While most companies know how many individuals completed a particular course, relatively few know whether this training made a difference to performance, compliance risks, retention or revenue. That’s precisely the problem TMS reporting solves.
What is TMS reporting? TMS reporting is the analytics and reporting component of a training management system (TMS) that collects, organizes and visualizes training data such as completions, certification results, test scores, and costs into reports and dashboards. Instead of measuring that training was done, it provides insights into the value that this training brings to the business.
A training management system (TMS) is much more than a scheduling tool that tracks training completions. Used properly, it is the technology platform that ties together the training process and business impact by providing L&D professionals, managers, and executives with an evidence-based picture of what training delivers to the company.
In this guide, we’ll look at the importance of TMS reporting, basic types of training analytics you need to know about, main training metrics that need to be measured, and a framework for transforming raw training data into actionable insights for your leadership team.
Completion rates reveal if the training took place, but TMS reporting reveals if it had any impact, learn how to do it.
1. Why TMS Reporting Matters
Data comes regularly in form of training enrollments, completion of training, assessments scores, time-on-task, expiration date of certifications, evaluations of trainers and cost per learner, among others. If there is no tool to consolidate and analyze all that data, it will be just lying around on spreadsheets, LMS outputs and notes of individual trainers.
A learning management system with robust reporting tools brings all these pieces together into one system and makes the process easier for L&D and business people for several reasons:
- Visibility replaces speculation. Leaders do not have to guess whether the compliance program is functioning properly, they can get an overview of completion rates, overdue certifications, risk exposure and so on.
- Training becomes measurable. Measurable results allow L&D to show the benefits of their programs using the same language of cost, risk, productivity and retention.
- Issues appear sooner. It will be harder to overlook a decline in assessment scores among certain job positions or regions.
Lack of dependable TMS reporting means that training could just become a compliance exercise rather than something that the company can leverage.
Without consistent reporting, training information remains fragmented and difficult to leverage. TMS reporting consolidates it into one place of truth.
2. Core Types of Training Analytics in a Modern TMS
But all training analytics do not necessarily seek an answer to the same type of question. A TMS designed properly will offer the following four types of training analytics:
- Descriptive Analytics – What has happened? This includes completion rate, attendance, pass/fail rate and trends in enrollments over time. It serves as the base for discovering a pattern, for example, a decrease in completion for a certain department.
- Diagnostic Analytics – Why has it happened? The next layer of training analytics seeks to discover correlations between various events and trends, for example, a low assessment score that is connected to a specific instructor, mode of delivery or period of time.
- Predictive Analytics – What is going to happen? Based on the historical data, a TMS can predict which employees are at risk to fail certification and which groups may need additional training ahead of a certain season.
- Prescriptive Analytics – What shall we do? The most advanced TMS platforms provide recommendations not only based on forecasting but also suggest what to do.
Organizations usually begin with descriptive reporting and then gradually move towards prediction and prescription as the quality of their data improves.
Analytics training also involves anything from just basic completion reports to prediction and prescription reports, and organizations usually move up the ladder over time.
3. Key Metrics and Reports a Modern TMS Should Provide
The ideal TMS modules will produce reports that are important to not only the L&D team. Some metrics that should be included in useful reports are:
- Course completion and pass rate
- Certification and compliance status, including renewals that are due and upcoming
- Time-to-competency for new hires and promotions
- Cost-per-learner and overall training cost
- Score trends
- Instructor performance
- Utilization rate vs scheduled capacity
- Engagement levels and drop-off points
These reports serve different audiences in different ways. L&D teams use them to refine course content and delivery. HR and compliance teams rely on them to manage regulatory risk. Finance uses cost-per-learner and utilization data to plan budgets. Frontline managers use completion and competency data to know who’s ready for new responsibilities.
From completion rates to cost per learner, the proper TMS reporting provides just the right visibility that each of them requires.
4. TMS Reporting as Infrastructure, Not an Afterthought
It is very easy to think about TMS reporting as some add-on functionality that comes into a system as an afterthought, as some sort of a dashboard that is only required once the training has been scheduled and delivered. This mindset does not do justice to the power of TMS reporting.
As infrastructure, TMS reporting:
- Connects systems, not just screens. A reporting system within a TMS will be able to integrate with HRIS, performance management, and compliance systems. This way, training data won’t be kept in a silo and will stay connected with all the other workforce data.
