The workplace of today is a dynamic environment. We can be forgiven for not keeping up with the latest LMS/LXP technology developments or our users’ needs, desires, and expectations. When you include changing business motivations and governance issues, it’s clear that keeping our learners interested is a complex undertaking. The best aspects of a learning management system, aka LMS features, may not be represented in its current setup for various reasons.

Whatever issues your LMS is facing, this article encourages you to examine its underutilized capabilities to uncover new approaches to meet the goals on your company’s wish list. It examines the standard LMS features seen in today’s learning management systems and identifies seven transformation and improvement opportunities you may have neglected. You’ll think about how your users navigate your system, how quickly they can locate what they need, and language insights.

Before you buy new software, look into these 7 LMS features

Onboarding via video

Is your data suggesting that you’re losing students before they’ve even begun? If that’s the case, corporate learning some essential onboarding into your LMS can be a fantastic intervention, especially if you’re looking for a quick win to jumpstart your project.

Videos can be used for more than just course content. Experiment with creating a small, fast start tour of your platform utilizing a screen casting application. Brevity is crucial; here, give the bare minimum of information your users require to orient themselves before moving right into what they came to do.

A tour is also helpful for emphasizing anything crucial for your users to know but is difficult to navigate within your site. Allow this to serve as a test: If an introductory tour of your LMS takes more than a few minutes or reveals an abundance of items that need to be explained, it may be a hint that your platform requires a more comprehensive overhaul.

Data collection and analysis

Learning professionals can use stored data to follow a learner’s journey, which helps them better understand how courses and learners are performing all in one spot. This allows learning and development professionals to better track and design their programs. Furthermore, being able to recognize where learners need to improve their skills and where they shine speeds up the training process.

Learning experts can deliver a more personalized learning environment by categorizing training content and tagging it by expertise.

Search options

LXP powered by AI for searchability isn’t in your immediate plans as one of the LMS features? Did you realize that some of the more expensive options have a type of functionality that you can probably use right now?

Whatever your LMS features call it, tags, meta tags, categories, and subcategories, this functionality unlocks some of the most potent possibilities for altering your content by making it highly searchable. You’re optimizing your learners’ ability to surface the information they need when they need it when you commit effort in using this function. Suddenly, your learners’ experience is similar to utilizing a search engine. More importantly, you’re taking a big step toward allowing your users to learn as they work.

Manually tagging and categorizing legacy content might take a long time, so plan accordingly. Also, seek valuable tools that might help you with some hard liftings. Try pasting your material into a free word cloud generator, for example.

Notifications and alerts that are sent automatically

Managers and L&D professionals can’t correctly assess a learner’s needs without the essential oversight, even if they utilize a feature-rich learning management system. Automated alerts and notifications are a critical LMS tool for ensuring trainers and supervisors are aware of how their learners are engaging with and finishing course materials. An LMS can deliver feedback to the right people at the right time by providing auto-alerts to learners about their training deadlines or telling educators about a user’s completion rates.

Signposting

If nothing else from this post has persuaded you, let it be that a well-designed user dashboard can be everyone’s best friend. This capacity to enhance and customize what your learners see each time they enter your LMS, sometimes known as “signposting,” is likely a capability within your platform’s functionality.

The first step in effective signposting is to understand what your learners are seeing. When did you last log into your LMS as a user rather than an administrator? You must go across the platform in the shoes of your users for this task. Don’t take anything for granted!

Once you’ve gotten your learners in, make sure they can see (or at least readily access) the big picture of what they need to do. Also, how far along are they in reaching this general goal? Progress bars are unsurpassed in terms of conveying this information at a glance. If used correctly, they can excite your learners within moments of signing into your site. As a result, think of the progress bar as your second best friend.

What are the particular aspects that your students have already finished, and what are their options to work on next?

Above all, this information must be easily accessible. Digital learners, unlike captive audiences of face-to-face course delegates, are likely to have a limited and uneven amount of time. They should be able to sign in to your platform and determine where they should spend their time, whether it’s five minutes or half an hour.

Ideally, they won’t be forced to follow a course in any particular order. You may help your learners manage their time by combining this flexibility with adaptive quizzes (to test their previous knowledge before sending them to the most appropriate content for them). They can provide you with the completion rates of your dreams as a reward.

Vendor assistance

Nobody knows the competitiveness of the LMS and LXP market better than the software companies. What’s the result? The best suppliers will work just as hard to keep your business as they did to earn it in the first place. They’ll be equally obsessed with learning everything there is to know about your LMS and what you need it to accomplish next.

When you factor in your vendor’s technical expertise, this is someone you absolutely want on your team. You’re likely squandering one of your platform’s most valuable resources if no one knows your account manager’s first name.

Even the most proactive and accessible account managers need interaction

Is your vendor greeted by a group of employees who all contribute to the LMS but have no ownership over it when they call to make their quarterly call? This is a regular occurrence for suppliers, which is why it’s critical to empower someone within the company to take on the role of LMS owner and run with it.

Appoint someone who can help you transform this passive collaboration into a collaborative one. If getting to know your vendor proves to be a disappointment, it may be time to start looking for a new vendor. Don’t stop there if your vendor’s customer service is outstanding. Examine their travel map in detail. Hold them responsible for providing the answer you require today and in the future.

Name of the LMS

Every LMS requires a method for naming and arranging its various components. When your platform is brand new, it comes with a built-in taxonomy that is likely to be somewhat generic (“program,” “course,” “module,” “lesson”). In many cases, this jargon refers to a set of factory settings to which you are only bound if you wish to be. Consider replacing the vocabulary with something more appropriate for your audience, content, and culture.

You may impact how your learners engage with your LMS, or if they interact with it at all, by actively picking the words you use to communicate about it. Consider some of the terms used in your platform right now. Is it a generic product? Is it possible that it’s peculiar? Has it been plagiarized from academia? If that’s the case, and you’re not a university, how do your users feel about it?

Perspiration is harmful; positive connotations are excellent!

A group of research scientists may find a set of words engaging and relevant. But a group of seasonal hospitality employees may find them alienating and off-putting. Consider the apps that your students access and interact with regularly as a good place to start. What is their everyday digital environment’s language, and how can you use it to improve their learning experience? Can a topic or a category, for example, become a “channel?” Why not rename software to “playlist”? What would it take to turn a traditional instructor-led class into a “masterclass?” Use as much creativity and originality as your audience will allow.

Take it a step further. Think about the term you’ll use to refer to your LMS as a whole. The temptation to have everyone refer to your platform as “the LMS” can be powerful. It is especially true in surroundings that are already acronym heavy. However, this isn’t the only threat. A variety of factors might contribute to a company’s cultural challenges. Attitudes toward professional growth in the workplace are no exception.

Over time, the term “learning management system” can come to symbolize apathy for your company’s perceived learning offering. While a new name for your system won’t solve deep-seated issues, if you’re ready to make a significant change to your organization’s L&D program, this could be a great time to rebrand and revitalize your current platform. Present it as the debut of a new product. Create a marketing and activation strategy to go along with it.

Conclusion

That concludes our discussion. To take back to your team, here are five conversation starters. And what if you can’t escape a procurement process? You might just learn a lot more about what you need from a sparkling new platform with the best LMS features.