Everything You Need to Know About Your Next LMS
Want to see how an LMS works from the inside? Sign up and take a self-guided, five-step tour of Lessonly.
For Support Teams
Serve customers faster, drive consistent support, and elevate the customer experience.
For Sales Teams
Reinforce best practices, accelerate rep performance, and close more deals.
For Growing Teams
Reduce ramp time, increase new-hire productivity, and keep up with rapid expansion.
What People Are Saying About Lessonly
Read Our LMS Reviews
Investing in an online learning management system is a big decision. When you begin seeking out the best LMS for your team, it’s important to consider what real customers are saying about their experiences. Too often, LMS vendors don’t go above and beyond when building relationships with their customers. They view the software purchasing process as nothing more than a transactional exchange. As a result, their customers walk away with negative experiences and lackluster reviews.
At Lessonly, we do things differently than most SaaS LMS companies. We strive to be not just a software vendor, but a partner. We work to know our customers well and do everything we can to help them succeed. We want each one to have a positive experience implementing and using LMS training software, because we know just how impactful and transformative the right learning program can be.
Many of our customers have seen tremendous ROI after making Lessonly an integral part of their employee training and learning processes. But don’t just take our word for it. The reviews and case studies below speak to how much our customers love using Lessonly, and how we value them.
Learning Management SystemComparison Matrix
Before committing to a cloud-based learning management system, it’s crucial that you initiate an LMS comparison and—whenever possible—try before you buy. This will help you weigh the pros and cons of different software products against your team’s specific wants, needs, and must-have features. You might include an LMS pricing comparison, LMS software comparison, and LMS platforms comparison to truly measure different systems against one another.
To make your learning management system comparison easy, we’ve put together a matrix below. Use it to find a modern LMS that works like your team does.
The Best LMS for Your Team
Gone are the days of boring slideshow presentations, monotonous webinars, and clunky training manuals. In today’s companies, modern learning has quickly become the new norm. What exactly is modern learning? It’s training that’s focused on improving employee productivity and efficiency. And with a modern learning management system, employees ramp up faster, learn information more quickly, and ultimately start achieving results sooner. Sounds pretty great, right?
The best LMS systems are designed to help businesses achieve major returns in productivity and performance. Modern learning is dynamic, easily accessible, fast-paced, and engaging, and the best LMS software companies build their products accordingly, with the goal of taking team and employee learning to the next level.
Lessonly is proud to be at the forefront of modern learning, and we’ve designed our software to be the best LMS for companies looking to improve employee and team productivity. With dozens of features aimed at this goal, Lessonly can take your team performance to new heights. The next several sections will help you see what Lessonly is all about.
Finding a Top LMS
In searching for the best LMS in the market, you’ve probably read top 10 LMS lists and asked your network for their recommendations of popular LMSs. By seeking advice and doing this research, you’ll be able to narrow your learning management systems list down to a handful of top options. That said, we don’t think you need to look any further for a top LMS system. Lessonly is a leader in the industry; we’re excited to be working with so many companies who are using our software to learn and track employee achievement and growth.
This page explores a variety of LMS features while highlighting what’s different about Lessonly—and how we rise above of the pack. You’ll learn how a modern LMS will benefit you, your team, and your business as a whole, and why Lessonly has the features and support team to help you do it well. As a software partner with a top-performing platform, we’ll be with your team every step of the way to maximize your investment in learning and training.
LMS Features and Benefits
Lessonly is built for modern learning, with features designed to make creating, distributing, and tracking learning content as easy as possible. Some businesses debate the benefits of adopting an LMS vs. LCMS, or learning content management system. Traditionally, an LCMS was required to create learning content that was then distributed to employees via an LMS. Today, that two-tool approach is no longer necessary.
Truly modern LMSs bring together the best creation and distribution workflows to create an easy, accessible, all-in-one experience. Lessonly eliminates the need for an LCMS, because it’s essentially a combined LMS LCMS.
