LMS Requirements: A Complete Checklist

Selecting an LMS can be quite a headache, especially with so many options available. So, how can an organization find the right one? It’s simple: consider key LMS requirements before making a purchase. These requirements are the tasks you want your LMS to do.

But which LMS system requirements should you prioritize? For that, we’ve compiled a complete LMS requirements checklist, which includes the key functionalities that an LMS should have. Read ahead to learn and identify the ones that best suit your business.

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LMS Features Checklist

As a corporate organization, you need to consider some LMS requirements or features if you want to provide effective training programs and education to your employees. It’s important to check and evaluate key functionalities and make sure your preferred LMS has them all. 

If you somehow choose the wrong one, it will cause inefficiencies, and your employees won’t be able to learn anything properly. So, let’s talk about the functional and non-functional requirements that your LMS must include.

Let’s go through the LMS features checklist one by one.

11 Functional LMS Requirements

If you don’t know what Functional LMS requirements are, they’re basically the specific features and capabilities that the LMS you’re choosing must include in order to perform its tasks in the right way—for instance, course management, user tracking and assessment tools. 

Let’s take a look at these functional requirements so you can choose the right LMS system for your organization. 

1. User Management 

One of the main LMS requirements is having a solid user management system. This refers to the process of adding and removing users and assigning them different responsibilities, such as administrator, course creator, instructor, learner, admin, and the like.  

Without the user management features, the system would be unable to differentiate between various types of users, leading to potential security risks. For example, without a clear role definition, an instructor might gain access to functions or content meant solely for administrators. 

Key features in this category include:

• Role-based permissions: To control the access and privileges based on user roles to ensure that only authorized individuals can perform specific actions.
• User profiles: Individual profiles for each learner contain details such as personal information, course completion, skills acquired, and achievements. 
• User groups: Organize learners into specific groups for better management.

2. Course Creation and Management

The next learning management system requirement is course creation and management. This is so crucial that, according to data, 89% of LMS reviewers consider it a highly important feature. It must include:

• SCORM compliance: It’s a technical standard for e-learning products. 
• AI-powered tool: AI assists in the creation of engaging and interactive courses. 
• Course designer: A user-friendly built-in tool with different templates and features to design courses from scratch. 
• Progress tracking: Allow companies and employees both to check how much time they’ve spent learning a skill. 
• Multilingual support: It’s to ensure every employee can access courses in their preferred language. 

Source: Capterra

3. Assessment and Quizzes

How can you be certain that your employees are truly absorbing the material without the ability to assess their knowledge? For this purpose, tools like quiz generators and test builders are needed to evaluate employees. 

The LMS you’re choosing must include:

• Automated grading: To automatically grade the assignment of learners. 
• Question Repository: A centralized database where various questions are stored.
• Rubrics: Predefined scoring guidelines that help standardized grading.
• Surveys: To gather feedback from the employees.
• Test Builder: A tool that allows you to design and structure tests by selecting questions from the repository or creating new ones.
• Anonymous grading: Keep the participant's identity hidden to avoid unbiased evaluation. 

You can also utilize Coursebox AI for this purpose. It has the best AI quiz generator, which uses advanced algorithms to create highly customized and informative quizzes. 

4. Reporting and Analytics

Reports are an important part of LMS tools. They provide detailed insights into employee performance, tracking metrics such as the number of hours spent watching training videos, completion rates, quiz scores, and overall engagement.

Key reporting features to look for includes::

• Custom reports: To generate reports based on specific criteria or data points.
• Prebuilt reports: Ready-made reports to provide instant access to essential data.
• Report scheduling: To automate the delivery of reports by setting a schedule for when the reports should be generated or sent. 
• Graphs and visualizations: For the purpose of converting data into graphs, charts or diagrams to simplify the patterns and trends.

5. Mobile Accessibility

With 7.41 billion mobile users around the world, it becomes necessary that there should be an app for the LMS that can be accessed even on the mobile phone. This enhances learning, as users can learn whenever they feel like it or whenever they have the time.

The main LMS requirements for this feature are: 

• Native iOS and Android Apps: Dedicated mobile applications designed specifically for iOS and Android devices.
• Offline access: Allows users to access and interact with content or data even without an internet connection.
• Mobile-friendly interfaces: Optimized app for use on smartphones and tablets.
• Push notifications: To send alerts and notifications directly to the users’ device.
• Mobile course tracking: Enables users to monitor their progress in courses and training programs.

Source: Research.com

6. Content Delivery and Support for Various Formats

The LMS you’re choosing should be capable of supporting multiple content formats. These include, text, video, audio, PDFs, and SCORM packages. With these, the administrators can create engaging content that is perfect for different learning styles. 

According to a report, 75% of learners prefer video-based learning, showing how important it is to have an LMS that supports audio and video content for better learning.

‍Source: FinancesOnline

A few features that should be included in your LMS requirements if you want to provide the best learning experience for employees are:

• Synchronous Learning: To provide live, real-time learning sessions where instructors and learners can interact simultaneously.
• Interactive Whiteboards: Digital whiteboards that allow both instructors and learners to visually collaborate.
• Microlearning: Short and focused learning modules to deliver content in bite-sized segments.
• Virtual Class Attendance: A feature that tracks and logs attendance for learners participating.

