A multi-tenant LMS is an e-learning platform that allows organizations to train multiple clients from a single instance of the online learning software system.
The multi-tenant software can create tailored learning environments to boost the user experience while maintaining data integrity and security.
This article will explore the definitions, uses, functionalities, and benefits of multi-tenant LMSs and how they can affect the learning experience and training strategies.
Disclaimer: The information below is accurate as of March 18th, 2024.
What you’ll learn in this guide
What is multi-tenancy?
What is a multi-tenant LMS?
Why use a multi-tenant LMS?
Who uses multi-tenant learning management systems?
How does a multi-tenant LMS differ from a single-tenant LMS?
What are the benefits of multi-tenant learning management systems?
How do you choose the best multi-tenant LMS?
What is multi-tenancy?
Multi-tenancy or multi tenant architecture is where a single software instance serves multiple users.
According to Gartner, “Multi-tenancy is a reference to the mode of operation of software where multiple independent instances of one or multiple applications operate in a shared environment. The instances (tenants) are logically isolated but physically integrated.”
In other words, each user (tenant) operates independently with their data, configurations, and user management but shares the same codebase (infrastructure) as all the others.
Multi-tenancy in an LMS refers to the capability of learning management systems (LMSs) to support multiple clients or learners, each with its own branding, content, and user base managed within a unified platform.
This is a cost-effective, streamlined, and scalable approach for organizations serving diverse learning needs.
What is a multi-tenant LMS?
A multi-tenant LMS is a learning management system that can serve multiple user groups (tenants) at the same time.
Companies can share courses with separate tenants from a single database. Each user base will receive its own tailor-made training courses, branding, and custom permissions.
This means organizations can use these corporate learning platforms to train their employees for onboarding, upskilling and reskilling, or compliance.
Companies can simultaneously use the same LMS for their extended enterprise e-learning initiatives like training external partners and franchises, or even for customer education.
Each of these user groups can enjoy a personalized online training ecosystem with different workflows and learning paths without sifting through other tenants’ personalized courses.
That said, administrators have full access to the entire database, controlling what content and features are available to all tenants or on a case-by-case basis.
Let’s see how this applies to an actual multi-tenant LMS.
What is an example of a multi tenant LMS?
Docebo is a cloud-based LMS that organizations can use for employee onboarding, talent development, compliance training, sales enablement, customer training, member training, and more.
As a multi-tenant online training platform, Docebo provides several LMS features and functionalities that allow organizations to cater to the training needs of multiple learner groups at the same time.
These features include the following.
- AI-powered learning path personalization: Using auto-tagging, virtual coaching, and personalized content recommendations. With these AI features, Docebo’s learners are more self-sufficient, while admins can focus more time and energy on improving their users’ learning experience.
- User roles: These help maintain security and control and can provide customization to the platform. By assigning specific user roles such as learners, tutors, instructors, managers, and experts, Docebo lets organizations delegate responsibilities and tailor the learning needs of each user group.
- User-generated content: Through Docebo’s Discover, Coach & Share feature, for example. This has a good multi-tenant LMS capability since it lets learners capture and share content with their peers. This promotes engagement and leverages collective wisdom and the creation of relevant content for each user group.
- Custom branding and white-labeling capabilities: Allow organizations to use their logo, colors, fonts, and theme layouts for each user group. This helps with brand exposure and loyalty, which is particularly beneficial when dealing with extended enterprise user groups like channel partners or customers.
- Customized reports and analytics: Keep track of learner engagement, progress, and other relevant LMS metrics. This information helps with decision-making by measuring learning outcomes, highlighting areas for improvement, and optimizing the training programs.
- Multi-language support: Provides content and user interfaces in multiple languages to accommodate diverse user bases across different tenants. Docebo covers over 40 languages, including English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Japanese, and more.
- Security and compliance features: Like SSL certificates, data encryption, single sign-on (SSO), GDPR compliance, and strong password requirements, among others, which let Docebo users ensure data protection for each learner regardless of tenancy.
So, what are the main uses of multi tenant LMSs?
Why use a multi-tenant LMS?
Organizations might want to use a multi-tenant learning platform for many reasons.
The most common use cases include the following.
- Multiple departments: Organizations can use the same LMS to train different departments based on their needs and requirements. Companies can set up a multi-tenant LMS where each department can manage its users, create and deploy its courses, and track its KPIs.
- Multiple locations: Large organizations and enterprises often have offices in different locations worldwide. A multi-tenant LMS allows them to provide consistent corporate training across all locations while still taking into account regional and cultural differences like language, time zones, learning styles, etc.
- Extended enterprise: Some organizations may want to go beyond their internal workforce and provide corporate training to external stakeholders like channel partners, suppliers, community members, or customers.
Who uses multi-tenant learning management systems?
Multi-tenant LMSs cater to a wide range of organizations across multiple industries.
Here are several examples of how various sectors benefit from multi-tenant LMS providers.
- Financial services: Banks and other financial institutions can use these systems to deliver compliance training across branches while maintaining regulatory knowledge consistency.
- Manufacturing: multi-tenant LMSs can help manufacturing businesses by facilitating onboarding and ongoing safety training across multiple locations.
- Healthcare: Hospitals and healthcare networks can use these systems to train staff members on new procedures, protocols, and compliance regulations.
- Government: Government agencies can train employees on policies, cybersecurity, and other essential topics to enhance workforce readiness.
- Higher education: Colleges and universities can leverage this technology to provide online courses to students and faculty training while managing their resources more efficiently.
- Restaurant and hospitality: Hotel and restaurant chains can deliver consistent service training, food safety protocols, and customer service skills across all locations.
- Retail: Retailers can train their sales staff on product knowledge and customer service best practices and provide them with sales enablement content to drive more sales and increase their win rates across different sales locations.