Below is a learning management features list that walks through the features and benefits we believe are essential to getting the most out of a web based learning management system. Prioritizing these features will help transform your team into a more productive, effective, and energetic group of active learners.
Speed vs Fidelity
When it comes to LMSs, are you Team Speed? Or Team Fidelity? Let us explain…
At Lessonly, we talk with customers every day who are exploring what a learning management system can do for them. We generally categorize customers into two different groups—those who value speed in learning, and those who value fidelity.
Both speed and fidelity are positive qualities in regard to learning and training. Traditionally, fidelity has been prioritized and is suited for content that’s fairly permanent, static, and highly-produced. That said, speed is the essence of modern learning in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing workplace.
While fidelity is well-suited for training on compliance-related topics like sexual harassment and company legal matters, it doesn’t make much sense to invest the time and resources necessary to create high-fidelity content for job-specific training. In order to ramp up team members effectively, it’s essential to create training content quickly, without sacrificing the quality of learning. This is why modern companies prioritize speed in their LMS software.
Lessonly is designed for the speed of modern business. Our easy-to-use lesson builder supports a wide variety of content and media to enable easy creation of lessons—that also look good. Productivity learning is the future, and we’re thrilled to be helping winning teams enjoy a greater ROI on learning.
Access vs Mastery
How do your employees currently access training materials? Online handbooks? Server files? A binder that’s been passed around for years?
None of these delivery mechanisms are convenient or easily accessible. At Lessonly, easy access is our thing. We believe that providing employees universal, unlimited access to training materials and resources is critical to employee, team, and company success. Because of that, we’ve worked hard to make sure Lessonly is accessible on mobile devices, across various platforms, and integrated into the applications your team already uses everyday.
When you choose access over mastery, you’ve leveled up your methodology to fit a modern, learner-first approach to training. It’s unrealistic to expect your employees to truly master specific job information prior to jumping in and getting their hands dirty. Instead, by providing them with open access to that same information, you’ve set them up for success by empowering them to learn by doing, contribute faster, and continuously improve.
A SaaS learning management system should be easy to access—anywhere, anytime, and from any device. And Lessonly makes inaccessibility a thing of the past.
Analytics vs Dogma
If your team is in the market for an LMS training system, you’re probably no stranger to robust analytics and tracking technology. You are likely already taking advantage of data-driven tools in other areas of your business, and using them to propel your company forward. So, why have employee learning programs historically been immune to tracking, data, and analytics?
Modern companies don’t rest their laurels on outdated or close-minded dogma. Instead, they analyze and optimize everything, using sophisticated data tracking to inform their strategies, plans, and decisions. Lessonly’s analytics tools are designed to track learning engagement, measure employee growth, reveal key insights, and more—all with the aim of uncovering, and improving ROI on learning. When you empower employees with the right training tools and back it up with the ability to track and measure that growth, amazing things happen.
Salesforce, Slack & Chrome
When launching a learning management system for employee learning, it’s important that system is easy, streamlined, and headache-free. If it’s difficult to use in the course of everyday work, chances are, employees simply won’t use it. Many employees today suffer from application overload—having to use too many programs and platforms to get their work done. An LMS shouldn’t add unnecessary stress in that regard. It should be easy to use, easy to access, and an organic help to an employee’s day.
Lessonly seamlessly integrates into Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, giving teams the information, lessons, and metrics they need directly in Salesforce. Essentially, this Salesforce LMS keeps things simple and straightforward, allowing sales and supports teams to access important training information right when they need it—like the middle of negotiation or support call.
And Lessonly integrates with more than Salesforce. You’ll be happy to know that Lessonly integrates with Slack, so your teams can access and share learning content directly in the Slack app. In addition, our Google Chrome extension makes finding learning content as easy as a Google search. These integrations are just a few of the ways Lessonly is designed to make learning a more accessible and natural part of the employee experience.
