Your step-by-step guide to painless LMS content migration

As technologies evolve, so do your LMS needs. Is your LMS still helping you smash your company’s L&D objectives? If not, it’s time to consider switching your vendor. And with this comes your LMS content migration.

Depending on the scale and complexity, LMS content migrations often take significant time, with projects ranging from 30 to 90 days on average. With large volumes of courses and materials to transfer, these projects can stretch on for months, disrupting learning and training programs. With so much content being transferred between systems, data mapping and extraction gaps can lead to critical information being lost.

But there is good news. Through proper quality control, testing, and planning, you can easily mitigate these risks. We created a plan to help you migrate content to our LMS with ease. Featuring key insights from our product and educational team, break down your content migration into easy, actionable steps with our action plan.

Step 1: Assess your LMS content migration needs

Before migrating your content to your chosen LMS, run a detailed assessment. This will help you avoid common pitfalls like picking an LMS with inadequate features or lack of scalability.

Run a detailed assessment of your content migration goals

How will your content migration support larger business goals like training, compliance, and onboarding? 🎯
What features do you need exactly? 🤔
Does your chosen LMS support existing content formats like video, SCORM and docs? 🎬
What third-party integrations do you need? 📥
How easy do you what your LMS interface to be? 💻

Step 2: Create an LMS implementation plan of action

To pull off a winning LMS implementation plan, planning and groundwork are key. Here are some suggested steps for creating a watertight content migration plan:

Your LMS implementation plan checklist

1. Define your needs and goals

Understand why you are doing this and the problems you hope to solve. Collect feedback from stakeholders to scope out the requirements for the new system. Connect these to your business objectives.

2. Map out requirements and expectations

Include a staple document outlining expected workflows, learning models and usage Assemble a migration team and assign responsibility. If you’re running a solo ship here, then carefully consider what migration tasks you need to do.

3. Spot technical challenges before they arise

From data source integration to managing APIs…what hurdles might you encounter? Jot these down so you can foresee any issues before they crop up. Tip: factor in time for training resources and support.

4. Plan for data migration

Work closely with your vendor to develop a data migration plan. Identify data types to be migrated and perform a cleaning sweep beforehand. An extra tip here is to test your migration scripts and schedule cutover windows.

5. Define metrics for success

What learning KPIs will you measure for post-migration? Think of L&D metrics like learner satisfaction, course completion rates, or knowledge retention.

Step 3: Prepare content for migration

Congrats! You’ve made it this far. Next, let’s look at how to prepare your authoring goals for the big migration.

Complete this simple content migration prep:

1. Run a content audit

Review all existing courses, modules, assessments, and documents, and mark what needs to be migrated. This is also a good time to do some spring cleaning and identify outdated or redundant content, as well as fix broken links, errors, and accessibility issues. You will thank yourself later for this- your migration process will run like a well-oiled machine.

2. Organize content

Logically sequence content into modules and sections. Standardize course components like learning objectives, assessments, and assignments. This includes archived unused legacy data like outdated user accounts, admin data or forums. Proper organization and decluttering will make your life easier afterwards

3. Map course features and functionalities

Pinpoint all the features and tools that you are currently using and map equivalent features in your chosen LMS to ensure your learning experiences are uninterrupted.

4. Package SCORM content

Package your existing eLearning courses into SCORM-compliant files. Whatever LMS you pick, ensure it supports SCORM content. This method saves internal file structures and helps track learner progress.

5. Coordinate with stakeholders

Work with your instructors, designers, and IT team to prepare content according to their needs and desired learning outcomes.

Why are these steps important?

Optimizing your existing content will help ensure a smooth transfer to your chosen LMS. It will also reduce the risk of deviating from your current training objectives. Lastly, it will make your entire migration process more efficient, with cleaner data and content structured logically for easy reuse.

Step 4: How to approach content migration with WeSchool

Surprise surprise! WeSchool provides several unique tools to simplify and streamline the process of migrating content into the platform, supporting you with a smooth transition of learning materials.

Effortless content integration

The Picker is WeSchool’s intelligent content integration tool, allowing users to swiftly upload resources into the platform with just a few clicks. Users can simply search or browse for the type of content they want to add, whether it’s a file on their computer or a link to an online resource.

How does the Picker work?

The Picker auto-detects external links to sites like YouTube and L&D open source content library, categorizing them appropriately. This automates much of the work of integrating rich media content from around the web, saving you a huge amount of time compared to traditional LMSs (which usually only allow local uploads).

The Picker:

Supports dragging and dropping files for upload directly from your local device
Enables connecting to and pulling content from major cloud storage platforms through integrations.
Offers a Draft with AI feature, enabling you to generate text from a prompt and create custom scripts.

Smooth collaboration and workflow integration

WeSchool offers out-of-the-box integrations with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 to facilitate collaboration and cloud-based workflows. This lets users streamline their processes and boost their productivity when creating content and communicating.

Protect your eLearning content

For organizations with existing eLearning content packaged as SCORM files, WeSchool fully supports the SCORM standard. SCORM content can be readily uploaded and delivered through WeSchool modules. The platform tracks learner progress within SCORM-compatible learning objects, providing educators with vital analytics on engagement and comprehension. This compatibility ensures that pre-existing SCORM investment is preserved and transferable to WeSchool.

Create custom scripts

In case you need to do a bulk content import, our tech team helps with this! We can create custom scripts to integrate any type of content you need. Book a call and our team will assist you.

Step 5: Ready to migrate content to WeSchool?

The process of actually migrating content into WeSchool is designed to be as easy as possible.

Here are our main takeaways!

Step 1: Upload content

Using WeSchool’s Picker tool, start uploading your content from either your local device or connected cloud sources. The Picker allows bulk uploads for efficient migration. Be sure to organize your content properly before uploading.

Step 2: Map content

As you upload content, you can map it to the appropriate courses, modules, and lessons. WeSchool’s course hierarchy allows you to recreate your existing course structures or design new ones.

Step 3: Configure settings

Once your content is uploaded, configure any relevant settings, such as user permissions, content restrictions and due dates. WeSchool’s permissions and settings panels make it easy.

Step 4: Test and verify

Properly test and verify that all your content has migrated correctly. Check links, embedded items, videos, and documents. WeSchool’s preview mode facilitates verification.

Step 5: Launch

When everything looks good, launch your courses! WeSchool empowers admins to control course publishing and access. Inform your users of the migration and provide training resources.

Step 6: Get support

WeSchool’s support team is available to help with any issues throughout the migration process. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our team for support. We provide technical support through the entire migration process and beyond, helping you with content setup, troubleshooting, integrations, and regular use.

Migrate your learning content with confidence

Migrating your learning content to a new LMS can be daunting, but with WeSchool, the process is streamlined and hassle-free. Say goodbye to the common headaches of time-consuming migrations, data loss risks, and compatibility issues. Our knowledgeable team partners with you each step of the way, from planning and content preparation to post-migration optimization. At the end of the process, your learning environment will be transformed with a modern LMS that empowers impactful teaching and engaging learning.

Don’t settle for a migration that just transfers content – evolve your LMS with WeSchool for lasting benefits.

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