Software AG improves the digital learning for its employees, customers, and partners, turning their experience with Totara into value

Software AG is an enterprise software company with 10,000+ enterprise customers in over 70 countries. As the second largest software company in Germany, and the seventh largest in Europe, Software AG looks to simplify the world. They do this by seamlessly connecting data, applications, processes, devices, and clouds to allow information and insights to flow more freely. This helps Software AG customers turn data into value.

The Challenge

Software AG had two separate Totara instances (Internal and external) managed by different groups in the company. The internal system managed by HR supported employee training while the external instance supported Customers and Partners (it’s commercial Education business). Not only were the target groups different, the systems were on different Totara versions, different hosting environments, and were lacking general synergies preventing them from gaining optimal performance and a clear upgrade path.

Software AG knew this set up was preventing them from moving forward. They needed to modernise their learning business and rethink the way they enabled their learners.

They started their journey by establishing a new learning strategy fashioned after a customer journey map. This ensured they were able to bring the right knowledge, at the right time, to the right learner. The second phase was to redesign the LMS to support the new strategy.

They needed worldwide coverage with space to support blended learning programmes, the development of customised learning plans and the ability to gain valuable insights from their learner’s data, all while supporting course creators, learning coordinators, and stakeholders to move freely within their complex learning landscape.

The solution had to cover both systems with the goal of interoperability. And with Software AG’s learners now taking centre stage of the design, they needed a UI/UX that unified the integrated user experience.

Make no mistake, Software AG learners were very clear. They wanted the ability to choose their own approach to learning (i.e., self-paced learning, customised learning plans) with recommendations on how best to find the right learning at the right time.

And last, but not least, the solution needed to encompass not just the needs of Software AG’s business today but to help Software AG continue to grow, evolve, and bring continuous improvement to the learner’s experience.

The Solution

After much thought, Software AG decided to stick to the two-system setup – one for the internal employees and one for customers and partners – but transform them into a unified product. The systems are hosted on different environments and are configured based on the needs of the target group. In addition, Software AG’s site administrators are able to develop a single road map ensuring regular security updates, new features and plugins are available to all.

Software AG’s complex environment was a perfect candidate for Totara’s flexible, open-source platform, enabling Software AG to cover the needs of completely different user groups, while still offering great levels of interoperability.

The single code basis enables Software AG to have a common approach to both platforms while allowing each instance to leverage a fully configurable custom theme and support unique UX requirements as needed for each user group.

• Dashboards are used to create personalised homepages, better navigation and customisable blocks, covering event management, certifications, programs, and hours spent on learning, recommendations, etc.

• Programs and Certifications are leveraged to support the internal and external users in their training and compliance process, achieving a streamlined learning path for the most important products and processes of Software AG.
• Adaptive learning paths allow for key transitions like onboarding or internal performance development.
• Learning Plans are now extended to offer internal managers pre-filled content (courses, programs, objectives, and competencies) to help them quickly offer a prescribed approach to improved performance.

• An analytic engine designed to track time spent in Totara, gives learners and management insight into individual and team professional development efforts.

But Software AG didn’t stop there. They are now leveraging the integration options of Totara to integrate with business data analysis tools, MS Teams, an external digital badges provider, sales enablement tools, external learning offerings, their CRM and gamificatio tools.

By achieving interoperability between the two Totara systems, Software AG has been able to establish a more stable, mature learning culture and secure the goal of continuous improvement, all while focusing on a better learning experience. As they look to the future, the Totara roadmap brings endless possibilities to incorporate greater skill management, collaboration, social learning, AI integration, video integrations and much more.

Results

The relaunch of both systems, their deep integration with each other and completely new user experience led to visible results from the first day:

• Software AG’s internal system is now showing a 90% usage rate, demonstrating internal learners are now actively engaged on a more consistent basis.
• Software AG’s external system has since grown its site traffic by 300%, reflecting a 40% growth in consumption YoY.
• With multiple authentication and registration methods now available, Software AG is able to easily support the unique needs of its different user groups, allowing them to exceed Stakeholder expectations.
• With a new unified user experience, Totara is now helping Software AG to drive brand awareness.
• The new high-performance hosting and load balancing setup now allows Software AG to effectively support the learning needs across 70 countries and a variety of time zones, achieving a 40% performance improvement prior to the project.
• Using the common code base, each Software AG system is now able to gain access to the latest Totara functionality, creating a quarterly upgrade cadence. The ability to support upgrades more efficiently has reduced Software AG’s upgrade costs by more than 50%.
• Using MS PowerBI and the Learning analytics extension, Software AG is now able to gain more valuable insights into learner performance data, giving stakeholders the ability to better manage their business.
• With a secure, scalable solution, Software AG is able to reduce duplication efforts by simply sharing content between the two systems. This has resulted in less work for the administration team, removing duplicate tasks, shorter publishing time for content creators and faster access to new content for learners.
• Software AG learners are also happy with the changes based on learner direct and unsolicited feedback.