7. Support and Training Resources

No matter how user-friendly an LMS is, support and different types of training modules are still necessary. During the onboarding and implementation phases, you need as much support options as possible. This is why you should consider these LMS requirements: 

• Tutorials: Step-by-step instructional content, often in video or written format, designed to guide users through specific tasks or features.
• Webinars: Live or pre-recorded online seminars where experts present topics, share insights, and engage with participants.
• Customer Support: Multiple support options to assist customers via live chat, or more traditional methods like email and phone.

With various support options, your team can resolve any technical issues with ease. Many LMS providers also offer onboarding assistance to help get your system up and running in no time.

‍Source: Samelane

8. Gamification and Engagement Tools

Nowadays, gamification and engagement tools are a trend that can make learning more fun. With their help, you can keep your employees excited about the overall course. According to research, challenge-based gamification improves student performance by up to 89.45%. 

A few gamification features that should be in your list of LMS requirements include:

• Award points tracking: To monitor and track points earned by users for completing tasks.
• Course transcripts: Provides a detailed record of courses completed, grades, and certifications.
• Leaderboard: Displays the ranking of users based on their performance, points and achievements. 
• Skills catalog: A list of skills that the users can browse, track and develop through various courses and programs.
• Customizable Badges: It offers the ability to create and assign customized digital badges to recognize specific achievements. 

These features add a fun, competitive element to learning. Through gamification, you can also provide product knowledge training to your employees in an easy and fun way.

‍Source: Research.com

5 LMS Non-Functional Requirements

While choosing an LMS, it’s also important to consider the LMS non-functional requirements. These LMS requirements are the way the system performs under various conditions. 

For instance, how the LMS is performing, how secure it is, and the systems it can integrate with. All of these aspects are necessary if you want your employees to have a smooth and effective learning experience.

Now, let’s discuss these in more detail.

1. Hosting Model

The choice of hosting model plays a significant role in LMS performance and management. You need to ask yourself whether you’re going to host the LMS on the cloud or an internal server. If you decide to use the cloud, you can provide services to a variety of users without worrying about maintenance or downtime, as everything will be managed by an LMS developer. 

However, if you host it on your internal server, all operations including the management, development, and maintenance will be up to your team. 

2. Security and Compliance

Data security is a top priority, especially when sensitive information like learner records and personal details are involved. The LMS you’re trying to use should have important features such as data encryption, secure user authentication, and regular security updates.

Additionally, it is also important for the LMS to be compliant with standards and regulations. The various standards the LMS should adhere to are: 

• SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
• FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act)
• ISO Certifications (9001 & 27001)

3. Reliability and Availability

The next LMS requirements on the list are reliability and availability. The LMS you’re choosing should be extremely reliable and accessible whenever a user needs it, meaning it has minimal downtime, reliable backup and recovery processes, and effective handling of the system in case of failures.

‍Source: Eastern Peak

4. Payment Gateways

Now, if you’re planning to offer subscriptions on the LMS, there should be a reliable payment gateway. There are many LMS providers that provide such integration. So, if your business needs one, don’t forget to choose the one with the best and secure options.

Some popular options of payment gateways include PayPal, GoMerchant, Authorize.net, and CyberSource.

5. Integration Capabilities

Make sure the LMS you choose can connect with software such HR systems, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, and collaboration platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, with ease.

Try Out Coursebox AI Corporate LMS to Enhance Employee Learning

It’s important for businesses to consider essential LMS requirements before purchasing an LMS. Coursebox understands these requirements and has created a Corporate LMS that has all the features listed above. 

Our LMS is fully AI-powered, which makes it easier for you to automate a handful of tasks. You can generate courses for your employees using our best SCORM authoring tools with assessments and quizzes. 

So, what are you waiting for? Try it for free today!

FAQs: LMS Requirements

What does an LMS need?

The LMS should have all the essential features, such as user management, course creation tools, and tracking capabilities. It should also include reporting and analytics, assessment tools, and mobile accessibility. Additionally, to enhance user experience, the LMS must provide integration capabilities, security features, and an easy-to-use interface.

What are LMS standards?

LMS standards include AICC, SCORM, xAPI, and cmi5. The main objective of these standards are to ensure that all the information, such as course progress or performance, is shared easily between different systems and that too without the need for complex coding. 

What are the basic features of an LMS?

The basic features of an LMS include user management, reporting and analytics, tools for creating assessments and quizzes, and course creation. All these features are important for instructors to organize course material. Some other nice-to-have LMS features include automated workflows, notifications, and reminders, surveys, and multi-tenancy through multiple learning portals.

What are the two major components of an LMS?

A learning management system has two major components: the server side and the user interface (UI). The server side handles backend operations and is usually managed by training managers or system administrators. It makes sure the platform runs smoothly. Meanwhile, the UI is what learners and instructors interact with.

What is the main objective of LMS?

The main objective of an LMS is to make managing courses easier for users. It’s like a single platform where the users and administrators can organize everything. An LMS also creates personalized learning experiences for the users. Lastly, an LMS tracks learning progress and is also great for handling compliance training by corporate organizations.