From watching your favorite movies at home to ordering groceries online: what do all of these activities have in common? They happen on demand!

In this day and age, technology allows us to do a lot of things on-demand that traditionally were not as easy to do; in the same way that society now expects more flexibility while watching movies at home, they want while completing professional development and career training.

When it comes to training employees and customers online, the ultimate tool to use is a Learning management system (LMS). Still, there are over a thousand LMSs on the market and not all of them are created equal. Get comfortable and ready to take some notes, because we’re about to explain exactly how you can choose an LMS for on-demand training.

Why Train Your Employees And Customers On-Demand?

Whether you’re training partners of an international food chain or employees in a local SMB, training teams using on-demand courses is beneficial for both you and the employee. The best way to train on-demand is by using a Learning management system (LMS)

On-demand courses let employees access professional development and other training in real time from anywhere in the world. This makes maintaining certifications and training more convenient for the employee (internal or external), and a lot more efficient for the employer (you). Regardless if a training course is accredited or not, it’s just important for training to be available as an online course nowadays since it’s easier for everyone involved. Giving your teams access to on-demand training courses doesn’t mean that you can never host training in person, it just saves your company while delivering simple training.

Feature To Consider In An LMS For On-Demand Training

Since LMSs are designed for eLearning—at their core—they’re used to create and manage on-demand training. In other words, using an LMS you can create courses that learners take online in their own time (also known as self-paced learning). Even though all LMSs prioritize on-demand training and being able to report on learners’ performances in courses, not all LMSs are worth your investment.

Let’s talk about some critical features of an LMS for on-demand training:

Content Creation & Course Authoring

Course authoring is just a fancy way of saying creating an eLearning course to work with an LMS. The standard approach to creating a course is using a standalone authoring tool like iSpring or Articulate Storyline. These cloud-based tools make combining eLearning content into courses that you can upload into LMSs and then report on learner performance easy. One downside to authoring with a standalone tool is that you will still need to have an LMS to host the course.

Some Learning management systems actually bake course authoring into the system. The Academy Of Mine LMS, for example, lets you upload videos, design quizzes and written assignments, and more right on the platform! Regardless of your training use case, if you’re using an LMS for on-demand training, you’re going to want a platform with a nice built-in course authoring tool. On top of that, make sure your LMS is SCORM-compatible. SCORM is just the standard file format you will get while using standalone authoring tools.

When your LMS is SCORM compatible, along with its own authoring tool, the sky’s the limit for on-demand training programs.

Learner Reporting

It would be weird if you were offering professional training and didn’t care about whether teams were successfully completing courses. That’s why it’s important for your LMS to be loaded with the ability to generate reports on a learner’s course completions, assessment scores, time spent on a course, and more. Reporting in the LMS is important for keeping detailed training records of your learners.

Here are a few types of reports that you can generate in the LMS:

• Keep track of learner quiz scores
• Keep track of learner attendance
• See how much time learners spend on a module or course
• See how many learners are enrolled in a course
• Double-check that learners have submitted an assignment
• Zoom in on one learner or run reports on a whole ‘classroom’

Become an expert on reporting on a training program in the LMS.

Use-Friendly Admin Dashboard

Have you ever been to a fast food restaurant where you place your order using a digital kiosk instead of telling a server what you want? Just like LMSs, these are only effective if they’re user-friendly. With on-demand learning—since learners are going through an online system to learn on their own—user-friendliness is critical. The quickest way to check if an LMS is user-friendly is to try it yourself. You can try the Academy Of Mine LMS after a demo!

Similarly, just because an LMS company is established and has raised millions in funding like LearnUpon, doesn’t mean their platform is user-friendly. You need to figure out exactly what features you’re looking for in an LMS, so that your journey to finding the perfect LMS is objective, rather than highly influenced by marketing.

On top of an LMS being easy to use for learners, you will also want your platform to be easy to create courses with.

Here are a few LMS features specific to managing training:

• Customizing learner dashboards
• B2B portals (train customers & partners at scale)
• Visual branding & white-labeling
• Customer support
• LMS documentation and tutorials

Cost Of An LMS (deployment & subscription price)

Most Learning management systems are going to start at around $10,000 a year (ours starts at $7k) and you can pay monthly or annually. If you’re thinking, “this sounds expensive”, you should understand that trying to build your own LMS is far more pricey. Back to the original point, you and your team need to figure out your eLearning budget before shopping for an LMS.

If your budget is very low, like $100-$200 a month then you’re going to struggle to find a scalable eLearning platform. Still, if your budget is only this because you’re not looking for anything complex, you may be able to create and sell courses perfectly with a platform like Thinkific and WordPress. If you’re considering Thinkific, read about how it compares to Academy Of Mine too.

Another consideration in the budget: if you’re looking for a customized LMS that’s designed around your unique training needs, it’s going to be much more expensive than a platform that’s not custom developed for you.

eCommerce Functionality

Do you need to sell your training courses? If so, do you need to sell them in bulk or just to individuals? Most LMSs have basic eCommerce functionality built into the platform, or at the very least they integrate with eCommerce stores. With Academy Of Mine, you can sell courses directly on our platform — you can even build your own eCommerce site at no extra cost. Additionally, if you already have a Shopify or other eCommerce provider, you can integrate Academy Of Mine LMS with that.

If you would like to sell courses directly on the LMS, ask the LMS vendor you’re considering, because this is not a standard feature in most LMSs or other eLearning platforms. If you already have an eCommerce site that you would like to use with the LMS to sell training, make sure your LMS integrates with your platform. Thinkific and WordPress. If you’re considering Thinkific, read about how it compares to Academy Of Mine too.

Another consideration in the budget: if you’re looking for a customized LMS that’s designed around your unique training needs, it’s going to be much more expensive than a platform that’s not custom developed for you.

Deciding On The Perfect LMS For On-Demand Training

Some of the most important features of an LMS for on-demand training are course authoring, learner reports, and a platform’s user-friendliness. That said, you can make the decision of choosing an LMS easier by figuring out the specific features your company needs for on-demand training, in addition to the basics. For example, within course authoring, what type of flexibility do you need while creating on-demand courses?

Knowing what features are a “must” for you, makes it easy to say no to LMSs that don’t check the boxes. We hope this guide helps you choose an LMS for on-demand training — if you’d like some more help in making a decision, give us a call and let us know how we can help.

We hope this guide helps you choose an LMS for on-demand training — if you’d like some more help in making a decision, give us a call and let us know how we can help.