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AbilityLMS Features
Built by training managers for training managers.
Loved by users.
There is a certain joy one gets with introducing a system that makes a real difference in an organization and the lives of clients. This page is more than just an introduction to our technology; it’s an expression of our passion and commitment. Here, we offer candid insights into who we are, what we offer, and even what we don’t. It’s a refreshing departure from typical marketing hype—a genuine effort to help you determine if Ability technology is the right fit for your needs. If our values resonate with yours and our solutions align with your requirements, let’s dive deeper with a web meeting. If not, we appreciate your visit and wish you the best in your search.
The Big Picture
Here are common details that fill in many of the gaps about our product and philosophy.
Imagine a herd of elephants, and one stands out—vibrant pink and soaring through the sky. Which one do you remember?
At first glance, you might think we’re talking about AbilityLMS. But the real focus is on you.
As remarkable as our technology is, our true mission as a tech company is to elevate your training mission to extraordinary heights and make your department shine.
We achieve this by delivering a system that’s adored by all, coupled with services that give you a competitive edge and a lifestyle enhancement. This edge isn’t just defined by features; it’s about how those features empower you within a best practices framework.
Investing in our technology isn’t just a decision—it’s a lifestyle choice. It’s about making your job easier and enriching the experiences of all users, from frontline staff to executives. This means more time for other tasks, better insights for management, and peace of mind.
As Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. It’s about the people, the leadership, and the understanding of the true essence of innovation.”
When you choose MaxIT, you’re not just getting great technology; you’re getting our expertise and our forward-thinking vision.
There are key pillars to our technology that are important to consider.
Pillar 1: Cutting-Edge Data Centers Our first pillar revolves around our strategic partnerships with Coresites and AWS. These alliances guarantee top-tier cloud infrastructure, adhering to stringent standards like SOC, NIST, HIPAA, and ISO. Coresites handles secure server co-location, while AWS caters to clients requiring LMS or training tracking solutions when they want to self host, when they need hosting in their native country or when meeting Fedramp standards.
Pillar 2: Versatile Development Architecture Pillar two focuses on our development architecture, designed to function seamlessly on any device—be it a smartphone, tablet, MAC, or PC—with support for modern browsers. Our user-centric Ability apps boast a responsive design, ensuring a visually stunning experience across all screen sizes and device types.
Pillar 3: Security-Driven Development Security is at the core of our development, testing, and quality control processes. Following industry best practices such as OWASP, we integrate security into our design from the outset. Our applications adhere to the various alphabet standards and undergo rigorous Beagle Security and Intrusion detection Certification, with over 15,000 tests conducted each testing cycle.
Pillar 4: Unwavering Accessibility Commitment We are deeply committed to accessibility, aligning where applicable to all three levels of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) international standard, with a focus on achieving level III compliance wherever possible. As accessibility guidelines evolve, we prioritize addressing exceptions as development imperatives, not mere lip service.
Pillar 5: Human-Readable Auditing Our technology ensures transparent auditing of all actions, with each edit, insert, or delete meticulously logged. This audit trail includes the date, time, user, user address, old value, and new value, all presented in a human-readable format. If your business is in life sciences, our design is compliant with 21 CFR Part 11 for auditing and electronic signatures.
Pillar 6: Robust Data Protection Data protection is paramount, with client data encrypted both in transit and at rest. Our comprehensive data security policies are available on request and non-disclosure for clients who audit their vendors. For 1 , including Full-HEVCAT compliance for higher education, are accessible to qualified and approved data security personnel.
Pillar 7: Client System Siloing Finally, we prioritize the isolation of client systems, with each subscribing client receiving dedicated infrastructure. This includes a dedicated database, web server(s), storage space, domain, and more, ensuring that client data remains separate and secure—a practice overlooked by many LM vendors.
We prioritize efficiency over extravagance, providing an LMS solution that meets over 95% of common needs at a fraction of the cost of other systems. Our extensive experience ensures smarter processes and effective outcomes, allowing for both cost recovery and labor savings. After three decades of frontline experience, we understand that good design and best practices are key to avoiding complications often magnified by unnecessary features.
Our Position On Gamification
We are not against gamification but we have strong opinions on where it should and should not be used.
Encouraging genuine engagement in an LMS is like building a bridge over a river. When people see the value and purpose of crossing the river, they willingly step onto the bridge and traverse it with confidence and enthusiasm. The bridge represents a clear path to their destination, offering them a sense of autonomy and empowerment.
On the other hand, using gamification in an LMS is akin to building a flashy amusement park ride over the river. While it may initially attract attention and excitement, it ultimately distracts from the true purpose of reaching the other side. People may be enticed to ride the attraction for a thrill, but it doesn’t address their underlying need to reach the other side of the river efficiently and effectively.
By focusing on creating an LMS that meets users’ genuine needs and provides clear pathways to their goals, you’re building a sturdy bridge that supports their journey with authenticity and integrity, rather than relying on superficial attractions that manipulate behavior for short-term engagement.
We believe in the power of gamification to enhance learning retention and application. That is a content consideration not an LMS consideration.
