If your association offers continuing education content or is planning to add educational resources as a membership benefit, you may be wondering how to manage all the technology and information involved.
First, it’s important to choose the right learning management system (LMS) for your needs. We’ve covered that extensively in our guide on the definition and uses of an LMS. And one thing that’s important to emphasize is ensuring the LMS you choose will integrate with your association management system (AMS) to create a unified experience across platforms.
How does connecting your AMS and LMS work, and what best practices should you follow? Read on for all the details.
What Are an LMS and an AMS, and Why Do Associations Need Both?
Successfully integrating an LMS and AMS starts with understanding how each system contributes to your overall operations and member experience.
Purpose and Function of an AMS
The purpose of an AMS is to help manage the administrative side of an association. The AMS is typically used as a centralized database for information like member records, dues processing, daily operations, and communication. Essentially, it helps keep your team organized so you have all the member data you need readily available. For associations that also manage continuing education or professional development programs, pairing an AMS with a dedicated learning management system like EthosCE allows teams to connect member data with course completions, credits, and certifications in one streamlined workflow.
Purpose and Function of an LMS
Alternatively, an LMS is software that’s meant to help you create, publish, and manage educational content. For example, if your association offers continuing education courses or content, the LMS would provide you with a centralized place to host and monetize your content library. That way, everything is accessible to your members when they need it.
Why Associations Need Both and Should Integrate Them
The reason why associations need both is that they each can play a role in the success of your organization. The AMS will keep all your essential information organized for effective member management and decision-making, while the LMS helps you create and manage the educational resources you offer to your members.
Why should you integrate an LMS and AMS? Because it helps create a more organized and unified experience across platforms. It keeps all your data, operations, and insights aligned so you can make more effective decisions and understand how your members are engaging with all the activities and materials you offer.
What Are the Key Benefits of Connecting Your LMS and AMS?
Some of the key benefits of connecting your AMS and LMS workflow are:
- A more unified member experience: Connecting your AMS and LMS lets you take advantage of features like single sign-on (SSO). This allows members to use the same username and password to log in to both their member account and their learning account.
- Automatic data sync: When members complete courses, certificates, or continuing education (CE) credits, it’ll automatically add that information to their member profile for easy accessibility. That way, they can track their learning progress, and your team can gain insights into how members are engaging with continuing education content.
- Automated enrollment: You can set up a system so members are automatically enrolled to access continuing education courses with the regular membership dues they pay. It adds another benefit you can promote with association membership.
- Improved operations: Connecting these systems helps reduce manual data entry tasks and errors across platforms. That way, you’ll free up resources across your team so staff members can spend more time on other important tasks.
- Member engagement: A well-rounded membership and learning system that’s smoothly connected can improve overall member engagement. It makes learning materials easier to access, so members are more likely to take advantage of that benefit, while ensuring they have a better experience during the process.
What Are the Best Practices for LMS-AMS Connections?
When connecting your LMS and AMS, keep the following best practices in mind:
- Make sure you’re using SSO login to give members a more seamless experience when accessing their accounts.
- Establish a two-way data sync. This means information added to either your AMS or LMS will be updated on both platforms.
- Automate CE credit tracking across platforms so users have an organized overview of their course and learning history.
- Use unified analytics to get organized insights from both platforms, so you can better map engagement data and how education is affecting aspects like membership retention.
- Clean up your data records in both your LMS and AMS before connecting them so you have better data quality and fewer inconsistencies.
How Does Cadmium's Elevate Connect With Popular AMS Platforms?
When you’re searching for an LMS that can connect with your AMS, Cadmium’s award-winning LMS for associations and nonprofits, Elevate, is a great place to start. It helps you easily create, publish, and manage learning materials while giving you access to important features like curriculum development, social learning, certifications, on-demand and live events, and options to help monetize your content library.
Elevate is capable of integrating with many popular AMSs, such as iMIS, YourMembership, GrowthZone, MemberSuite, Fonteva, Rhythm, and more. It offers SSO login to give members a unified experience while using API-based data exchanges to sync user information like course progress and CE credits across platforms.
Learn more about Elevate and how it can help you create an organized, efficient, and effective learning system for your association.