- Feeds decisions in real-time. Instead of a quarterly report reviewed after weeks of delay, a live dashboard allows making decisions based on current information.
- Scales with the organization. As training programs scale to different regions, departments, or compliance needs, proper infrastructure can support this growth without any need for a complete system rebuild.
Organizations that see TMS reporting as core infrastructure, not as an optional addition, get much more out of their training efforts.
The value of TMS reporting comes from its integration into core organizational infrastructure and not from its function as a separate dashboard.
5. How Training Analytics Drive Better Business Decisions
Good reports only have value in as much as they prompt change. Examples of such would include:
- Prioritizing at-risk compliance training. Rather than dealing with deadlines and latecomers, predictive analytics will provide the ability to identify staff members or groups who will miss deadlines, and follow up proactively.
- Uncovering poorly performing programs. When there is a consistent low score or low completion rate for a particular course, it will be clear that some review of the course is required, rather than trying to increase completion.
- Budget justification. Data regarding cost-per-learner and outcomes gives L&D managers more power while requesting budget allocations, because they can justify how exactly funds are being spent.
- Workforce planning. Time-to-competence data makes it easier to plan for recruitment, hiring, promotions and workforce management.
- Enhancing learning experience. Data regarding drop-off and engagement will pinpoint the exact points during the course where learners tend to disengage.
In each example above, the value lies in tying the metric to an actionable item.
Training analytics only matter when they lead to action, flagging at-risk compliance gaps, justifying budget, or pinpointing exactly where learners disengage.
6. Getting the Most Out of Your TMS Reporting
There are certain things that distinguish companies who derive value from their TMS reporting modules from the rest:
- Use well-connected and organized data. Reporting quality depends on data quality and integration with other software (HRIS, LMS, compliance tools, etc.)
- Create specific dashboards. Different audiences require different dashboards, an executive does not need the same dashboard as a training coordinator. Customize dashboards to make sure that right metrics are shown to right audiences.
- Set up recurring reports and alerts. Automated alerts will help you stay on top of certification expiry dates and low completion rates without the need to conduct regular checks manually.
- Focus on no more than two-three key metrics. Attempting to report on all metrics at the same time results in noise. Instead, choose two-three metrics that are most important to your business and expand from there.
- Spend time training your staff on dashboard interpretation. Dashboards will be of no use unless managers and company leaders can interpret them correctly; a quick training on that will pay off very soon.
- Evaluate and improve. Periodically check which reports are used and which reports are obsolete and not required anymore.
Clean data, role-specific dashboards, automated alerts, and a focused set of metrics are what separate organizations that act on training data from those that just collect it.
FAQs
What do you mean by TMS reporting?
TMS reporting means the capability of a training management system to provide reporting and analytics for training statistics such as completion rate, certification rate, assessment result, training cost, and other KPIs that are integrated into dashboards and reports to make informed business decisions.
How is TMS reporting different from basic LMS completion reporting?
Basic LMS reporting often indicates whether a user completed a training. TMS reporting does it even better, because it includes information about completion, certification, cost, competency, HR and compliance integrations, thus providing business value of training activities, not just their activity.
Which are the most important training analytics to consider for reporting first?
First of all, most companies consider completion and certification compliance rates to track, since they indicate clear risks and expenses, before moving to the predictive analytics such as at-risk learners forecasting or cost per learner metrics.
Can training analytics predict at-risk learners and teams that are at risk to miss certification deadlines?
Yes, of course. The predictive analytics within TMS allow predicting such things and notify L&D and Compliance departments about it.
How does TMS reporting facilitate budget discussions with executives?
With TMS reporting, L&D professionals have actual metrics to back up their budget request because they will know how much each training program costs in terms of cost per learner, completions, time to competency, and other metrics.
What criteria should I use when evaluating reporting modules of a TMS?
The TMS modules you should consider are those that are integrated with your HRIS, provide role-based dashboards, allow for automatic alerts and generate both historical and predictive analysis.
Should smaller/mid-sized companies invest in advanced training analytics right now?
No, not necessarily. Almost all companies can start with descriptive reporting, completions, certifications, and costs and then proceed to predictive and prescriptive analytics.
