Absorb LMS Reviews & Pricing

Key Features

• Content Libraries: Access expert-curated, always-current courses via Amplify content portfolio. It offers three content libraries:
• Amplify
  • Over 500 foundational courses ideal for small to mid-sized companies.
  • Features essential and mandatory business training.
  • Engaging micro-learning format for quick, impactful learning.
• Amplify Plus
  • More than 2,000 courses covering basic to intermediate topics.
  • Includes compliance, safety, skills, and continuing education.
  • Versatile formats with bite-sized lessons, full-length courses, and instructor-led training.
  • Available in English and Spanish, with voiceovers in French and Spanish.
  • Accessibility features include closed captioning in multiple languages.
• Amplify Max
  • Extensive library with over 20,000 courses from over 100 reputable publishers.
  • Covers essential to advanced levels, including safety, business skills, technology, wellness and industry-specific accreditations.
  • Supports diverse learning styles and is available in 90+ languages with localized content in over 40 languages.
• Search Analytics: Track learner searches with the Search Analytics Report. This feature displays data on searches conducted by both authenticated and unauthenticated learners. Monitor which items learners select from search results, including details such as the item’s ID, name, type and rank. With the correct permissions, access information on the selected items to gain insights into learner behavior and preferences.
• Salesforce Connector: Enable customers, partners and employees to access and engage with learning materials without leaving Salesforce.
  • Track training engagement and evaluate its impact on sales revenue and service metrics.
  • Display relevant courses on the home screen to upsell or educate prospects about new products.
  • Provide access to essential training across Salesforce Support, Sales and Community environments.
• Course Catalog: Edit course access based on departments to ensure the right learners have the appropriate permissions. Refine course lists by name, type, vendor, tags, location, type and other criteria. Organize and view courses in various formats, including detailed, list and calendar views.
• Third-Party Integrations: Connect with third-party apps to streamline learning management across your organization.
  • Integrate with communication tools like Zoom and HR platforms like ADP.
  • Develop custom integrations to facilitate data transfer between the LMS and other applications.
  • Integrate off-the-shelf eLearning content from the Absorb Amplify Portfolio.
  • Integrate LMS logins with existing SSO solutions to improve security and user experience.
  • Use RESTful APIs to manage and expand integrations. Build scalable workflows and connect with various systems, devices and learners both inside and outside your organization.
  • Create real-time integrations that respond instantly to key events. Use webhooks to automate notifications for events like course completions and user registrations.
• Absorb Engage: Keep learners engaged and motivated with interactive tools. These include:
  • Polls: Gather learner feedback with customizable, open-ended polls. Design questions for fact-based, opinion-based or choice-based responses. Monitor results over time to adapt training content.
  • Collaborations: Create discussion spaces for learners to share ideas on specific topics or courses. Features include document sharing, post interactions and member messaging.
  • Leaderboards: Encourage competition by awarding points for course completions, curricula, instructor-led courses, and competencies. Learners earn points for achievements and interactions, with points being date-stamped and non-retroactive.
  • Billboards: At the top of the Learner Dashboard, display announcements, new initiatives or course promotions with eye-catching video or photo banners.
• Dashboards: Design multiple dashboards for different departments and customize them with a variety of widgets, including competencies, reports, logins, activity and course enrollment.
  • Admin Controls: Only System Admins can create, edit or delete dashboards.
  • Permissions: Set access and editing permissions for users.
  • Report Handling: Download completed reports or have them emailed to you.
  • Dashboard Templates: Adjust the colors and images of the Learner Dashboard and the Login Page, and add a Public Dashboard.
• Absorb Analyze: Generate custom reports to gain insights into various aspects of your LMS data, including:
  • Course Enrollment: Track details such as enrollment ID, key, type, status, dates (started, completed, expired), progress, score and more.
  • Course: Analyze course-specific data, including ID, type, name, status, language, tags, enrollment types, certificate details and other settings.
  • User: Examine user information, including ID, names, email, status, roles, job details and location, and sync data from external systems.
  • Department: Review department data such as ID, name, description, and contact information.
  • Reports: Access essential reports on learner activity, competencies, progress, course activity, curricula, evaluations, approvals, certificates, and credits.
• Course Creation: Choose a theme for your course or build around content like screen recordings, videos, PowerPoint presentations or AI-generated materials.
  • Add and manage different content types, including course materials, instructor-led sessions, course bundles, curricula and categories.
  • Organize courses by ratings, access date, comments, self-enrollment, audience, author, automatic enrollment, average rating, category, certificate details, and more.
  • View detailed reports on learner course starts, ends, scores, departments, and certificates.
• Course Settings
  • General: Adjust status, title, description, and default language.
  • Syllabus: Customize content, completion order, terms, mobile compatibility and proctoring.
  • Enrollment Rules: Set department restrictions, enrollment rules, self-enrollment options, automatic enrollment, approvals and eCommerce settings.
  • Completion: Define certificates, competencies, credits, leaderboard points, failure and re-enrollment policies.
  • Availability: Schedule access, due dates, expiration, prerequisites and offline access.
  • Catalog Visibility: Customize mobile app visibility, category, images and posters, and make courses mandatory or featured.
  • Course Administrators: Designate individual or department admins.
  • Messages: Manage and customize course notifications.
  • Resources: Add files and notes for learners.
  • Course Uploads: Provide instructions for uploading course materials and certificates.
  • Attributes: Enable ratings and evaluations, and add audience, vendor, goals, external IDs, time estimates and costs.
  • Social: Enable comments and collaborations.
  • Competencies: Reward users with custom designations, like 'CPR Certification,' for completing courses. Set up and assign competencies with unique names and images, which can serve as icons or badges.
  • Competency Levels: Award competencies on a scale from 1 to 10, allowing for incremental achievements and more control over user progression.
  • Access Management: Configure competencies to grant or restrict access to additional catalog content based on user achievements.
  • Reports: Use the Learner Competencies Report to view user achievements, modify data fields, create new competencies, message users, view transcripts or delete competencies.
  • Integration: Edit or add competencies to online courses, instructor-led courses or curricula.
• ILC (Instructor-Led Courses): Facilitate live or asynchronous training sessions, either physical or virtual. Enrolled learners choose which session to attend. While a venue is optional, it helps specify the training location.
• Recurring Classes: Schedule classes to repeat regularly with consistent time, instructor(s) and location, similar to Outlook calendar invitations.
• Waitlist: Manage session capacity by adding learners to a waitlist when sessions are complete. Automatically enroll learners from the waitlist when seats become available or manually override capacity limits.
• ILC Sessions Report: Access detailed reports on session details, learner enrollments, attendance, waitlists and instructor messaging.
• Course Enrollments: Access and manage enrollments for curricula, ILCs, online courses and course bundles. Add, modify or delete course enrollments as needed. Re-enroll users in training, un-enroll them from courses, and update user details as required. Access detailed user transcripts, message users directly and review enrollments to track past training activities.
• Enrollment Keys: Provide enrollment keys to users to automatically assign them to departments and courses, and manage validity and usage limits. Create and customize keys, name them, define access, and configure user details and notifications.
• Observational Checklists: Use Observation Checklists to evaluate users based on specific criteria, and ensure they have the necessary skills and perform tasks effectively. Ideal for tracking mentoring and on-the-job training, these checklists help reviewers assess and document user performance.
• Knowledge Checks: Add knowledge checks between courses to assess learners' understanding. Use question types like multiple-choice, true-or-false, matching, sequencing, pick one, pick many, drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blanks and free text.