Gamification services in our platform are intentionally limited. Our platform offers customizable certificates upon course or learning track completion, with the flexibility to rename them as badges if desired. We refrain from incentivizing trivial actions like awarding badges for logins or comments. We provide robust reporting tools, including a drag-and-drop report builder you can use to create reports, leaderboards and data feeds to common BI tools. We also include a KPI dashboard tool, to help track progress and visualize key metrics. By prioritizing user experience and quality content, we consistently achieve high engagement rates, often exceeding 90% for non-required training and bullet proof compliance for required training.
For a standard training team / department, AbilityLMS is intentionally priced at under $10,000 for unlimited users and courses, encompassing implementation, training, single sign-on, and HR/payroll integration for a traditional business unit with a training team that needs and is seeking rich automation.
We use the term training area as an approximation to a training department as this represents the functional owners of training with in a business unit. An enterprise license represents two or more training areas where each training area works with MaxIT for implementation, support and governance. While unlimited truly means unlimited users and unlimited courses can be in the database, we do have some reasonable limits on concurrency and bandwidth; however, for most clients a single training area subscription meets client needs with considerable room for expansion.
We own the intellectual property behind AbilityLMS and we have been in the LMS business for so long, we know how to deliver and support a full featured system at a much lower cost than alternatives. Our pricing and business model aspires to be like that trusted car mechanic who is an expert’s expert and charges a fair price, getting the job done with excellence and authenticity.
A problem we hope to solve in this pricing model is to help potential clients make easier, faster and well informed decisions. We respect that the discretionary decision power of managers to spend organizational money has a spending threshold as to when a procurement process has to step in to get the best value for organization. For many organizations, a system expense over $10,000 requires the organization to go through a request for proposal process, where someone has to draw up requirements, send out the requirements to potential bidders, sort through the responses, sit through demos and then make a decision. The process can take a long time, just as often get political, and lead to frustration.
We have chosen not to play the RFP game and to keep pricing that is within the scope of discretional authority of a manager to make a decision and to avoid an RFP process.
- If AbilityLMS can meet your most important needs without going through an RFP process, why go through the time, effort and inconvenience of going through an RFP process for a system that will cost 1.5x to 20X more?
- Given the potential savings AbilityLMS can introduce in current or projected LMS spend, what would that reduction in budget mean for your training team?
To make things even easier, AbilityLMS has unique features not found in other LMS systems balanced with a value proposition which can usually qualify the system for a sole source award.
We will also provide tailored demonstrations to your use cases / scenarios you present as well as a sandbox of a standard configuration of the system for your evaluation.
Feeling constrained by the limitations of a mandated big LMS that doesn’t cater to your training needs is frustrating. We understand the dilemma of balancing local requirements with rigid centralized mandates to use a big LMS across the organization.
The managers of these Big-LMS systems favorite word is NO if what you are asking is outside the lanes of what they can or will support. So how can that script be flipped?
A terrific starting point is to think of the modern big LMS as having important similarities to a mainframe system. Both are expensive and intricate, making a mandated, big-LMS seem reasonable with the organizational commitment, expense and moving pieces to manage. Let’s call this LMS a Learning Mainframe Server.
Now, think about the shift in economies brought about by the introduction of small, low-cost, decentralized network servers. While AbilityLMS is indeed an LMS, it’s better understood as a decentralized solution. Let’s reframe the term LMS here to mean “Learning Management Server.” By viewing the big LMS as a “Learning Mainframe Server,” and AbilityLMS as a Learning Management Server we gain a clearer understanding of the contrast between the two and where more efficient economies of scale can introduce value and benefit to explore.
To position AbilityLMS for favorable consideration is framing the benefits of a decentralized system which starts at a massively lower cost and the ability to address local needs faster and more effectively.
For the decentralized LMS to be viable, it has to integrate, so the ability (pun intended) for AbilityLMS to pass and receive data from the Big-LMS starts to open doors. We can give unto Caesar, Caesar’s data while at the same time the Big-LMS manager who might say NO might appreciate they do not have the headache or budget expense of trying to meet the specialized, departmental need.
So let’s cut to the chase. When you have a big LMS you are mandated to use not meeting your departmental needs, to be in a position to use AbilityLMS is about finding $10,000/year in savings, since that is the cost for an unlimited user / unlimited course license.
If your frustrated with the current status, you probably already know where that cost savings can be found. We’re always happy to consult to help you ask the right questions to maximize your analysis.
Choose From Multiple User Experiences
With this feature, learners are greeted with a series of color-coded navigation tiles upon logging in and an optional announcements board. These navigation tiles are designed to be intuitive, without creating cognitive overload with excessive information.
On click of any tile, the tile slides down to reveal additional navigation options. The user experience offers a nice balance of cool features and visually appealing effects.
You have the freedom to select which tiles to utilize from our extensive library of options. These tiles not only serve as navigation points within AbilityLMS but can also connect to other systems including other LMS apps.
You have full control over the terminology, typography, color scheme, and other configuration settings, allowing you to customize the experience to perfectly match your preferences.
The engagement platform landing page serves different needs.
For a training team with only a handful of courses, the engagement platform page can present on the home page only the courses you offer (or are suitable for the learner). If you only offer 2 or 3 courses, there is no need for a corporate landing page. On log-in, they see their courses. They can see their status, progress and messages. The user clicks or touches the course tile to go into the course.
