Accipio + Educare: The largest Totara site in the world

The Challenge

EduCare had a bespoke proprietary learning environment with 7 separate learning management systems (LMS). This was complex and costly to maintain, and they were heavily reliant on a single external agency. The wanted to consolidate the platforms into one LMS, and have a more contemporary, user-friendly and feature rich system.

It was also key that the new LMS was open source and supported by multiple partners to give them freedom of choice should they need to switch providers in the future (to prevent vendor “lock-in” in the future).

Management of the system was previously outsourced, and they wanted an intuitive system that was flexible enough to be customized for their bespoke needs and onboarding processes so they could take much of the management in house with ongoing support from a partner.

Other key requirements included:

• Performance. Be able to cope with over 500,000 users and over one million course completions per year;
• Flexibility. Give the freedom to innovate to create a customised, seamless and automated journey from point of purchase to completion for users from large organisations and individuals, and to integrate with eCommerce and CRM systems;
• Multi-tenancy. Offer full multi tenancy, including the ability for clients (over 6,000 organisations) to manage users, allocate learning, view certificates and progress, have bespoke reports and individually customised/branded areas and SSO/API options (i.e. log in via their company intranet etc.);
• Cost-effective and grow with them. Provide the freedom to save and reduce customer service calls, combine seven existing learning management systems into one, and be able to grow with the organisation; and
• Contemporary and engaging. Be fit for the 21st century and fully compatible with mobile devices to give users the freedom to learn when they want and how they want.

What we did

After a thorough procurement process, EduCare selected Accipio as their Totara Partner. They were impressed with our dynamic and contemporary approach. We worked with EduCare to implement the world’s largest Totara Learn platform with over 500,000 users.

We combined 7 existing learning management systems into one, and the migration was completed three months early. This involved migrating 100,000s of users, 120+ courses and 6,000 customers.

Some of the key customised features included:

• Multi-tenancy setup for 6,000 customer organisations with their bespoke branding, access to manage users (via our organisation manager) and certificates/progress, bespoke dashboards and high levels of automation;
• Multiple eCommerce integrations for various core market partners which allow individuals and organisation users to purchase courses and gain direct access to these within the Totara site for a defined period of time;
• Implemented various forms of single-sign-on (SSO) with customer systems, social profiles (Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google) and via link from a new custom SSO. Integration of SSO into Totara hierarchy to automatically assign organisation based on SSO method used;
• A new web services plugin that pushes learning results to specific customer systems.
• An “archive courses” block that provides for the tailored release of new/updated courses whilst preserving access to old ones;
• Expiry dates for organisations to remove access to their users if the account is not renewed;
• Custom course format to bring out progress and improved navigation;
• Complex hosting setup to cope with 1000s of concurrent users;
• Custom login workflow with custom feedback messages based on reason for failure (i.e. incorrect password, expired organisation, suspended account etc.); and
• Custom certificate extension to pull in organisation logo from multi- tenancy set up.

The results

FREEDOM TO SAVE

We saved them considerable time by:

• Combining 7 Learning Platforms into the largest Totara Learn platform in the world (and delivering 3 months ahead of schedule); and
• Automating manual tasks and to free up resources to rapidly growth their client base.

FREEDOM TO LEARN

Feedback from end users has been overwhelmingly positive, with 98.5% saying they would recommend EduCare’s online learning service.

The platform uses a bespoke, engaging course format to focus on completion (so learners know exactly what they need to do, and when) and improve intra-course navigation.

FREEDOM TO INNOVATE

Totara’s flexible open-source nature has allowed us to develop innovative plugins to tailor the platform for Educare which has:

• Revamped and streamlined processes, putting ownership in the hands of clients, through various plugins and integrations; and
• Enabled Educare to sell directly to customers via our eCommerce solutions and automate the onboarding process.

FREEDOM OF CHOICE

Because Edcuare uses Totara, they are no longer restricted to working with just one provider or a propriety code base. They now have freedom of choice, supported by a competitive landscape which keeps on innovating.

They have been able to take platform management and customer service in-house, and built the system around their processes – not the other way around.