A smooth LMS migration: tips and tricks

At Cortexa, we understand that migrating from one system or vendor to another can feel daunting, and possibly risky. That’s why we place equal importance on the technical elements of migration and on the approach we adopt for each one. A consultative approach and ongoing communication are the essential ingredients of a smooth transition.

Over the years we’ve picked up a few tricks of the trade, and we’ve whittled these down to a few simple principles. First, let’s define what we mean by migration and why you might decide it’s the best option for you.

What is LMS migration?

Learning management system (LMS) migration is the process of transferring all e-learning files, data, records and courses from one LMS to another. This can happen between two LMSs using the same software — such as from one Moodle provider to another — or between two different products.

As a Totara Platinum Alliance Partner, we have migrated customers from both other Totara partners and other LMS providers.

Why migrate your LMS?

There are many reasons your current LMS or provider may not be meeting your organisation’s needs. Some of the most common:

• The platform is dated and creaking at the seams. Workarounds cause your admins daily headaches, or the platform has been so heavily customised to fix old problems that it’s now impossible to work with.
• Your organisation is growing and your current system can’t keep pace with your training needs.
• You’re not getting the support you need from your vendor to get the best out of the system. It’s a story we hear all too often.
• Your learners are experiencing challenges. Outdated systems or content that isn’t intuitive or accessible may be causing technical issues.
• You’ve been left on an old version, so upgrading is now a bigger and more expensive job than if your platform had been kept up to date.

Whatever your reason for considering a move, there are some core principles we apply to make each migration pain-free.

Hosting

Database and server hosting comes in all shapes and sizes and is typically managed by your provider, so you may not have a deep understanding of the infrastructure behind your platform. Whatever is in place, we look after the process and have methods to move your existing services onto our tried-and-tested infrastructure. We host on Amazon Web Services (AWS), so your data is secure and your site is reliable and responsive.

Move, then improve

Minimal disruption and continuity of service matter to most organisations when moving learning platforms. Much like medical staff taking great care moving a patient from one bed to another before treating them, we prioritise the initial move to the Cortexa-hosted environment before we start improving the platform’s inherited ailments and workarounds.

Customisation and integration

A key question we ask early on is: “Does your current platform have any customised features?” Invariably there is some customisation, and it may or may not be available in the platform you’re moving to. Customisation can enhance a platform, but it’s also often the reason a platform hasn’t been updated — it’s too complicated or costly to upgrade alongside the core code.

We work with you to make a balanced, sensible judgement on whether customisations should be brought across, refined using newly available functionality, or replaced with more elegant custom plugins. Your site may also be integrated with other systems across your IT estate — we can integrate with HR, ERP, CRM and more.

Testing is important

Moving to a new learning platform involves choosing the right provider and several essential steps, but testing is perhaps the most significant. In our experience virtually all new software has some flaws, and launching an untested platform could mean weeks or months of troubleshooting.

So we test thoroughly on every migration. We take a copy of your current data and install the site on our hosting platform to check for technical issues or user obstacles in a safe environment — so your launch goes smoothly when you’re ready.

Support

A lack of support from current providers is often why organisations start looking elsewhere — slow responses to emails, or little interest in helping you grow and improve your platform.

Our ethos is online learning with a human touch. We choose person-to-person interaction, where you know us by name, over automated ticket responses.

We keep our support open and uncapped because we know there will be times you need us more than others. Some of our customers have partnered with us for over 10 years because they can rely on us to help them meet their goals.