For a training team with hundreds or even thousands of resources (training), the engagement platform delivers a searchable repository of resources that align to the audience profile of the user. This means you can easily regulate what resources a user can view and have different resources which appear say for guests (a user not authenticated), an employee, an employee with specific needs, an external channel partner, etc…
Users will engage in a configurable search feature, For example, a user can find resources by keyword, taxonomy, delivery (elearning, video, webinar, PDF, In-Person Class curriculum…), date range, and more. When dealing with large resource repositories, a feature users love is a wishlist feature which allows a user to self curate and tag items of interest so it is easily located for future reference.
One important thing to mention is the engagement platform does not care where the resources are found. If you have resources like videos and documents on other servers or on the web, Sharepoint or network drives, the engagement platform will present the resources you have curated and find appropriate for the audience. Gone will be the user accessing different servers for different resources. In will be the engagement platform acting as a one-stop user experience for controlled access to any resource you have indexed into the database. In will be the ability to track engagement against any resource. If you wear a compliance or risk management hat, we urge you to reflect on the significance of that tracking.
While the engagement platform may not be suitable for every organization, its customizable features and user-friendly design make it a valuable option for those seeking to optimize resource accessibility and user engagement.
The Course Home Page in AbilityLMS serves as a pivotal hub for all user interactions with training content. Its versatile design can address various needs and supports various concepts that do not exist in most LMS apps giving your more control and more options.
For organizations offering just one course, this landing page can become the primary entry and exit point into the system, rendering other landing pages unnecessary. Even when other landing pages are used, it’s an ideal landing page to directly promote training initiatives as a user can be landed into this page via an express link found in an email, PDF and any web page. If the course is made available to the guest role, users without accounts can land to this page where they can self-register or purchase. For regular users with accounts, when a user clicks on an express link, after authentication, the user is directed straight to the Course Home Page, bypassing additional navigation steps. This can deliver a terrific user experience.
Configurable options abound, granting precise control over the user experience. You can establish enrollment rules, such as open enrollment or supervisor approval needed, and define parameters for cancellations, webinar access, and certificate printing. Users can conveniently add scheduled training sessions to their calendars with a single click.
The Course Home Page is structured into distinct sections accessible via tab selection. For users not yet enrolled, the Course Information tab provides essential details to aid decision-making. Once enrolled, users default to the Activities tab, presenting a clear outline of tasks to complete. Tabs for resources and community/discussions can be toggled as needed.
Most importantly, the Course Home Page ensures a consistent and streamlined user experience, facilitating ease of use, adoption, and support across the system.
A learning track is a collection of courses assigned to the user such as a training requirement matrix for a job title, a list of company wide courses, or an individual development plan. This landing page is ideal for organizations who want their learners to see only the required training they need to take and nothing more. This landing page is often accessible as a tile on the Corporate Landing page.
If your organization primarily conducts classroom or virtual training sessions, this landing page consolidates all upcoming sessions, allowing learners to self-enroll as well as access class resources.
It’s particularly advantageous for virtual training events, as AbilityLMS seamlessly integrates with all major virtual meeting platforms like Zoom, Teams, WebEx, and Google Meet. You will never have to send another meeting link, users will have one user experience to join any virtual class, and attendance tracking is automated.
Moreover, upon completion of training sessions, the system can administer scored tests and surveys, as well as manage and distribute recordings. You can also blend into the training elearning, videos and other activities as pre or post webinar activities.
This landing page is often also made available as a tile or menu link on the Corporate landing page.
This landing page provides key performance indicator (KPI) insights along with one-click access to training materials. Depending on your role within the system—as a learner, manager, or stakeholder—you’ll gain access to relevant KPIs tailored to your responsibilities. While this can be a landing page immediately after log-in, this page is most often a tile on the Corporate Landing page.
Available only for AbilityLMS Enterprise clients, you can build you own landing page with our restful APIs.
Schmik, a term passionately embraced by one of our Australian clients, perfectly captures the essence of what we strive for—an experience that is excellent, elegant, and stylish.
Within reason, feel free to blend elements from the diverse landing page options described to create your own Schmik user experience.
If you have a specialized learning experience, we often can meet this need.
At MaxIT, we cherish the individuality of each client, and we take pride in delivering solutions that embody the spirit of Schmik. Plus we like saying the word Schmik!
Course Management
Here is a snap shot of core services for the creating and management of training resources you can create, import and maintain.
Courses are created through the Course Builder tool. Building a course is as simple as adding one or more activities to a course outline.
While many of your courses will be a single activity like an e-learning course or webinar, when you start to blend into a course other activities, it gets interesting fast. Activities available today include: SCORM, AICC, documents, PDFs, PowerPoints, surveys, checklists, checkpoints, electronic signatures, assessments, videos, URLs, custom web pages, license activities, assignments, scheduled classes, webinars, sections, and podcasts. Other activities are under development so this is just a starting point.
We want to make clear that Course Builder is not an authoring tool to create interactive pages such as content you produce in Storyline or Domiknow. Course Builder does represent a paradigm shift as certain classes of content you would develop in these tools are now trivial exercises in Course Builder.
For example, a course consisting of one or more videos where you want the user to watch 90% of the video and they cannot scroll forward is a fair amount of work in your conventional authoring tool, and you still have to publish the course and upload the course and rinse and repeat for any changes. In Course Builder you upload the video and make a few playback decisions and you are done.
