Got integrations? System-to-system integrations for certification management keep the data flowing and the application processes going. After all, the less program and candidate data entered manually or in multiple, the better! Of course, the rule only applies when systems integrate at the right points and with the correct information.
Integrations often share certain components and processes in common. However, they are never one-size-fits-all. Why? Because the data shared between the systems is usually unique to the client’s implementation of each system. Two organizations may use the same software platform, but configure it differently. LearningBuilder, for example, has a highly extensible data model that offers our customers many different configuration options. Thus, data attributes can also differ from implementation to implementation, sometimes significantly.
A typical integration between our LearningBuilder certification management software and a third party like an association management system (AMS) looks something like this:
AMS, CRM, and LMS Data Integration Components: People (in) Motion
As you can see, integrations with an AMS, customer relationship management (CRM), or learning management system (LMS) are often about your people: Who they are, and what they’ve accomplished. These integrations tend to include one or more of the following:
Single Sign-On
One of the most common integrations we handle is the Single Sign-On (SSO) Login integration, which eliminates the need for users to have multiple login credentials. With an SSO integration, users can seamlessly access LearningBuilder after signing into an AMS or other third-party system. LearningBuilder’s recent releases now support SAML and OIDC, which streamline our SSO configurations.
Demographic Sync
A Demographic Sync “pushes” data from the third-party system into LearningBuilder. It ensures that contact or demographic information entered into the AMS — like candidate email addresses, phone numbers, ages, dates of birth, or any other data — is updated within LearningBuilder. That way, candidates don’t have to enter that information twice, and you preserve the third-party system as the source of truth.
Process Sync
A Process Sync is how we handle process and program data. Process data can include process parameters, like start and end dates, and progress information, like the number of submitted, approved, or rejected CE credits. Program data includes credentialing milestones. If a candidate passes an exam, completes CE activities, or achieves a credential, a Process Sync transfers the data from LearningBuilder and updates the AMS.
CE Sync
Sometimes, your learning management system (LMS) will be the source of truth for continuing education (CE) activities or credits. We use a CE Sync for LMS integrations: Learning activities completed by users within an LMS are “pushed” to LearningBuilder and automatically added to their associated Learning Plans. You may use a CE Sync to push completed learning activities from the LMS to LearningBuilder, and a Process Sync to transfer completed credentialing milestone data from LearningBuilder into your AMS or CRM.
As an alternative to a high-volume, multi-source CE sync integration, we recently built a cloud-based database to optimize high-volume data transfers, acting as a buffer between systems and extending data functionality with our Enhanced Data Import Tool. With our new Learning Hub, your professional achievement data can move through the credentialing ecosystem even more quickly, easily, and safely.
Real-Time or Scheduled? Timing Data Syncs
Often, we set up our integrations so that certain actions trigger data syncs. For example, candidate data can sync with LearningBuilder automatically upon candidate login. A sync can also be triggered by changes (like a certification status change) in the system.
If your candidates log into LearningBuilder much less frequently than the other platform, you may want to sync your demographic information more regularly — say, every 24 hours — to keep LearningBuilder up-to-date. In this case, we can set up a nightly sync for demographic data. However, not all association, relationship, or learning management platforms support nightly or overnight batch syncing processes out-of-the-box. If yours does not, our integrations team can work with that platform to develop a solution for you.
How the Heuristic Solutions Team Streamlines AMS, CRM, and LMS Integrations
At Heuristics, we’re always finding ways to work smarter, not harder, on client development projects. We’ve worked particularly hard over the past year or so to streamline the integration process, and we’re not finished. Whether you’re initiating a new integration or integrating with a new system, here are some of the ways that we’ve made the process less complex and time-consuming:
We Build On Past Experience
The more clients we work with, the more third-party systems we work with to build integrations. The more integrations we build, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more we can apply the next time we integrate with that system.
By building on the technical and industry expertise we’ve gained over the years and implementations, we can better use our time to tailor these integrations to your specific data needs.
We Help Organize a Standardized Process
Over many implementations and years of ongoing development, we’ve learned a lot about the initial information we’ll need from our clients and the third-party system to be successful.
Now, we’ve collated those questions into worksheets to gather all necessary information in one place and save time on the back-and-forth between involved parties. That way, especially if we’ve worked with a specific vendor and integration component before, we can hit the ground running without a lot of back-and-forth at the start.
We Minimize Custom Coding
We’ve also engaged in behind-the-scenes technical and infrastructure work to limit the need for hand coding and redeployment. Back in the day, our developers had to get into the infrastructure, adjust the code for the client parameters, and then redeploy it to build an integration. Our recent integrations rely more on technical configuration and testing than heavy-duty development.
How Our Clients Help Streamline AMS, CRM, and LMS Integrations
You may be wondering, “Is there anything that my organization or board can do to reduce the time and effort needed to launch an integration?”
As it turns out, a little up-front project management can make a big impact. You and your team can contribute to the process in a few key ways to ensure we use our time and expertise to build, troubleshoot, fine-tune, and test, rather than chase down information and access.
When we’re approached to set up an integration, we’ll always need to know certain information to move forward. The more quickly we can know the following, the more quickly we can get started:
Available Resources
When you reach out to initiate a new integration, these resources are essential to successful engagement:
- Organizational Point of Contact: Do you know which staff member is responsible for gathering resources and fielding communication? To avoid “playing telephone” with multiple threads of conversation, it can be helpful to designate one primary point of contact for the project.
- Third Party Point of Contact: Do you know who from that vendor’s team can answer our questions about your implementation, and how to get ahold of them? This internal contact can help us achieve a unified understanding of the data to be exchanged.
- Documentation: Do you know what existing API documentation and other technical specifications for the other system are available to us, and how can we access them? Standard documentation provides a great jumping-off point for our work, and we also work hard to keep LearningBuilder’s system documentation up-to-date.
Data and Flow
As you consider your overall data strategy from an integrations perspective, you will need to answer three questions:
- Which system is the source of truth for specific data elements?
- Which data elements will improve your operations and analytics in the system receiving the data?
- How frequently will this data need to be updated?
Once we know the answers to these questions, we can move forward to determine how the data can be “mapped” from system to system correctly.
It is also helpful if you understand your expected usage. How many users do you anticipate will log in daily or sync nightly? If you are syncing CE from an LMS, do you have “spike” periods when many users submit CE activities at once? If you can identify the usage load you anticipate, we can implement accordingly.
Testing Capabilities
How can we ensure the right data is going to the right place? If we know what kind of testing environment we’re working with up front, we’ll be better prepared to tackle the testing process most efficiently when the time comes. After all, end-to-end testing (to ensure the integration performs as intended and expected) is non-negotiable.
If we’ve worked with a software vendor before, we may already have a data-gathering worksheet for you to help simplify this initial step. If we have not worked with that vendor before, we’ll likely need to contact them to scope the integration work properly.
Heuristic Solutions: Your Technology Provider and Partner
We built LearningBuilder to serve the software needs of credentialed industries and professions, and we’ve spent the last 15 years learning from the experts: our clients. Integrations with AMS, CRM, and LMS platforms, as well as test vendors, payment gateways, and credential verification databases, are just one of many ways we can streamline your certification management, license management, and accreditation management processes.
Want to learn more about our integration capabilities and implementation services? Schedule a time to connect with us and discover the LearningBuilder difference.
