Enterprise LMS Evaluation Checklist

What features should you look for in an enterprise LMS?

Training delivery and learner access

• Assignment rules and exceptions. Ask the vendor to assign a course using the fields you rely on, such as role, location or start date. Change one employee’s role and check whether the assignment and due date follow your policy. If someone needs an exemption, find out who can grant it and where the reason is recorded.
• Course compatibility and tracking. If you use SCORM, bring a package from your own library. Have one learner finish it and another leave halfway through and return. Check where the second learner resumes and whether the LMS records completion, pass or fail, and score in the fields your team uses.
• Learner access. Have a learner sign in, find an assigned course and complete it on a device they use at work. Include the conditions your workforce actually faces, such as a shared tablet or a slow connection. If keyboard access or a screen reader is required, include it in the same test.
• Course creation and review. Have an author revise a lesson and show how a reviewer checks it before publication. If you’re evaluating AI authoring, give each vendor the same policy document and check whether the generated lesson preserves its exceptions. A lesson can read well and still give the wrong instruction to one group of employees.

Reporting and training records

• Manager reporting and permissions. Bring a report your managers already use. Run it from a manager account with ordinary permissions. Include a test employee from another team and check that the manager sees the employees they’re responsible for. If L&D has to prepare or distribute the report, capture that work alongside the result.
• Completion history and course revisions. Ask the vendor to update a course that a test learner has already completed. Retrieve the old record and check whether it shows which version the learner took and when. If your policy requires a refresher, check that the new assignment and due date are visible alongside the earlier completion.

Integrations, migration and rollout

• HR integration and sign-in. Test a new hire, a transfer and a leaver using a small sample based on your HR data. Include an error, such as a missing manager ID, and check who gets notified and how they retry the update. Test sign-in separately with the identity setup your employees will use.
• Migration and data export. Decide what needs to move into the new LMS and what your team can retrieve from an archive. Ask for a sample import and compare it with the source file. Check record counts, inspect rejected rows and look up a few individual completions using the fields you’ll need later. If you’ll rely on an export, open the file and check that those fields come through.
• Security and data handling. Give IT or security the vendor’s documentation and proposed terms. Ask them to verify who can grant admin access, how long employee data is retained, and what your organisation can retrieve or delete during and after the contract.
• Implementation, support and cost. Ask for a quote based on the features and learner counts you evaluated. Check how billable learners are counted and which integrations or services incur extra charges. Get the division of work in writing, especially who cleans the data, configures the LMS, tests the integration and handles problems after go-live.

Compare vendors with the Lyearn LMS Evaluation Matrix

Turn each relevant item into a requirement and write down what would count as a pass before the demos. Mark it required or preferred. Use the same test for each vendor, then record the result, the evidence and any recurring work in that vendor’s column.

Copy the matrix into your own spreadsheet and replace the illustrative entries with what you find.

Use open when the evidence is incomplete. A follow-up demo can settle a question about manager permissions. For migration or integration, a small pilot using your own data structure will give you evidence a prepared demo can’t provide. Use unmet when the evidence shows the vendor falls short of the requirement as written.

A workaround only counts as meeting a requirement if it delivers the agreed outcome and the team responsible accepts the work. In the example above, L&D can agree to send a quarterly summary. The branch report calls for managers to run it themselves, so a recurring email from L&D would fall short of that requirement.