Certain uses of course builder represent concepts that do not appear in any LMS at our pricing such as a trainer, supervisor or mentor check point where they engage directly in the course to advance the learner to the next section or complete the learner as qualified.
When a course is more than one activity, you can optionally enforce activities to be completed in a numerical sequence, you can group activities in sections and you can lock sections until the current section is complete. For the learner, engaging in training is as simple as following the numbers. It does not get any easier.
Use any web collaboration tool like Zoom or Teams. Add self-paced activities like videos, surveys and assessments to create a true blended learning experience. Automatic attendance taking and recording management is built in. Includes user calendar management. You control when the user can join the session and when the Join Session link will no longer show so that late arrivals do not disrupt your flow or get attendance credit. You won’t have to send users links anymore to join the webinar since it is always available in the system. If you deliver training through web collaboration technology, your life will be lot easier and your users happier.
Build surveys, assessments, checklist and checkpoints. Includes support for file uploads including media files such as video which can be used to document someone can perform a skill from the training. Feedbacks also support electronic signatures that can be completed by the user, trainer or supervisor to designate an activity or the course is completed.
Define training completion based on equivalent courses. If enabled for users, this can allow them to take either an on-line or in-person option. For back-end management this can serve multiple needs. You can designate a new course to replace an old one, allowing those who completed the old course to be exempt from the new one. The system supports partial equivalency, meaning a 4-hour course may cover the same content as a 2-hour course, making it equivalent, but not vice versa due to content coverage differences.
The options you have for prerequisite enforcement is best-in-class and out performs even the most expensive LMS systems.
A course may have multiple courses defined as prerequisites where any one course must be completed, or all courses must be completed to satisfy the prerequisite.
Prerequisites can be time-based, meaning you cannot enroll in a course until X days have passed since you completed the prerequisite course. An advanced feature will auto-enroll the person into the next offering once the time period has passed
Prerequisites can also be status-driven. While this usually means they finished a course, it can also be enrolled, where a user can enroll into a class as long as they are at least enrolled in another class.
The Course Builder includes support for major and minor version control. This feature enables you to make changes to a course while preserving a snapshot in time of the course structure linked to a previous version. This ensures that you can track which versions users were trained on and the course structure at the time of training.
For minor revisions, the system will make the changes available to enrolled users, allowing them to engage in the new activities. In the case of a major revision, you can flag all users who need to retake the training.
Version control is particularly valuable for clients who conduct procedural training and are subject to ISO and 21-CFR-Part 11 regulations. If these terms are unfamiliar to you, no worries. However, if you’re familiar with them, you’ve come to the right place.
For many organizations, training expiration is a critical consideration. We offer support for various scenarios to accommodate diverse and complex needs. Training can be configured to expire after a specified number of days from completion, at the end of the current or next calendar/fiscal year. Additionally, the same course can have different expiration rules for different audiences. For instance, a compliance course for one class of workers might require annual refreshers, while for another class, refreshers might be needed every three years, and for a third class, there may be no expiration.
We also accommodate the concepts of “initial training” (or initial qualification) and “refresher training,” each with potentially different completion criteria. Furthermore, we support the concept of effective dates, a sophisticated form of expiry management where training completion is considered only if it falls within a specific date range. This feature is particularly useful when training typically does not expire, and you want completion to count only within certain dates.
It’s worth noting that many LMS systems do not include these advanced expiry management concepts.
Highly Desirable Registration Services
Registration services come in many shapes and forms. This section touches on many of the common ways user can be registered into training either in the front end or from the back end.
Users always enroll, launch, resume, join sessions and in general engage in training through a standardized course home page. There is just one user experience to master, and it’s intuitive, pleasing to the eye, responsive and easy. 
Batch enroll one or more people all at once which can also send out email confirmations. If it is easier, batch enroll people via a spreadsheet import. An API is also available to batch enroll people from an external system.
If you use sharepoint, wordpress, slack, yammer or have your own portal pages, you can embed course listings and a calendar from which users can find and register into training and launch self-paced training. They do not need to access LMS services from within the LMS.
Embed a link to any courses, scheduled event, curriculum and a host of LMS features into emails, PDFs and portal pages. On click the user is authenticated and then lands into the end point of the URL. Why have users navigate through the layers of an LMS when they do not need too.
AbilityLMS includes a searchable engagement platform where you can find any elearning, video, document, job-aids, class or webinar by keyword, delivery and date range. If you have hundred or thousands of resources, you can add them to a wish list for more convenient access. Resources are always tracked to who has accessed the resource and how many times including resources that might be linked to outside of the system.
This is an optional feature that when turned on, allows the user to nominate courses they have taken including the upload of certificates and receipts. Based on your preferences, this can be routed to someone for approval.
Centralize your classroom and webinar training schedule to a single universal calendar. Users have one place to register into any scheduled training including a cool feature where once a training topic has been selected, a toggle to list to all upcoming events for the topic across different dates is offered.