More generally speaking, the types of organizations that can benefit from a multi-tenant LMS include the following.
- Companies with multiple departments and branches.
- Agencies with offices across the country or all over the world.
- Enterprises with multiple branches, subsidiaries, or brands in their portfolio.
- Those who wish to offer training to channel partners, members, or customers.
- Training provider organizations that offer training to different clients.
So, how do multi-tenant LMSs differ from their single-tenant counterparts?
How does a multi-tenant LMS differ from a single-tenant LMS?
Multi-tenant LMSs serve multiple user groups from a single software instance while sharing the same knowledge and resource database but keeping separate data storage for each.
Single-tenant LMSs provide a dedicated instance for each client with separate databases, applications, and infrastructure.
While single-tenant offers more customization potential, it also requires more resources and maintenance.
Here’s a breakdown of the main differences between the two types of LMS software systems.
| Multi-tenant LMS | Single-tenant LMS |
| Shares a single instance across multiple user groups, providing a more cost-effective resource sharing. | Offers a separate instance for each group, which offers better customization but needs more resources. |
| It can easily scale to accommodate a growing number of users without significant infrastructure changes. | Scaling is more difficult, resource-intensive, and complex since it depends on adding more dedicated instances. |
| Somewhat limited customization options to maintain consistency across all tenants. | Allows for more customization tailored to each client’s unique needs and requirements. |
| With separate data storage, security can be a concern. However, reputable LMS providers offer robust data security measures. | As every database is unique, single-tenant LMSs are more secure by design. |
While each type of LMS has pros and cons, certain benefits tend to give multi-tenant LMSs a leg up.
What are the benefits of multi tenant learning management systems?
Multi-tenant LMS architecture provides several key advantages when it comes to serving different learner groups.
Unlike a single-tenant LMS, companies don’t need to install a different version of the training platform for each one.
Here are the other main benefits of multi-tenant LMSs.
1. Personalized training initiatives
Multi-tenant LMSs have the benefit of providing personalized learning pathways for each user group while still being hosted on the same platform.
Organizations can use various customization capabilities, like Docebo’s AI-powered content recommendation system or its branding and white-labeling capabilities to enhance the learning experience, brand recognition, and knowledge retention.
2. Hierarchical control
Most professional LMSs like Docebo have advanced user role features that grant customized permissions to different users in separate tenants.
These permission levels can start with that of a regular user with basic access, who can only view and complete training courses without admin privileges.
Then there’s the level of a power user who can manage entire tenants and their courses. And then there are the super admins who can oversee the entire database and manage the entire platform.
These different permission levels allow administrators to delegate responsibilities while maintaining a centralized control level.
3. Resource sharing
Simply because each user group may have its own training needs doesn’t mean that companies can’t make use of the same resources to train multiple tenants at the same time.
Take compliance training, for instance. It doesn’t matter if someone is in sales, product development, or marketing. They can all have access to some of the same courses with a multi-tenant LMS when needed.
4. Aggregated reporting
By having all different learner groups under the same database, it’s easier for organizations to centralize their data analytics and generate custom reports.
This feature can provide insights on a granular level by tracking each learner, but it can also provide broader information for each user group, or training initiatives in general.
5. Cost-effectiveness
By and large, multi-tenant learning platforms have several cost-saving benefits compared to the single-tenant alternative.
As companies need only one LMS system for all user groups, they don’t need to pay extra for maintenance, initial setup, or extra subscriptions that typically go with single-tenant LMSs.
How do you choose the best multi-tenant LMS?
Choosing an LMS that can address the needs of multiple user groups involves taking into account several important factors.
1. Use cases
When on the market for a multi-tenant LMS, companies should first assess their online training goals and use cases.
With an LMS like Docebo, for example, organizations can onboard customers and new hires, upskill and reskill employees, enable sales reps and channel partners, and provide ongoing compliance training.
Companies should choose an online training platform that’s able to cater to their needs and the needs of their learners.
2. Overall features
Apart from multi-tenancy, the learning platform also needs to include robust LMS features able to facilitate the company’s e-learning strategies.
Depending on the use cases above, organizations may pick and choose which functionalities best suit their requirements.
That said, the top features to look out for in an LMS include
- Course and content management
- Mobile learning capabilities
- Interactive and gamification elements
- Robust reporting and analytics
- Social learning functionalities
3. Security
Data security is of the utmost importance when choosing a multi-tenant LMS.
Security features like SSL certificates, data encryption, regular backups, or strong password requirements, among others, help keep sensitive data secure and protect the overall integrity of the system.
With multiple clients sharing the same infrastructure, robust security features are necessary to prevent unauthorized access, and cyberattacks, maintain data privacy, and comply with regulations such as HIPAA or the GDPR.
4. Support
By design, multi-tenant LMSs are more complex than their single-tenant counterparts.
The LMS provider needs to offer quality customer support that’s available whenever you encounter an issue.
Go on reputable review sites like G2.com or Capterra and look up what verified users have to say about each vendor’s customer service.
5. White labeling
White labeling is an important feature for a multi-tenant LMS as it allows companies to brand the training portal with their logos, colors, and fonts while removing those of the LMS vendor.
This feature helps create a learning experience that better represents the organization. It can help boost brand loyalty among learners without the company having to develop its own training portal from scratch.
Over to you
To summarize, multi-tenant LMSs offer a scalable and cost-effective solution for organizations looking to train and manage different user groups more effectively.
By using customizable features, streamlined administration, robust data security, and analytics and reporting capabilities, these online training tools allow businesses across multiple industries to deliver personalized learning experiences while also optimizing resource use.
Schedule a demo with Docebo and see how you can provide training across different user groups with ease.
