LMS Review: SilkRoad GreenLight LMS

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SilkRoad is an end-to-end talent management provider consisting of recruiting, onboarding, performance, LMS and portal products.  As I went through the process of reviewing all the publicly available information about SilkRoad, I initially wrote them off as a pure talent management provider with an employee only LMS.

I finally found the extended enterprise information under the topic “E-Commerce LMS” and discovered they have some decent external user capability including audience management, organizational (tokens) and individual ecommerce and certification management.  I found zero case studies and only one webinar from 2011 on extended enterprise learning, so I don’t believe this part of the solution is a core organizational focus.

My assessment–if you have SilkRoad GreenLight as your internal LMS already, you should explore taking advantage of them for external projects.   If you have a pure extended enterprise project, I’d look for specialists.  Here are the vitals:

LMS Name:  SilkRoad GreenLight LMS

Website: Silkroad.com

Contact Information: http://www.silkroad.com/Company/Contact_Us.html

Extended Enterprise Organizational Focus:  Minor

Extended Enterprise Ready:  Yes

Types of Extended Enterprise Expertise Supported:

• Channel, Affiliates, Vendors
• Customer, Client

Differentiation

• Integrated talent suite
• Easy, painless implementation
• Lowering compliance risk

Licensing and Certification:

During the webinar I watched (Leverage Your LMS to Train Your Extended Enterprise Webinar), their primary case study was how SilkRoad uses their own LMS to train and certify their partners.  They talked about partner levels and the benefits of having partners trained and certified exactly like your internal resources.

An undocumented stat of 700% better performance from certified partners vs. un-certified was tossed around.  It was good information and demonstrated they know and understand channel learning though they don’t talk about it.  On-the-job checklist and practical skill check functionality is also supported.  SilkRoad operates in regulated industries so they have some powerful capabilities in compliance.

e-Commerce Features:

• Sell products, packages
• Define catalogs
• Shopping carts
• Manage multiple pricing models
• Discounts
• Multiple content catalogs
• Multiple portals (Single and Multiple URL)
• Registration codes
• Tokens

Social Collaboration Features:

SilkRoad has a product called SilkRoad Point that is “Collaboration Software for Employees” that creates  a community, empowers workers, facilitates knowledge transfer of just in time knowledge. Point is integrated into the suite of products including the LMS, Performance and Talent.  Seems like these features would be applicable to any audience, but only mentions employees.

Mobile Features: 

I’ll have to dig deeper here with SilkRoad in the next round of information collection.  It appears the above mentioned SilkRoad Point is available via apps.  The social component links to training so some LMS features should be available from the app.  I searched the other products including the LMS and saw no mention of mobile.   I don’t believe the whole suite is mobile enabled at this point.

Gamification Features:  None found

Taxation Features:  None found

Adaptive Learning Features: Basic profile, job, org, audience profiling for content and ecommerce

Globalization Features: None found

Enterprise Level Reporting:  Yes

Technology and Integration: 

• Highly secure, cloud-based architecture allows system updates to flow without disruption.
• SSO, WebEx,  GoTo, HRIS Payroll, Benefits and other integrations via “SilkRoad Connect”

Links to Case Studies or Position Papers on Extended Enterprise Learning: 

• Leverage Your LMS to Train Your Extended Enterprise Webinar  highlights Bombardier Aerospace customer training case study at the 34 minute mark and BenefitMall broker training case study at the 39 minute mark.

Links to Online Demos of LMS:

• .You can register to watch a 5 minute recorded video of SilkRoad GreenLight LMS on their website here.
• You can request a live demo from SilkRoad here.

Extended Enterprise In the News:  No press releases or articles found on extended enterprise in 2013 or 2014.

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About Talented Learning LMS Reviews

Talented Learning LMS Reviews provide initial screening of vendors for extended enterprise suitability.  Vendors share lots of information on their websites — feature lists, video demos, case studies, position papers, press releases, free trials and more.  We review and analyze all of this information to determine a vendor’s mission, assess the platform’s strengths and weaknesses, and determine how effectively it serves extended enterprise learning needs.

As always, at Talented Learning, we’re not about making sweeping predictions or judging vendors.  Instead, we document the realities of today’s LMS landscape, and how learning technology is actually adding value.  We have only one goal — to help clients find appropriate LMS vendors based on their unique business requirements.