Approach to Common Challenges

• Improving User Experience: Absorb LMS enhances user experience with a learner-centric approach. It features a user-friendly interface and adaptive learning options that boost engagement. Tools like Engage Billboards and leaderboards encourage interaction, while an intuitive design simplifies course access and progress tracking for both learners and administrators.
• Integrating With Third-Party Apps: Absorb connects with external systems like CRM platforms and content libraries, allowing you to create a customized training ecosystem. Its integrated content library makes it easy to manage and update training materials.
• Enhancing Efficiency: The platform accelerates course development with tools like Absorb Create, which uses AI to simplify content creation. Comprehensive analytics and reporting track training effectiveness and learner progress, while the system scales to accommodate growing user and content demands without performance issues.
• Keeping Data Secure: Enjoy peace of mind with SmarterU's robust security and privacy features. Flexible login options let your learners use employee IDs or Single Sign-On (SSO) for easy access. You can secure your training programs with IP access settings to restrict access and prevent account sharing. Hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the platform benefits from daily backups and is trusted worldwide for its reliability by enterprises.

Cost of Ownership

Limitations

• Lacks Assessment Capabilities: Absorb LMS lacks advanced assessment features. It doesn’t support anonymous assessments, automated assessments, or assignment warnings, limiting flexibility in evaluating learner performance.
• Limited Compliance: The platform doesn’t support COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) compliance or LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) integration, restricting its use in environments that require these standards or integrations with external educational tools.
• Doesn’t Offer Built-In Virtual Learning Tools: Essential virtual classroom features such as breakout rooms, interactive whiteboards, screen-sharing and on-demand recording are not natively supported. These functionalities are only available through partner integrations, which may limit in-platform collaboration and interaction.
• Question Bank: The question bank functionality is restricted to only multiple-choice and text-based questions. This limitation reduces the diversity of assessment methods available for creating varied and comprehensive evaluations.

Training Resources

• Absorb Academy: Master the essential features and functionalities of the LMS. Dive into topics such as admin interface, learner interface, admin dashboard and widgets, and user configuration. Master departments and groups, roles and permissions, course types, enrollment methods, reports, setup settings and eCommerce. Achieve certification by completing the administrative training program.
• Videos & Webinars: Explore videos and webinars featuring eLearning industry experts to maximize your LMS potential.

FAQs