SCORM
You already know that Lessonly is built for speed. Fast-paced, quickly changing lessons are the name of our game. At the same time, we know that some companies still rely on SCORM to distribute and share learning content. Developed over a decade ago, and cheekily referred to as a tin can LMS, SCORM is certainly not at the cutting edge of LMS elearning technology. But it isn’t dead yet. For that reason, Lessonly is a SCORM compliant LMS that can import existing SCORM content. And while Lessonly supports SCORM, it doesn’t require it.
While SCORM compliant learning management systems might be harder and harder to come by, you’ll find what you’re looking for with Lessonly. And, if you decide to move away from SCORM, Lessonly contains everything you need to create robust, dynamic content without additional tools or software.
LMS Vendors vs LMS Partners
LMS Vendors
Not every LMS company is created equal. Some are LMS vendors, vying for your money and disinterested in the actual customer experience they provide. Learning management system vendors, unfortunately, don’t have much of an interest in developing relationships with their customers, or in helping them succeed. These businesses miss the true benefits and ROI of implementing an employee learning program.
At Lessonly, we’re determined to be more than an LMS vendor. We strive to be an LMS partner, helping each of our 400+ customers succeed and make the most of their employee learning program. Empower our customers to use Lessonly and its many features has led to some incredible success stories.
LMS Partners
We take pride in being different than most LMS providers. We don’t just sell learning software, we partner with customers to help them succeed and implement a complete learning solution. Don’t just take our word for it. Check out what one of our customers, Jared Alfson at TeleQuality Communications, has to say about working with Lessonly:
“We set out to find a Learning Management System that would allow us to provide educational resources to both on premise and remote workers. We also wanted to archive content so that it could later be used as a reference, and re-watched as needed. Lessonly came through as a great fit. As a bonus, it’s got a great, intuitive interface that has enabled folks from throughout our company to create lesson’s without the need for a lot of training on creating lessons. It came with the simplicity of an intuitive interface, and the flexibility of an LMS that fit our current needs very well! In addition, Lessonly’s team has done a phenomenal job of supporting us. I look at them more of a partner than a traditional vendor.”
LMS Overview
If you’re new to the concept of learning management, you might not be entirely aware of what exactly a learning management system does. The formal definition of learning management system, according to good ‘ol Wikipedia, reads as follows: a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of educational courses or training programs. They help the instructor deliver material to the students, administer tests and other assignments, track student progress, and manage record-keeping.
While that LMS definition is straightforward and to-the-point, we define LMS in terms of modern learning: a modern LMS helps teams level up, increase their productivity, and reap the benefits of learning ROI. Let’s walk through a more detailed overview of what an LMS does, why it matters, and who the heck uses it, anyway.
What Is LMS?
So, what is a learning management system? At its core, a learning management system is a software application. There are different types of learning management systems, but not all LMSs are created equal. At Lessonly, we pride ourselves on going above and beyond the common LMS by putting learners first and focusing on modern learning practices. Give us a try below—we think you’ll agree.
What Does It Do?
As the world becomes more digitized by the day, so does employee learning. Modern companies need a fast, efficient, and organized way to catalogue information and training materials for their employees. LMSs like Lessonly help companies capture internal knowledge, best practices, and team policies as searchable and assignable step-by-step lessons. Pretty awesome, right?
LMSs are great for teams—for both managers and employees. Modern LMSs give managers insights into their team’s learning and show who has completed assignments, who still needs to complete certain lessons, and where the team can improve, both collectively and individually.
Modern LMSs give employees a fast way to onboard, learn essential company information, and receive training for their specific job. Ideally, the LMS gives employees unlimited access to lessons and information on any device, anywhere. A modern LMS also makes employee learning engaging and fun.
Who Uses It?
One of the best things about a modern LMS is its flexibility in addressing the needs of different teams across an entire company. In that way, an LMS can be used differently by specific teams, based on their particular training needs and goals.
For example, if a sales team is working to drive more sales, an LMS can deliver training to reps directly in Salesforce, where they can also access key sales information and materials that will help them perform better. Customer support teams can also benefit greatly from an LMS. By providing a customer support team with fast-paced lessons, they get up to speed quickly and learn and retain support strategies and best practices.
