Migrating Customers From One LMS To Another

Launched in 2002 by David Marshall, formerly Head of Research at Penna Consulting, Marshall ACM is an online diversity training & eLearning consultancy based in Southwark, in the heart of London.

An established leader in its field, the company offers a friendly and flexible service that's focused on quality, speed and innovation. It works with clients throughout UK and increasingly internationally with over 230 public and private sector organizations using its online diversity training.

Marshall ACM had been using a custom developed LMS to support its eLearning and increasingly, it was posing a host of technical and support challenges. The eLearning courses were tightly coupled with the LMS and each page of the course was being served from the database as with most age-old LMSs. Moreover, the lack of SCORM and AICC compliance also posed issues in terms of scaling up and hosting a variety of eLearning courses for the customers.

Hence, Marshall ACM was looking for a robust, easy-to-use, scalable LMS platform that could handle its existing as well as new customers through a managed hosting services model. It was looking for both - a system that was reliable and feature-rich, and a service provider that could offer a high level of reliability, availability, and technical support.

The LMS needed to be SCORM/AICC compliant with a 3-tier structure, and features so as to allow the company's administrator to set up a new site for the customer along with the ability for extensive re-branding.

The major need, however, was to be able to migrate customer specific data for its 100+ customers (totaling more than 100,000 users) to the new platform in a timely manner.

Upside Learning offered its proprietary, multi awardwinning Learning Management System, UpsideLMS, to Marshall ACM to address its needs.

UpsideLMS standard version was shipped with a 3-tier organization: Site Manager, Client Manager (for each account portal created) and a Learner profile. This 3-tier organization fitted very well to MACM’s needs where an account portal was set up for each new customer and the MACM administrator got access to the Site Manager area wherein he/she could play super admin with all controls and also provide customer both learner and administrator areas for access.

Although UpsideLMS standard version had an in-built area for setting up branding options, but considering MACM’s requirements, it was required to be made very exhaustive. Hence, customizations were done to UpsideLMS to allow MACM administrator to configure the exact branding and look & feel for each customer.

UpsideLMS components that were activated for Marshall ACM were:

1. Site Manager with complete management access on content and configuration for branding
2. An account portal for each customer (MACM admin can create account portal herself)
3. SCORM and AICC compliance
4. Online exam and survey module
5. Curriculum structure for unified delivery of learning material
6. Helpdesk and Client machine diagnostics module
7. MIS reports with some custom built reports
8. Data migration activity to migrate existing customer/ user data to UpsideLMS

UpsideLMS was the right platform for MACM, possessing and offering everything it needed. With a vast experience and history in managing customers of varied sizes, Upside Learning also boasted an experience in handling various business situations for LMS deployment. This understanding led the foundation in easy migration of the customer/user data to UpsideLMS from its current LMS.

Upside Learning also worked with MACM to work on its eLearning content to create a new set of engaging and interactive SCORM compliant courses.

1. Greater customer satisfaction for MACM’s customers as custom branding, apart from hosting a variety of eLearning courses, could be done easily.
2. Greater focus on core business activities for MACM without distractions from IT or technology part, as hosting, maintenance and support was provided by Upside Learning
3. Better time utilization for MACM’s administrator was brought about by customizations and other features which made his/her job easier

License Subscription + Hosting + Customization (when required)

1. MACM purchased annual renewable license to use UpsideLMS for its customers, starting with a multi-year contract without any restrictions on the number of users. This made it easier for MACM to migrate all customers and add new customers without increasing the cost burden proportionally.
2. The system is hosted by Upside Learning on a UK-based data center. The server is dedicated to Upside Learning and in turn dedicated for MACM LMS hosting.
3. Upside Learning provides Level 2 support (on email and phone) to designated MACM administrators.
4. For Support:
   • Support Manager
   • 1 Dedicated Support Executive
   • 1 Support Team Developer (on need basis)

UpsideLMS runs on Apache Tomcat 6.0 and MS SQL Server 2005 on a single Windows Server 2003 machine leased to Upside Learning by an ISP in UK.

“We were looking for a robust, easy-to-use and a scalable LMS platform that could handle our existing as well as new customers and, UpsideLMS seemed to be the best solution. The customisation features and support provided by Upside Learning made it easier for us to switch to a new system smoothly and, concentrate on managing our core business better.”

David MarshallFounder and CEO, Marshall ACM

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