggestions for handling these issues:

Tip #1: Reporting vs. Data Availability – Clarify the Problem

What would happen if you asked everyone who requests reports whether they’d prefer real-time access to that information? I’m sure a large percentage would laugh, and say “of course!”

Do you think they’d be able to do their jobs more efficiently if they had immediate access? Do you think they’d be more effective at reducing business risk if they knew at any moment that someone was out of compliance with training requirements?

If so, then I challenge you to view their situation as a data availability problem, not a reporting problem.

A report is an after-action summary. It answers the question, “What happened?” But if your requesters are trying to manage today’s operations, they don’t need a report. They need a tool that reveals “What’s happening now?”

Tip #2: Proactive vs. Reactive Management – Is It Worth the Risk?

Too often managers are responsible for ensuring that their employees are compliant. However, they don’t have the necessary data available to make this happen. Instead, they’re forced to request “after-action summaries” and must manage their team’s compliance based on less-than-timely data.

Needless to say, this is a frustrating and risky process.

Tip #3: Dynamic Learning Platform vs. Legacy LMS – 4 Key Advantages

For more than a decade, Expertus has configured, customized, implemented and supported today’s major enterprise learning management systems (LMSs), Our technical specialists have been responsible for scoping report requirements; designing custom reports; and deploying, testing and managing  reports on these systems.

Several years ago, we recognized that learning measurement and reporting were one of the weakest links in the learning infrastructure. That’s when we created a next-generation, cloud-based learning platform that – among other things – addresses common LMS reporting problems. That platform is ExpertusONE, and here are the key issues it addresses:

1. Streamlined Reporting – In ExpertusONE, reports are presented in the same browser-based interface as other screens. This means no more 3rd-party reporting tools, no more subscription fees, and no more expensive custom report-building resources!

2. Smarter Architecture – Businesses are moving too fast to be managed using yesterday’s data. Our system architecture supports real-time reporting and data access without the use of a dedicated reporting database, and with zero performance degradation.

3. Open Data Availability – We’ve redefined data availability by ensuring that the system can access and report data from every data field. If your organization is taking the time to capture data, you should be able to access it.

4. Real-time, Actionable Data View – We need to stop looking at manager reports as “reports” and see them for what they really are – highly valuable business decision-support data. That’s why ExpertusONE has built-in management views that provide your senior leaders with quick and easy access to actionable data. If non-compliance is a costly risk, we make sure your managers can avoid it. If performance is a key success factor, we make sure your managers can monitor it.

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Conclusion

If you have any doubt about the structure, scheduling or validity of your learning system reports, we can quickly evaluate your situation, pinpoint the root cause of problems and suggest an effective course of action.

Note from John: If you need expert advice to resolve learning reporting challenges with measurement services or you’re interested in cloud-based tools to drive learning analytics, contact me anytime at johns@expertus.com.

Moving Up – Taking Learning to the Cloud

How to Align Training, Technology and Collaboration with Business Goals

By Ramesh Ramani, Founder and CEO, Expertus

Ramesh Ramani, CEO, Expertus

Today, due to tightened budgets and diminishing returns, your senior leadership is likely challenged to demonstrate the value of training and related learning investments. They’re being asked to directly correlate specific workforce, partner and customer learning initiatives with desired strategic business outcomes.

Until a few years ago, technology and process constraints made this task incredibly difficult – if not outright impossible. However, today it’s possible to map learning relevance with business success – even in a world of changing demographics, preferences and generational styles.

The lines between training and learning are blurring. And cloud technology solutions are a perfect foundation for a strong, seamless bond across formal learning management and informal, collaborative, social knowledge-sharing activities.

Overcoming Our Challenges

Traditionally, organizations have grappled with 2 dimensions of the learning challenge:

• Technology limitations that inhibit support of seemingly simple business goals – for example, the concept of distributing the right information, to the right people, at the right time.
• Alignment of learning activities with business goals - a more challenging issue, because, among other things, learning programs aren’t the only factor that influence business performance.

What’s more, in today’s flat world, growth-oriented businesses more frequently depend on an extended-enterprise network to generate global product and services sales. But traditional remote training is not scalable enough to keep pace with today’s fast-changing business needs.

Developing the Solution

This is why learning in the cloud can be a game-changer for your organization. It instantly delivers content to a global audience. It fosters enterprise-wide collaboration. And it helps you link learning with performance – which ultimately drives innovation and achieves your targeted business goals.

Tip #1: Reduce Response Time by Embracing Agility

With a cloud-based learning platform, your company can be more responsive to fluid business conditions – dynamically and painlessly scaling resources, content and access up or down without burdening your internal IT organization and infrastructure.

A cloud-based learning solution can also be enabled to detect workload changes and automatically provision appropriate resources for your various user communities. This helps your business react more swiftly to competitive threats; drive simultaneous worldwide product roll-outs; and pursue more new opportunities, while containing costs and managing risks.

Tip #2: Drive Productivity with a Content Distribution Network

When augmented with other technologies, such as a Content Distribution Network, a cloud-based learning platform becomes a powerful tool to make appropriate localized content simultaneously available across many geographies – a level of optimization and efficiency that was previously impractical.

Now employees from across your organization can fully leverage learning tools, knowledge sharing, research, resources, within a seamless, real-time, unified ecosystem. They can also leverage the best practices and lessons-learned from your organization’s top performers. The result? Users will know more, be more productive and can work collectively to drive innovation – a key to sustainable competitive advantage.

Tip #3: Improve Learning Adoption with Prescriptive Content

Advanced data delivery is another cloud computing characteristic that promotes learner adoption. Because cloud learning makes prescriptive information and other resources available to each user precisely when needed, learners can better manage their time, and are likely to be more satisfied with the learning experience, overall.

Tip #4: Accelerate Innovation with Advanced Analytics and Reporting

Cloud-based learning solutions also facilitate new, powerful business analytics and reporting tools that can help your company gauge effectiveness and adjust it accordingly – by location or by business function. For example, the success of product launch support in one country can be retooled for another location – and this can be implemented very quickly without additional planning cycles.

Services such as these enable your company to target specific learning needs and objectives with minimal investment and risk. Viable applications include:

• Product/service roll-outs – Dramatically shorten rollout cycles by delivering comprehensive training, education and knowledge transfer virtually, on a global scale.
• New hire training – Provide on-boarding and ongoing mentoring programs virtually, to dramatically time-to-proficiency and enhance employee engagement.
• Business impact meetings – Bring key managers and experts together to accomplish targeted business objectives – through collaborative brainstorming and problem solving sessions.

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Conclusion

For some, cloud computing is still a nebulous concept for many to grasp. But it’s becoming a hot topic in boardrooms around the world – and for good reason. It’s already transformed many aspects of information technology. But it’s much more than a concept. Cloud-based platforms like the ExpertusONE dynamic LMS are playing a pivotal role in transforming corporate learning, workforce development and performance management.

Note from Ramesh: How will cloud learning and talent management impact your business? For more ideas, read my complete article, as featured in CLO Magazine. Visit the Expertus website. Or  email questions and comments to me at rameshr@expertus.com.