Whether you use Zoom, Teams, Meet, WebEx or some other web collaboration tools this registration feature will offer a single centralized user experience across all web collaboration accounts for finding scheduled training as well as for joining the session regardless of the web collaboration tool used. This feature will eliminate the “can you resend the meeting invite” interruption to your day, integrates to all outlook and google calendars, and includes automatic attendance taking. Recordings of the training can be made available only to enrolled users or converted into a trackable training resource available to your desired audience, which in turn you can add quizzes and surveys and other activities.
s
Each course and learning track (collection of courses) can have different enrollment rules.
Here are some of the enrollment rules you might associate to a course:
- User can only request
- User can purchase
- User can enroll with an authorization code
- Open enrollment
- Open enrollment with approval (with support for multi-step approval workflows)
- Only a manager can enroll
- Only an administrator can enroll
- No enrollment.
AbilityLMS supports different enrollment rules for the same course based on audience. The course for a guest user might need to be purchased; the same course for an internal work is allowed with an approval; the same course for a supervisor is open enrollment.
Enrollment, approval, cancellation, wait list advancement are events that can trigger emails to be sent automatically.
Assign and Organize
This section is for the training administrator whose time is valuable. AbilityLMS automates and delivers services to make your job easier and faster.
Training Requirement Matrixes are called Learning Tracks for groups of people and IDPs (Individual Development Plans) when made for the individual. Courses can be made required or elective. Courses in a track can earn credits. (We support multi-jurisdictional credit where a course in one jurisdiction is worth X credits and in another jurisdiction it is worth Y credits.)
Completion of the track/plan can be when any combination of required courses, electives and credits are satisfied.
Users can be manually assigned, assigned from a spreadsheet import, auto-assigned based on user defined rules such as “Is New Hire” or for certain job titles and locations and lastly, self-enroll if enabled for the track.
AbilityLMS offers a standardized tool for efficiently managing various administrative tasks in bulk. For instance, you can batch enter training history, selecting multiple people and courses simultaneously, and upload rosters for document management.
Let’s dissect this last statement with an implication as to what this means using on-boarding training as an example. While a user might be enrolled into on-boarding, on-boarding itself will have several topic that usually need to be track to document compliance. Our an ad hoc training might cover three procedures. In our tool set this trivial to complete the data entry requirements that is simpler, easier and faster for the admin.
Additionally, batch entry is available for driving assignments, class enrollments, and marketing efforts. Batch entry is a user interface that will help administrators be highly productive. For example, through batch entry you can add a course to multiple catalogs at once. Just as easily, you can add multiple courses to a catalog at once. You can even use batch entry to remove individuals from learning tracks en masse. By automating these processes, AbilityLMS aims to optimize time management and streamline administrative workflows.
AbilityLMS can track anything else where you want, not just training. Ultimately, you are creating a history record that something was done. That something is usually a training that was completed, but it can be anything else you need track. Examples can include skills and competencies, parking permits, evaluation forms, licenses, etc…
Bear in mind, a very powerful feature as a key driver in AbilityLMS is that this something you want to track can also be assigned. This means you can also track when assigned, when due, when completed and when it renews. This something you want to track also flows into the alerts engine so this something can be marketed, reminded until it is done and tracked to completion.
This tracking creates powerful insights to engagement you may not expect or know was possible. For example, since we can point to resources to track defined as URLs to other systems and sites, each time they click on the resource, it is tracked. For example, consider a URL that points to a YouTube video or a PDF document. You will be able to report on how often that YouTube video or PDF document was accessed as well as report on who accessed the resource.
AbilityLMS has many uses beyond training management.
A static group is simply linking users (or courses) to a group you name. A dynamic group is a dynamically determined each time you request records for the group such as who reports to a selected supervisor who works in a certain department. If the user record is edited and is no longer associated with the supervisor or department, it immediately is removed from view. Conversely, if a record is added and linked to the supervisor or department it immediately available.
Any combination of fields on the learner property property screen can be used to create a dynamic user group. User groups can be assigned to back-end users to auto-regulate what people they can see. They can be used to auto-assign training, for target audiences in a communication and for preselection of users for a report.
Most LMS systems do not support the concept of dynamic user groups. Those that do most often only support a single field on the learner profile. In AbilityLMS, the dynamic user group is based on any combination of fields on the learner record.
When the supervisor field is used in the learner profile, the system will automatically build the reporting hierarchy as a dynamic user group, and promote supervisors to the manager role on the back-end so they can view only their people.
This means that if the manager has access to the back end, they will only see the people they manage in their (entire) reporting hierarchy. This automation eliminates a significant amount of back-end administration while also providing better control of what date people can access.
The AbilityLMS subscription management feature provides extensive control over subscriptions, catering to various scenarios like individual course subscriptions, scheduled events/webinars, course libraries, learning tracks (sets of assigned courses), and multiple libraries and tracks.
When initiating a subscription, a unique authorization code is generated, customizable and ready for distribution to clients. At the point of registration into the system or if they already have an account, at the point of registering into the training they supply their authorization code which grants them access to whatever course(s), libraries, etc… that apply to the authorization code.
Should the quantity in the subscription equal one, the user is automatically enrolled when dealing with a single course. If the quantity exceeds one, users have the option to either self-register using this authorization code or be imported en masse against the code. Moreover, activating the client portal feature allows clients to manage their users across all subscriptions and access user-specific reports. You can provide a tool set to allow the client to market and administer the distribution of the authorization code as well.
