We often work with organizations that already manage their membership through an association management system, or AMS. LearningBuilder, on the other hand, is a credential management system (CMS), which means that we designed it from the ground up for that specific purpose. Is there a difference? Does it matter? Is there room for both? The answer to all is a resounding “Yes!”
An AMS vs. CMS: What’s the Difference?
While an AMS and a CMS share some aspects in common, these two systems are designed with different missions in mind. Let’s take a closer look at their differences:
An AMS ”Does” People Management for Certification
An AMS focuses on managing relationships between an organization and its constituents. This may take the form of communications and transactions, with the option for chapter management or secure, “members only” content management.
An association management system is also meant to manage an individual’s activity with the organization. It tracks interactions with the member, including event participation, membership status and level, and purchases.
The three functions an AMS typically supports include:
- eCommerce – Membership dues, event registrations, publication purchases, subscription management, and chapter affiliation.
- Communications – A website builder, email marketing, and “members only” content.
- Reporting – Financial reports, membership activity reports, and other program data visualizations.
A CMS “Does” Process Management for Certification
While an AMS manages relationships and memberships, a credential management system creates workflows for your certification operation processes to proceed in parallel or in tandem. What processes? These can include:
- Registration
- Applications
- Payments
- Staff Reviews
- Exam Eligibility, Scheduling, and Score Reports
- CE Tracking
- Recertification/Renewal
- Audits
An AMS vs. CMS: Why Does it Matter?
If you want to use an AMS to manage your credential programs, you’ll find both pros and cons. On the one hand, you won’t have to implement or learn a whole new system. If your credential program is well-suited to the functionality of your AMS, you’ll launch with lower cost and time investment.
An AMS with an add-on certification or CE module may suffice for simpler credential programs. However, for complex programs — with multiple credentials or eligibility paths, tiered or progressive credentials, requirements that take time to fulfill, or detailed CE criteria — limitations are likely to arise.
When your platform doesn’t support the functionality you need, it means one of two inevitabilities: staff time spent on manual workarounds or software development time spent on cumbersome customizations. If you find yourself facing this choice, it may be time to consider a certification management system.
A Match Made in Credential Heaven: LearningBuilder PLUS an AMS
As we’ve explored, even an AMS with a certification or CE module likely won’t have the functionality to tackle the full spectrum and complexity of many credential processes. Likewise, a CMS like LearningBuilder is not designed for functionality you might still rely on, such as marketing campaigns, subscription management, or publication management. You wouldn’t necessarily want to alter your business rules to align with your AMS capabilities, either.
But what if you combined their powers?
A CMS like LearningBuilder can work with your existing AMS to maximize operational, marketing, and financial efficiency. How? LearningBuilder can integrate with your AMS to manage key credential processes that may be challenging to bring into your AMS. In an initial application, this includes (but is not necessarily limited to):
- Multiple eligibility rule sets within a single application,
- Employment and work experience verification,
- Exam accommodations requests, and
- Exam retest rules and score reports.
Once your candidate achieves their credential, then what? For recertification and renewal, LearningBuilder’s functionality includes:
- The ability to track CE in different categories and with more complex requirements,
- Support to track different types of learning activities, and
- Support for different types of audit rules.
Your AMS can still be the source of truth for your member details and activities. We integrate for:
- Single Sign-On: To streamline logins.
- Demographic Sync: To ensure that candidate contact or demographic information updated in your other system is also updated within LearningBuilder.
- Process Sync: To share process, progress, and program data from LearningBuilder with your other system.
- CE Sync: To optimize high-volume professional achievement data transfers and extend the functionality of learning data by triggering application updates and other actions within the system.
While we can build on our previous experience to maximize integration speed and success, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all integration. Your program data requirements, integration testing conditions, and sync timing needs are likely unique to your organization and your AMS configuration. Our team will work with you to integrate LearningBuilder and your AMS in a way that meets your data integration needs.
LearningBuilder’s Enhanced Reporting Takes Your Program Data Further
LearningBuilder’s Enhanced Reporting tools can pull in data from your AMS to create, collaborate on, and share well-designed, easy-to-read, impactful reports. Combine membership and credential program data with no technical background required! We’ll help you set up data sources and report templates. You’ll be able to make data-driven decisions and support those decisions with more data.
LearningBuilder: Process Management for the Credentialing Ecosystem
Our vision for LearningBuilder is a system that connects all your stakeholders and sources of truth, enabling credential-related data to flow seamlessly between them without redundancy or risk of error. That way, you can focus on what matters: program design and growth. If you think you may need more or different credential management capabilities than your current system supports, let’s talk! Please schedule a call with us to see if we’re a good fit for your next technology solution.