Finally, an LMS is the best way growing teams can get new hires onboarded quickly. Managers on growing teams are often so strapped for time that hands-on training with new hires is difficult to squeeze in. With a modern LMS like Lessonly, new hires can quickly get started on their jobs and be set up for success from the get-go.
Types of LMSs
For Businesses
An LMS is what you make of it. That said, some corporate LMS systems seem designed to protect companies from their employees. What does that mean, exactly? It means that some LMS systems for business were designed simply to replace all those dull meetings about compliance-related issues that end by signing some sort of disclaimer or contract.
An LMS for corporate training does have value in the learning management system market, but at Lessonly, that’s not what we’re striving to build for our customers. We want to revolutionize the way companies share information and tactical knowledge with their employees. With our dynamic, easily-accessible LMS, we’re doing that.
LMS systems for business don’t have to be solely focused on compliance policies. Rethink employee training and adopt an LMS that goes beyond the outdated, boring approaches of traditional corporate learning.
For Teams
A Corporate LMS doesn’t have to be hierarchical, tyrannical, or designed to keep employees at arm’s length from the company. The best corporate LMS training, in fact, does the opposite. Lessonly has known this from the start. There are many different types of learning management systems; at Lessonly, we’ve designed ours as a modern LMS. We built it to be accessible and easy-to-use, to help great teams work together to do great things.
Teams love Lessonly because it’s so easy to use. Managers and employees alike can’t believe how intuitive the platform is when they’re creating, assigning, and completing lessons. This ease of use makes learning engaging, valuable, and most importantly, worth everyone’s time.
Rethink LMS corporate training. Try Lessonly free and see what modern learning can do for your team today.
History of LMSs
The Past
LMS history technically dates back to the very beginning of learning. At its core, a learning management system is simply a tool for recording and distributing knowledge. Through that lens, the earliest forms of communication—from cave paintings to cuneiform—can be considered the beginning of LMSs. The arrival of new technologies, however, changed learning forever. One of the first LMSs was created in 1924, when Sidney Pressey invented the first typing machine. Similar to a typewriter, his device had an additional window that displayed multiple-choice questions.
The decades that followed saw the first computer created by Hewlett-Packard in 1972 and the introduction of the World Wide Web in 1982. Both of these innovations made LMSs, as we know them today, possible and enabled the digital future of learning. In 2004, SCORM was released and that technology is still widely used in LMS systems today.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments
The Present
Today, there is a massive difference in the way people learn in their personal lives and the ways they are asked and expected to learn information at work. Many companies still operate in the past and, as such, simply can’t keep up with the exponential growth curve of modern technology, software, and information access.
When you consider the history of LMS, it’s impossible not to take these growth curves into account. And a modern LMS, like Lessonly, understands that learning management looks very different today than it did even five years ago. And that’s where our concept of modern learning comes into play.
More and more, employees value democratized, or crowdsourced, learning that empowers individual contributors and top performers to share ideas with the people that value them most—their peers. Lessonly is built with this approach in mind, and we’re thrilled to see companies putting democratized learning into practice with the help of our LMS.
The Future
The future of LMS is exciting, yet full of unknowns. With AI and VR technologies on the rise, we see many opportunities to make learning even more engaging and personalized for employees and teams at companies across the world. Learning automation and machine learning technology will continue to improve the ways teams to learn job and company-specific information.
Lessonly is thrilled to be a leader in the employee learning industry. We’ll continue to grow and expand our platform as the demands of our customers change and evolve. In fact, we’re so excited about the future of LMS, we wrote a learning trends report detailing our predictions about the future of learning. You can check it out here. AI, VR, the gamification of learning, and the idea of moving “beyond learning management”…it’s all inside.
As the world becomes faster-paced and more digital everyday, the companies that remain stuck in outdated methods will get left behind, while those who adopt modern learning will continue to excel and evolve.