Each authorization code comes with restrictions on the number times it can used and a defined date range when it can be used. Once the maximum registrations or the date range limit is reached, the code expires unless extended. Furthermore, an end date is established for the authorization code, marking the expiration of access to associated courses unless the current authorization code is extended or replaced with a new code.
This system employs various strategies to enhance registration data quality, such as associating additional metadata with the authorization code. For example, if the company name field is included in the subscription record, each time the authorization code is used, the learner profile record is automatically updated with the associated company name, reducing user input requirements and eliminating the headache of data inconsistencies when users self-registering enter different ways the company name is spelled.
It’s important to note that subscription management differs from e-commerce, as it doesn’t involve financial transactions. While full e-commerce support is available and seamlessly integrates with subscription management, the advantage of this separation is the ability to distribute authorization codes without immediate involvement in e-commerce until necessary.
We might have gone overboard with record cloning, but in an LMS it is often needed throughout the system. Clone courses, assessments, surveys, learning tracks, classes, communications, email templates, security profiles to name a few. Cloning records saves times and frustration. It is not uncommon for the cloning tools to save clients hundreds of hours annually when the system is heavily used.
Communicate
Our ability to communicate with users is world class.
Build emails to be sent on enrollment, on cancel, on approval, on completion and other use cases. Configure these alerts to be sent by training owner, meaning you can have different alerts for different courses specific to the needs of the owner of the courses.
If the sending of alerts is important to your reputation, how the LMS is perceived and maximizing engagement, getting this detail right is one of the most important parts of the LMS.
If you ever had an OOPs and sent emails out unexpectedly, our communication manager will help you sleep like a baby.
We’ve redefined the concept of scheduled alerts around the concept of scenarios. A scenario is roughly the series of communications you send around a training initiative. For an initiative (also called a training campaign) you define the types of emails to be sent, the audience and the courses it applies too. For example this can be an initial assignment email, weekly alerts, daily alerts as a deadline approaches, escalation emails and completion. By grouping the different types of emails to courses and an audience, we have eliminated out of the gate the source of most email alerts creating havoc.
Scenarios can also be linked to functional owners of training such as HR, Risk Management, Channel Management where each owner can have their own series of communications with their own messaging and from/reply to addresses.
Alerts can be defined as one time, such as alerts sent when training is coming due 14, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 days before due or recurring such as once week until the training is completed or delivered.
Schedule alerts include a robust testing feature. When testing, all emails that might be sent are generated but NOT SENT. The emails are written to the database for you view. This allows you to assess if the count of emails was correct and review the email wording. When in testing you rinse and repeat until you are satisfied with the results.
When your communication goes live, you have access to rich data about each email. This includes when the email was sent, any delivery problem the server reports, and access to the actual email itself. If you ever have a support need, you can pull up the actual email that was sent, and if needed resend the email.
Send internal messages to users individually or en-mass. When enabled, users can send messages as well to other users or only trainers associated to a course. An announcement feature allows you to enter an announcement to appear on login for a target audience for a specific time period.
Because emails, internal messages and alerts are logged to the database, we invented a unified messaging feature for users that centralize all messages to a single user experience. This becomes a trusted tool for both users and administrators to centralize communication for convenient retrieval. This can also help manage risk as should a user not get an email because of filters, this documents the email was sent and the receiving server accepted the email. This feature can also help reduce support calls as once socialized, users will use this feature to access any/all previous communication from the system instead of trying to search through their email system.
An on-demand marketing email is a unique type of communication designed to promote various items, including a training calendar, a list of self-paced courses, or any other message intended for a large audience. The email contains express links that enable recipients to enroll with a single click after authentication.
Express links decouple navigation in the LMS to land the user after authentication into many areas of the system.
Most of the time an express link will land the user into a course, calendar or engagement platform (a listing of courses).
So imagine an email you get where you are assigned a course. Through the express link you can directly access the course without navigating through the LMS. Express links can be used in powerful other ways such as embed links to a people listing or reports to a public portal. When the user clicks on the link they are authenticated, the system then determines if they have access to the end point, and then presents only the data to which they can view. Again, navigation through the LMS is eliminated which can be more convenient for many needs and embedding LMS services into portal pages, pdf documents, emails.
Scale
From a small audience of under 100 to an audience over 100,000 AbilityLMS can scale to meet very demanding needs.
Create unlimited branded portals with the potential for different user experience on login through each portal. One portal for internal workers might land the user into a conventional tile based user experience, while a portal for customers might land the user into a listing courses.
Training areas represent different groups, “the training area”, that own training administration responsibilities.
For example in an insurance company you might have different training teams for underwriting, claims and sales each with their own courses they manage, their own emails, their own concepts of enrollment approval if any.
In a university you might have different training for HR, Risk Management/EHS, Food Services, Housing… One group may not want another group to change their course settings. They may have their own emails for confirmation and general communication.
When a back-end user is linked to a training area, it can be configured so that they see only their courses for administration. This allows for autonomy in the same database and to meet entirely different needs for administration.
When 2 or more training areas are used, the client falls under enterprise licensing. Each additional training area can optionally be configured to use the SSO and HR Integration as well as can be configured to use their own database. Please speak with a MaxIT representative for pricing.
Our multi-tenancy approach ensures true data isolation for each tenant within the same database, akin to separate living spaces in an apartment building. In AbilityLMS, when multi-tenancy is enabled, all core records are linked to the respective tenant id.
