TalentLMS Reviews

The problem with TalentLMS is that it has some bugs. If you need to upload an image, then it will cause trouble. It is not actually stable. Another drawback of the LMS systems is that they are not scalable. It is not able to handle more users or requests at a time. I checked it and have completed load testing for this application, and I see they cannot handle 1000 users at the same time. So, if 1000 users become online at a time, that will cause trouble.

I restarted their solution, and I checked the features. I have tried to do something there, and in the beginning, I see the problem in the uploading issue. It is unstructured somehow.

If I would build this software, then I would use distributed technology and architecture. Then this architecture would manage any type of request when necessary. I could actually make the interface simple and user-friendly. There should be a flow. Actually, these two LMS systems don’t have the proper flow. Suppose you already study your education journey. Then, of course, you complete your standard one, two, three, four. Then you go to complete the secondary and intermediate. So, whenever you are a user, then you should have a sequence in the dashboard. Then you can actually do better things, or you can use your system properly and easily without any headache, without more training.

I have engaged with the demo version of TalentLMS for two months.

If your goal is to manage 100 users, then it is good. But it is still slow. But if you feel you like to sell your courses globally and you deserve more than hundreds of millions of users, then it is not actually the right tool.

It is scalable, actually. It is a monolithic architecture software. So load balancing is not actually configured properly. I checked, and it can handle 500 users or less than 500 users. However, it cannot handle more than 500 users at a time. It is good if you have a few users. It is not for a vast number of users. Suppose Udemy Courses, which is a very big website. So, there are 1000 million users, but it cannot handle it. It can handle 100 users and not 1000 users.

My company expects to buy a LMS system or to use the features of an LMS without building our own software. I've been researching different LMS systems recently, such as CyberLMS, Absorb LMS, and D2L. I've found that most of these systems are complex to use, not user-friendly, and have a lot of bugs.

Absorb is a LMS, but it is not a multi-vendor system. I've only worked with two LMS systems, TalentLMS and CyberLMS. CyberLMS is the same as Symantec's LMS. Those are the two LMS systems that I've worked with that can sell courses to multiple companies.

For example, if you have your own bank, you can own an LMS system. We can buy your LMS system and customize it with our own branding, and then we can sell the courses to other companies. So it's actually necessary to have a multi-vendor LMS system. Absorb LMS and D2L are single-vendor LMS systems, so they can't be used to sell courses to multiple companies. However, they can sell courses to individual companies if those companies want to buy courses from them.

Cypher LMS has a lot of features. These features make it complex, and it is not easy to use, and not user-friendly. This is one problem. 

Additionally, more features are not actually necessary. Everybody needs the necessary functions only. Unnecessary functions do not deserve any value. So, I think that TalentLMS has a clean and clear interface. So, fewer features are better.

The setup for TalentLMS is easier than Cypher LMS because it has fewer options.

The pricing is less than Cypher LMS. It is three times less.

I recommend one thing. When we build software, we need a proper manual of that software, a proper user manual. Whenever I build the software, then I create a technical recommendation. I create a user recommendation. That is my actual user manual. But I see there is no proper user manual.

User manual means you must not mention their step-by-step procedures. Not the individual procedures. You must have to mention what the difficulty is.

I think they have tried to complete all the LMS systems by using fewer features but tried to complete the entire LMS, not mask features, but features that are actually important.

Considering the overall global situation and having checked many more LMS systems. I think I can give it six out of ten. Something is better than nothing. So, I appreciate their efforts, and day by day, we improve, so they will also improve.

Out of the box, it's a fairly robust, no frills learning management tool. My company has learner and admin accounts with this solution, and I'm the super admin. I actually own it for my company.

You cannot beat the price point of this solution. It is one of the least expensive learning management systems I've ever worked with.

I have very strong feelings about TalentLMS, most of which have to do with the limitations of the programming. The built-in builder has some rather serious limitations. If you are porting in SCORM files to build resources in Captivate or Articulate, their program is only compatible with SCORM 1.2, which is a really old SCORM packaging format. 

The output is kind of clunky. The learner experience and UI is really basic, and this is an out-of-the-box, bare bones, 'nothing fancy' UI. You do have the ability, like most learning management systems, to do some customization, and you'll need to work with developers to do that.

The reporting is severely limited in that it only shows rules. You can't set up dependencies. You can't set up cyclical course, so you can't have equivalencies. The back end is kind of clunky. It's not as user-friendly as I would like it to be.

I have been using this solution for three years.

I would say it is a stable program, although it does have some little idiosyncrasies. We found some glitches in the reporting piece of it, which is probably the weaker aspect of the programming. We have found some challenges in the reporting data with false completes and things like that.

We scale the solution by going from 300 licenses to 1,500 licenses every year. We scale it for three months for our fourth quarter of the year. It absolutely has been very easy to scale and also to downgrade.

The tech support team is very receptive. The challenge that I have with their support model is that it depends on where you are in your subscription. The larger your audience, the more support you receive. When we're in our period of under 500 subscriptions, which is typically most of the year, Q1 through Q3, we can only communicate with support via email. They tend to be relatively receptive, but mind you, they're located in Greece, whereas I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area in California in the United States, so there's a bit of a time lag. If there's something that's happening right now, there's no way for me to get in touch with someone immediately.

However, when we scale beyond 500 users, which we do in Q4, then we have access to chat support, and that's instantaneous. It's an interesting transition for myself and my team, when we spend our high season with the ability to tap someone and get what we need sorted immediately, versus going back to having to wait 10 to 14 hours to get a response because now we have to email them.

