We test 10 online learning platforms for businesses, whether they are tools designed for training companies that sell courses and services to third-parties, or for companies conducting training with internal staff.What Is an Enterprise Training Platform?
Enterprise training software typically falls into two distinct categories: tools designed for training companies that sell courses and services to third-parties, and tools designed for companies that conduct training with internal staff. How you plan on using your training software will ultimately determine the type of solution you'll need, how you'll be charged, what integrations will be available, and and even what eLearning authoring tool you want to use to create your course content. Our Editors' Choice tool Docebo is a wonderful tool for both sets of purchasers, as well as large and small to midsize businesses (SMBs), and that's one of the many reasons we rated it so highly. However, you'll typically find each vendor caters their training software to one specific kind of buyer.
The two kinds of systems are similar in how they operate, but quite different in terms of what they offer: training systems for training companies tend to offer more flexibility in terms of how much content you can store within the system, how many courses and quizzes you can create, how many separate portals (or dashboards) you can create, and how many people can access your content. That's because training companies always attempt to sell their products and services to as many people as possible. If a Fortune 500 company decides it wants to buy a course off of a Firmwater client's website, Firmwater provides the flexibility to onboard thousands of new learners. Conversely, training software for enterprises and SMBs conducting their own internal training tends to offer more restricted access. You'll be able to add a limited set of users and courses, which should be okay because dramatic expansion is unlikely for your company over a short period of time.
The Price Dilemma
The type of tool you choose will dramatically impact how you'll be charged for your software. Firmwater is designed primarily for training companies. It starts at $295 per month, with an unlimited number of users, up to 50 active courses per month, and two client portals. This is an ideal setup for training companies because it doesn't take into account how many users you load into the system. Firmwater's plans increase depending on how many courses and portals you need. There's a $695-per-month plan that includes up to 150 active courses and five portals, and a $1,495-per-month plan that gives you access to 600 active courses per month and 20 portals. But none of these plans limit the amount of learners you can activate.
Systems like LearnUpon and Mindflash offer pricing that is largely dependent on the number of people who will be consistently using the system to train. For reference, LearnUpon starts at $349 per month for 100 active users and 1 client portal, and jumps up to $1,499 per month for 2000 active users and 20 client portals. It can expand beyond the stated maximum capacity for an unspecified price depending on how many users will be using the system, but don't expect to onboard hundreds of thousands of users.
How to Use the Systems
Regardless of the kind of system you'll use, you'll be able to add most content types via upload and then develop quizzes based on the information delivered in your files. You can also use a Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) platform to create more interactive, dynamic courses combining lessons and quizzes.
Systems are easily sortable by courses, users, quizzes, administrators, and portals. Most novice technology users will be able to access, use, and master these systems with no difficulty. There are, however, some points of contention that you'll need to take into account when making your purchase decisions. For example, some vendors allow you to store unlimited data on their servers whereas other vendors limit the data you can store. This is especially important for companies using video to train staffers. Every vendor we spoke with downgrades the quality of your video file in order to minimize the file size going into their servers. If you plan on using video for your training sessions, use a SCORM platform or add your video files to YouTube, and then add the files as links for streaming within the training software.
E-Commerce, CRM, and Videoconferencing
You'll notice in your search that some training software offers an integrated e-commerce tool. This is highly beneficial for training companies trying to sell courses to users across the web. You'll also notice that training software often integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) tools in order to help companies determine who needs certification for specific roles or how employees perform before and after they use training software to master specific tasks. Live classes are becoming standard in the enterprise training market. However, because some training systems don't offer an integration with a web conferencing tool for live courses, you won't be able to take advantage of this feature.
An excellent example of live course functionality is LearnUpon's integration with WebEx, which enables trainers to mark attendance for anyone who joins or doesn't join a required lesson, and communicate directly with users throughout the course. WizIQ offers an equally impressive live course feature with its own proprietary web conferencing solution. With WizIQ, you can upload documents on the fly to schedule impromptu live sessions. You can schedule live classes in advance, enroll people in recurring live classes, or conduct classes that run 24/7. Live classes are the future of enterprise training software. I suggest buying into a system that does this well.
These integrations and add-ons shouldn't be crucial to your purchase decision-making, but they're definitely worth investigating as some tools (such as Docebo) integrate with dozens of third-party platforms, while other tools (such as Firmwater) offer very few integrations at all.
How Badly Do You Want People Using the System?
One of Docebo's main differentiators is that it offers gamification as part of its training software. Learners earn badges and they appear on company leaderboards—all of which enables you to create healthy competition among your employees. This will hopefully encourage them to enter the system to voluntarily take courses. Both Docebo and WizIQ do an excellent job building environments similar to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter that encourage users to actually want to log in and take classes.
At the end of the day, you're spending a good deal of money to get people to take courses to become better employees and corporate citizens. Choosing the right system could help to grease the wheels to make this process more enjoyable for everyone involved. Let pricing, usability, extensibility, and enjoyment be your guiding principles when choosing the best enterprise software for you.
Featured Online Learning Platform Reviews:
Firmwater
$295.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: If you need a basic online learning platform for your business or for your specific department, Firmwater is easy to use and serviceable. However, it lacks the bells and whistles of other to...
Mindflash Review
$249.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: It's an affordable online learning platform for business that's capable of doing just enough to get your lessons delivered to learners. But if you need a solution that ties into more of your...
Docebo Review
Editors' Choice
$230.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: Docebo is the best online learning platform for business on the market. It features intuitive navigation and content creation, the best reporting of any system we've tested, and a host of fe...
Grovo LMS Review
$69.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: If you like the idea of continuous instruction through micro-lectures, the Grovo learning management system offers an innovative and effortless corporate training system.
Litmos LMS Review
$99.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: No matter the size of your business, Litmos delivers a surprisingly affordable and capable learning management system with integrated e-commerce.
WizIQ Review
$33.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: WizIQ is a feature-rich online learning platform for business that you'll absolutely enjoy. It has most of the bells and whistles of the best systems on the planet, but it's priced much lowe...
Axis LMS Review
$299.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: With a fresh new interface and unique features such as Event Triggers, Axis LMS offers a useful and affordable learning management system for mid-size offices.
DigitalChalk Corporate LMS Review
$99.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: For mid-size businesses looking to develop e-learning content inside their learning management system, DigitalChalk offers rich course assembly features and accountability tracking.
LearnUpon Review
$349.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: LearnUpon is a solid and usable online learning platform for business. However, it doesn't have the accoutrements of some of the better systems available, and course and content creation req...
Halogen TalentSpace LMS Review
$7.00 MSRP
Bottom Line: Although TalentSpace is a bit more cumbersome and expensive than some competitors, customers gain peace of mind knowing that they can augment their learn management system using a wide array...
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