Without multi-tenancy, issues can arise, such as two customers sharing the same employee number. However, with multi-tenancy, employee IDs are segmented for each tenant, resolving such conflicts. The same applies to picklists for job titles, locations, departments, and course taxonomies. Multi-tenancy essentially divides the database into sub-databases, minimizing overlap except for global administrators who oversee global courses across tenants while supporting individual tenants.
For training providers seeking complete segmentation of client data, multi-tenancy is an ideal feature within AbilityLMS. Multi-tenancy is a feature only available for enterprise clients.
AbilityLMS features its own PCI Compliant shopping cart, seamlessly integrated with various payment processors like PayPal and Stripe. Additionally, any payment provider with an API can be utilized, albeit requiring a small professional service for integration.
When utilizing our shopping cart, orders can be placed using credit cards, checks, invoice numbers, or purchase orders. If a payment provider is not used, purchases must be manually approved. Furthermore, our shopping cart supports vouchers for added flexibility.
Alternatively, you have the option to utilize any third-party shopping cart supporting webhooks technology, such as Shopify. Opting for Shopify offers additional benefits like advanced marketing services, tax collection, placement into different stores, and affiliate marketing. These services extend beyond the scope of what the shopping cart within AbilityLMS provides.
Ultimately, the decision to use our shopping cart or a full-fledged shopping platform like Shopify is yours to make. AbilityLMS offers the freedom to choose the solution that best fits your needs.
All language elements on the front end can be localized. At this time the back-end is available only in english.
Feeling constrained by the limitations of a mandated big LMS that doesn’t cater to your training needs is frustrating. We understand the dilemma of balancing local requirements with rigid centralized mandates to use a big LMS across the organization.
One helpful perspective for problem-solving is to compare the big LMS to a mainframe system. Both are expensive and intricate, making a mandated LMS seem reasonable with the organizational commitment, expense and moving pieces to manage. Now, think about the shift in economies brought about by the introduction of small, low-cost, decentralized network servers. While AbilityLMS is indeed an LMS, it’s better understood as a decentralized solution. Let’s reframe the term “Learning Management System” to “Learning Management Server.” By viewing the big LMS as a “Learning Mainframe System,” we gain a clearer understanding of the contrast between the two.
To position AbilityLMS for favorable consideration is framing the benefits of a decentralized system which starts at a massively lower cost and the ability to address local needs faster and more effectively. With the ability to integrate (when needed) with the mandated big LMS, even the big LMS managers can be happy as it means they do not have the headache or budget expense of trying to meet the specialized need.
Even if they don’t, a mandate for AbilityLMS can be found through analysis and finding $10,000/year in savings since that is the cost for an unlimited user / unlimited course license.
If your frustrated with the current status, you probably already know where that cost savings can be found. We’re always happy to consult to help you ask the right questions to maximize your analysis.
Reports and Business Intelligence
Reporting you will love.
Report on ANYTHING in the database with our user friendly, drag and drop report builder. Link the report to a user group for group access but also aware of restrictions limiting results to the people they manage. For example, consider a training history report linked to an All Supervisor user group. When a supervisor runs the report, they see only the user data for their reporting hierarchy.
Once reports are configured, the option to schedule them becomes invaluable. Imagine receiving a tailored “Monday Report” directly in your inbox at 6 AM, precisely when you need it. This seamless delivery ensures you have the necessary data readily available for integration into your preferred tools, such as Microsoft Business Intelligence, streamlining your decision-making process.
Any report you build can be paired with our Report Delivery API which can call that report as a Restful API call. The will deliver the data in suitable delimited format. In essence, it’s a zero-programming API report creation tool too!
Ability Content Hub
The Ability Content Hub is a curated training library covering the most common business, software, safety and compliance topics. This is an add-one subscription where we load and support all courses in the subscription and with 30 or more new titles added each month.
Our training library comprises courses developed by diverse subject matter experts, each excelling in their respective fields. Unlike conventional “big-content” approaches that prioritize mass production akin to a fast food diet, our content mirrors the experience of dining at your beloved local restaurant. Here, content is thoughtfully curated, personalized, and seamlessly integrated with additional materials of your choice.
When considering micro-learning offerings from course developers, it’s crucial to inquire about the validated research supporting their content. Additionally, ask whether they collaborate with PhD-level neuropsychologists in content creation. We do.
In the realm of micro-learning, adherence to over 20 best practices in content creation, delivery, and management is essential. Following these practices enables the effortless delivery of over 10 hours of soft skills and human development training annually, with just 15 minutes per week. We invented the best practices.
Imagine the impact on your organization of providing 10 hours of training annually to enhance employees’ people skills, time management, conflict resolution, writing, and math abilities. With the right tools and approach, achieving this milestone is more straightforward than many realize. Seeing is believing.
Take training on any device, 24-7. Training is always responsive and has few moving parts so no course freezes. The content just works, problem free to any modern device from smart phone, table, MAC and PC.
To be released at anytime once the final testing is done is training content you can brand with your company logo and color scheme. This will allow the training content to look like it was developed in house for your users and customers.
We offer variable pricing based on the size of the audience and the scope of the content you need. If you need only OSHA training and not a full library of 1000s of courses for example, you can license only what you need.