The team is always receptive. Generally speaking from a technical standpoint, I have a lot of questions about the programming and capabilities. A lot of the responses I receive are links to articles that aren't really helpful, or I'm told that it's not something that the program can do. When we have false completions and things like that during Q3, or when the system glitches and people can't find or access a curriculum, they tend to go in and address it relatively quickly.

You can't beat this solution for the price. I've worked with Cornerstone On-Demand, Captivate Pride, Sum Total, and Knowledge Planet. Those learning systems are $40 to $70 per person. 

For this solution, depending on what licensing level you're at, you're looking at less than $3 a user per month. The pricing is insane for what you get, which is why my company is still using it.

This solution requires some fancy footwork and maneuvering. If you want to use their built-in curriculum builder, you really need to have at least some understanding of HTML to tailor it to what you want it to be. Otherwise, you run into some rather serious formatting issues with spacing and kerning.

I would prefer to work with Moodle. I don't know what Moodle's backend looks like, but I suspect that the organization invested some monies into the look of the UI because it is a seamless transition from a company's website to Moodle. That is not the case with my experience with TalentLMS. TalentLMS is out-of-the-box usage. There's no dev to make it more aligned with our brand and brand identity, other than the little bits I've done myself.

From a user perspective, this solution is very easy to use, so I would rate it as a six or seven. From an administrative perspective, it's more like a three or four due to the reporting limitations and challenges with the builder. If I were giving a rating for an economical learning management tool and we were only looking at tools of a certain value, then I would say it's a seven or eight. If I'm looking at the solution in conjunction with Cornerstone On-Demand, Sum Total, Knowledge Planet, Mozilla, and some of the other larger scale learning management tools, this solution is on the lower end of the spectrum and would rate around a three or four.

To give it an average rating taking all of that into consideration, I would rate it a five. 

My advice to people considering this solution is to be very, very clear on what their specs are. The program predated me, and the people who worked at my company and did the research into Talent didn't really know what they were looking for.

The biggest challenge of TalentLMS is that if you use their builder and go through the effort of building courses in their programming along with your text and information, the only thing you're going to be able to pull out are images or media. You can't pull your courses out because there's no way to export them. That's a huge problem. It's kind of how they protect themselves, and I understand that, but if you're dealing with people who are not instructional designers and do not have experience with using eLearning tools to create SCORM files, that's a huge handicap.

My recommendation would be to make sure that you test everything, and be absolutely certain about what you are looking for. If anything were to happen, or you were to want to move to another platform, you wouldn't be able to migrate any of your courses. You would need to recreate them all.

The primary use of TalentLMS is:

1. To support my company's Learning Management System

2. To increase staff competency through training and development

3. To boost employee morale via rewards and recognition programs and improve communication.

The work environment is the transportation and distribution of hazardous chemicals, as well as convenience store operations. 

It is customer-facing, and we have been prone to serious accidents and numerous customer complaints. 

We decided to use this solution to train staff on the company's expectations, create a consistent approach to ensure customer satisfaction, and support the business' policies and procedures with required training.

This solution has made a positive impact on the organization. It was easy for learners to complete their assigned courses, and they were content with the personalized certificates they received upon successfully completing their assignments.

The interface in TalentLMS is modern, well-designed, and easy to use. It has helped improve staff competency levels and communication in the company. This has resulted in a visible decline in customer complaints, nonconforming products, and incident rates.

TalentLMS is packed with instrumental features that are pertinent to a successful Learning Management System. Of these, the most impactful features are:

1. Automation. Notifications can to automated to notify users of assigned courses, remind users of outstanding courses, and email PDF certificates upon successful completion.

2. Rewards and Recognition. This feature makes it fun, competitive, and engaging via a point system and recognition of top learners.

3. Customer Support. The customer support team was amazing when I first began using this solution. They scheduled video meetings with me to personally demonstrate alternative solutions to issues I was having with data management.

4. Dashboard. Data is readily available in the form of interactive dashboards with modern, crisp data visuals. This shows the performance of the LMS, highlighting areas that can be improved and recognizing strong points in the business operations. 

I have been using this solution for over four years. During this time, reviews from learners have been positive and welcome. My interaction with creating courses and posting on the platform has been a simple task that requires little training.

The quality of the course content is impeccable and supports all media types, from animation to audio, video, etc. The Learners can also evaluate courses to rate the effectiveness of the content and suggestions for improvement.

Regarding improvement areas, when I upload animated training packs in Microsoft PowerPoint format, the animation and transitions are lost. This makes it static.

I have been using this solution for over four years.

The customer support at TalentLMS was readily available to answer questions and arrange video meetings to help us get started. This was done at no additional cost.

Positive

This process was previously done in-house, manually, and via face-to-face training. We did not use a different solution. 

The initial setup was straightforward and easy to launch. 

This solution was implemented by an in-house team. 

TalentLMS has a free package, so my advice would be to take advantage of this to determine whether this product is suitable. 

The pricing plans range from free to different levels based on the number of users. The fee structure can be either monthly or annually. The monthly structure pricing plans are in USD and are at 5 levels:

1. Free for up to 10 courses and 5 users

2. A Starter package can facilitate company branding.

3. Basic for $149

4. Plus for $279

5. Premium for $459

6. Enterprise, which is customizable. It is based on individual needs and has separate pricing. 

The other options we evaluated were Moodle LMS and Canvas LMS.