Reporting functionality continues to be one of the most important factors in the decision to purchase a Learning Management System.  Yet studies are showing that reporting is a leading cause of dissatisfaction among LMS users.  This data suggests there is an obvious disconnect between what LMS users want and what leading LMS companies are providing.
 

High or Low Priority?

One reason for the poor Learning Management System tool set is the fact that the LMS is becoming a secondary offering among many providers.  Many are focusing on other factors than learning management.  Content providers, authoring tools, Talent Management Systems and Human Capital Development providers have scrambled to acquire and “bolt on” LMS tools to their core solution, leaving the LMS as a lower priority relative to their core product and competency.

More can mean Less

Another reason that LMS reporting tools are suffering is that many providers have focused their efforts on increasing their list of features to “Keep up with the Jones.  Often wider functionality results in shallow capability.  Customer surveys show that reporting is one of the features coming up short. A report from Bersin by Deloitte found that “Many LMS customers have abandoned the reporting features provided by their LMS in favor of customized or third party solutions.  Only 23% of organizations feel they are getting the data and reporting they need from their LMS to adequately measure their training programs and operations.”  In contrast, many Accord LMS customers identify the powerful and flexible reporting as main factors in selection and staying with the Accord LMS.  

Accord LMS Reporting Features

• Numerous reports provide standard metrics right out of the box
• Customize any report for specific learners, filters and stakeholders
• Automate the frequency and distribution of standard and custom reports
• Wide range of report format - PDF, Excel, CSV, Rich Text, TIFF and more
• Quicktest –check the results before committing to automation
• Granular reporting on groups, individuals, courses, learning elements and even specific questions
• Question reporting can be used to improve content and/or test questions
• Report on SCORM, non-SCORM content and referenceware access
• Intuitive report graphics and color coded results

Compounded Efficiency

These features provide a great time and labor savings, but there is more - the Accord LMS allows me to use a single report for any number of Teams, where each Team has a defined group of Learners. Each report is automatically filtered to deliver only the utilization results for the Learners on each stakeholder’s team. If I had 4 teams and 10 unique reports, I would only have to create and maintain the 10 reports to be used by all teams, instead 40. As an added bonus, if I place the 4 territory Teams under a single division Team, the division stakeholders will get results from all territories. In fact, multiple division Teams could be placed under a single corporate Team for further increases in the Learner reporting scope. These 10 reports could serve a large company with 300 local branches, and a hierarchical corporate structure. Each team in the training structure would receive reports on only their cross section or grouping of Learners. With many other LMS, this would require 3000 separate reports to be created each quarter!

Usage Details on non-SCORM Items

Our company uses job descriptions and SOPs as a training materials, deployed as a PDF. The only information we get back on those assets are from surveys deployed in the LMS with questions relating to the use of the PDF. We don’t have any actual usage data for the asset itself; as a non-SCORM item, most LMS systems will not return data on its usage. Accord LMS provides options to present your non-SCORM assets as a learning element to provide launch and tracking data that can be reported along with your SCORM content.

Readability

I spend a great deal of time explaining reports from LMS systems to stakeholders- they are not intuitive. Accord LMS reports have a simple color coding scheme and simple layout that help a reviewer read and understand status of items. This formatting is retained when exported from the web presentation to Excel or PDF formats.

Please contact one of the Accord LMS experts at info@accordlms.com if reporting is important to you or your organization.