AbilityLMS place nice with all Big-Content produces like SkillSoft, Linked-In Learning and HSI. While it varies between content producer, we have import libraries to mass load all courses at once provided the content vendor offers a list of files and launch information. This is most often used for SkillSoft.
Some details we want to stress is all courses delivered from MaxIT are reviewed at least every 2 years and updated as needed to reflect changing hair styles, phones and fashions. A small number of courses are classic and will not be updated as the effective of the training is tied to the connection made to the past.
Courses in general reflect the modern workforce with actors of all genders, ethnicities and ages.
All courses as part of a subscription can be enhanced through Course Builder.
You can’t change the content, but you can blend activities of your own invention such as a webinar, policy, video, survey, assessment with any course that is part of your subscription as an activity.
For instance, consider our library of over 40 micro-lessons covering DEI topics, primarily in a micro-learning format. Let’s say you want to develop a course on the appropriate use of pronouns in the workplace. We offer a lesson specifically addressing this topic, which you can seamlessly integrate as an activity alongside a webinar, your own video content, or any other lessons you’ve created.
For course creators, leveraging these prebuilt courses as activities within your courses can significantly streamline your workflow, all while upholding the highest quality standards, as our courses are professionally produced and feature skilled actors. For the small training department, the volume of videos is like having a team of 50 course developers in your back pocket. They build all the off-shelf content so you can focus on the custom content you need to develop.
Sprint Implementation
The worlds fasted comprehensive LMS implementation.
AbilityLMS Professional is a production ready system from day 1.
The system is very easy to use so administrators need very little training, but we do live training for each client and will record sessions the client can always refer back to.
While there are a large number of configurations available, our default configurations is always the recommended starting point.
If you have a course ready, you can be delivering the course almost right away once a few decisions are made around self-registration and features to enable.
If you are replacing a system, we help in that process offering a clear project plan and guidance to get the many details to manage done quickly and done right the first time.
As you get into more advanced needs such as legacy data migration, HR integration, and Single-Sign-On this may take some work to implement. This brings into the workload time the client needs to complete client tasks, which can vary based on client resources and workload. The work in our queue is strived to be done on-time per the agreed project plan.
AbilityLMS Professional offers a self-service model with an implementation checklist; however, some clients prefer dedicated project management, which is a standard feature in AbilityLMS Enterprise.
When we provide implementation services, clients benefit from having a single, dedicated resource assigned to their project. This resource serves as both a skilled implementer and project manager. One of their responsibilities is to create a project plan and timeline, outlining key milestones. The client then reviews and makes any necessary changes, ensuring that the project plan is a collaborative document.
Our project methodology is flexible and tailored to meet the specific needs of each client, incorporating both sprint and waterfall project management methodologies. Additionally, we provide a project management tool that includes meeting minutes, files, resources, tasks, and milestones. This tool streamlines communication and eliminates the challenges of managing projects via email, while also ensuring visibility and transparency throughout the project.
Both AbilityLMS Professional and AbilityLMS Enterprise clients benefit from having both a production system and a test system. You have full control over when the test database is refreshed, ensuring that it reflects an exact copy of your production system from your chosen restore point. This allows you to enable or disable features as needed. Additionally, the testing site is clearly marked to distinguish it from the production environment, and it is configured to prevent the sending of any email alerts.
For Enterprise clients, there is the added flexibility of a potential third instance. This additional instance becomes invaluable in scenarios such as customization projects or the rollout of new features, where a dedicated testing environment is essential.
We use the term “HR integration” as a convenient way to describe the automated loading of user profile data from authoritative sources, such as HR systems, payroll systems like ADP and Ceridian, and CRM systems like SalesForce and Microsoft Dynamics. This data retrieval can also be achieved through our RESTful API.
Apart from the API option, a typical integration involves generating a flat, delimited file. When we process this file or perform an API PUT operation, several actions take place automatically: new users are added, users expected to be in the file but missing are deactivated, reporting hierarchies are reconstructed, pick-lists (such as departments, titles, and locations) are refreshed, any training set for auto-assignment or auto-enrollment is executed, and necessary communications are dispatched.
This comprehensive automation workflow translates to significant time savings, potentially saving hundreds to thousands of hours annually.
AbilityLMS supports sign-on via any SAML2 Identity provider which includes OKTA, ADFS, Azure, Office 365, Google and hundreds more. We support sign-on by API via a secure token. We support email based authentication, where the user gets a single use, time sensitive token via email. We can support multiple sign-one use cases at once.
Moving away from a legacy LMS can be a painful experience, and MaxIT has deep experience to help manage and guide you through the process. In some cases we can move data over en-mass. In other cases, we have to get file extracts and manually reload courses. When dealing with data, it can get messy, and our DBAs are true black belts in data migration. We take client data and can spot problems before data gets loaded. We often can clean bad data based on advanced data manipulation skills and the experience (and scars) you get in dealing with legacy party data. These services are delivered tied to a statement of work and will vary based on the system being retired.
MaxIT has been providing LMS systems for 30+ years, taking on some of the most difficult and complex LMS projects no one else could. We have taken this experiences, the successes and the scars, to build a complete, one-stop LMS that is redefining how the LMS can help support any training mission.
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