3 Ways Your LMS’ API Helps You Better Manage Training

Does your prospective LMS “play well with others?”?

In other words, when you’re shopping for a learning management system, ask yourself:?

Will this LMS integrate seamlessly with my other business systems?

This seamless integration is essential to getting the most return on your investment.?

If the LMS vendor talks about an API-based architecture, you know you’re on the right path. Let us explain.?

What is an API?

Think of an Application Programming Interface (API) as the language interpreter you might hire in a foreign land.

The interpreter gathers information from you, translates it, and sends it to the foreign-language speaker. Then that person sends information back to you through the interpreter.

In your LMS, the API acts as an interpreter, retrieving and sending information between two business systems.

This discussion illustrates three major ways the API can save you time and help you make better business decisions.

1. Streamline and automate workflows

Let’s say you integrate your LMS with your CRM.

The CRM shows that 20% of your sales team is not meeting its deal quota.?

Through the API, your LMS can automatically notify and enroll these salespeople in training courses to help them perform better.

Or, you could monitor the level of engagement of customer service employees in your training. Then compare that with their performance at the service desk. Is there a relationship that helps you make a decision?

In another integration, you can connect your HRIS system with your LMS to automatically create user profiles, add them to groups, and enroll them to specific training.?

You could also set up SSO (single sign-on) to let your employees use their employee credentials to log on to the LMS. Or even better, you could have employees access the LMS from an employee portal you have without having to log on again.?

All these time-saving actions are made possible by your LMS’ API.?

2. Make data analysis easier

While a modern LMS will have its own reporting and analytics capabilities, you may need to do a deep dive into the numbers.

By integrating a third-party business intelligence (BI) module via the API, you won’t need to manipulate the data manually. The BI module extracts the data directly from your LMS.?

For example, you could send survey results or progress data to your BI dashboard.?

3. Connect seamlessly with your website

Say you have a course catalog you wish to display on your website. With your LMS’ API you can easily grab all that information to display all your training activities on your website and direct users to the LMS when they click the register button.?

You might also want to create continuity with your website that goes further than the logo and brand color. The LMS’ API can help by integrating your website’s menu in the LMS platform.?

Having an API provides you with greater flexibility to connect your business systems together and give a sense of uniformity and continuity to both administrators and learners.?

How have APIs helped you better manage training?