FAQs

Your Essential Guide to Thinking Cap LMS

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are essential for online education and training. This guide answers common questions to help you use your LMS effectively.

Everything You Need to Know About Navigating and Utilizing Your LMS

FAQs

Discover answers to the most frequently asked questions about Learning Management Systems, from basic functionalities to advanced features and best practices.

Question	Answer
Firm Qualifications	Agile.Net Inc. (https://www.thinkingcap.com/) is a privately held corporation founded in 2001 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Our LMS and LCMS were launched in 2003. Thinking Cap is comprised of 25 full-time staff, most of whom have been with the company for a decade. Agile.Net Inc 250 The Esplanade, Suite 200 Toronto, Ontario Canada M5A 1J2 The primary contact for this Proposal and authorized communications lead is Douglas Wallace, Co-Founder and Solution Architect of Agile.Net. His contacts are phone 416-977-4675 x226 or email doug@thinkingcap.com. We welcome ongoing communication throughout the selection process and encourage you to contact us whenever we may be of assistance.
Similar Implementations	Our collaborative, passionate approach to creating a highly flexible and customizable product has driven us for over two decades. We excel at creating custom, complicated onboarding scenarios, and our decision to remain as a boutique firm allows us to deliberately limit the number of onboarding engagements we take on at any given time. We hope you’ll agree that our personal attention, care and breadth of experience set us apart. We welcome the opportunity to discuss each of them with you at length and invite you to reach out to the named contacts, all of whom remain active clients with us. Our collaborative, passionate approach to creating a highly flexible and customizable product has driven us for over two decades. We excel at creating custom, complicated onboarding scenarios, and our decision to remain as a boutique firm allows us to deliberately limit the number of onboarding engagements we take on at any given time.
Technical Experience	Thinking Cap is two products both built and maintained internally: Thinking Cap LMS and Thinking Cap Create. Only Thinking Cap delivers Thinking Cap. Because all functions of the LMS are exposed as XML Web Services, we have had many experiences where a developer working for a client has extended the LMS into the enterprise on their own without our assistance. Thinking Cap supports API. Thinking Cap is integrated into multiple SSO Federation technologies including SAML2, OAuth2, JWT and OpenID. While NetForum SSO is not a truly Federated SSO, we have experience with its integration. Our client that uses NetForum has selected to Integrate via third party tools from Catalyst Fire rather than using the XWeb interface. One great advantage to this is that Catalyst Fire uses SAML2. Thinking Cap is hosted in the cloud on Azure and AWS. All data lives in Canadian Data Centres only. The Azure platform stores copies of all Blob, Table and SOL storage in two redundant sites at least 500 miles apart in Toronto and Quebec City, Canada. Copies are kept for 30 days. Data is stored encrypted at rest and is always transferred via SSL using TLS 1.2. TC has ongoing penetration testing done by third parties as well as independently by other clients and has been vetted by Amazon Application Security to manage Amazon employee data.
Maintenance and Upgrade Cycles	Releases to the LMS come every two months. Between releases patches are delivered as needed to resolve any issues which may occur.
Project Team a. Provide detailed information on each team member's experience with the type of design work requested here. b. Provide resumes of team members that will be involved in the project.	During onboarding, your project will be touched by a number of people. We believe that having a single point of contact from each team is essential to progress success. On our side, this point of contact is the Onboarding Coordinator, who is joined by the Solution Architect and Technical Lead. Solution Architect – Douglas Wallace  Douglas Wallace, a Thinking Cap founder, has been the company’s President since its inception in 2001. Prior to his current role, he was Manager of New Media at Passport Online. Doug has 20-plus years of experience in Web and software development as a systems architect and Product Manager.   Technical Lead - Radu Pogaceanu  Radu Pogaceanu, Senior Developer, has a Masters’ Degree in Computer Science from the University of Craiova, Romania. He has been with Agile for 10 years and has deep working knowledge of every aspect of both Thinking Cap and the integration points to multiple AMSs, Federate SSO providers, and the encryption and transport mechanisms underlying most common APIs. Prior to joining Agile, Radu was a Java Programmer for Asigra.  Onboarding Coordinator - Lia Martinez  Lia Martinez holds a Diploma in Business Administration from George Brown College. She has been with Thinking Cap for just under 5 years and has led or been an integral part of the onboarding team for over 10 clients including Amazon, Framework Homeownership, SDMS, Community Care Information, and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
System Specifications	Upon review of your requirements we are confident Thinking Cap will prove a comprehensive LMS solution. This is especially true due to the highly flexible nature of our product and collaborative nature of our processes; there is no cookie cutter project plan for bringing on a new client to use the Thinking Cap LMS. There is, however, a check list of common activities that we follow to create a critical path. We feel strongly that your organization-specific plan must be built by our companies as a team following an initial period of discovery. We would be delighted to make any contract between us contingent on an agreed-upon schedule, and we are able to achieve this rapidly. In broad strokes, we would endeavor to have a Statement of Work for any Professional Services and the Project Schedule complete within a month of being selected as your vendor. We can be available to meet with you at your convenience. Upon signing of the Master Contract we will move you out of a sandbox into your own environments for testing and production. Next we will come onsite for two days of meetings to define your requirements into a Statement of Work for Upgrades and Add-ons and an overall schedule. At this point we will continue with a weekly remote progress meeting and any number of working meetings as required to get you to launch.
Define Branch Structure	For this task we look at the audiences that make up both the Learner and Administrative communities. Some of our clients have one branch that all Learner’s access but have a hundred or more branches under root branch to divide data access. Other clients have 50 or more individually-branded branches.
Define Metadata	Metadata drives the LMS so we invest time upfront understanding the business rules and the data we will need to drive it. Once we understand the data we must determine where it will come from- some Metadata comes to us via a sync feed to a data source, some comes as a payload on user log in via SSO to an identity provider and still more comes from the users themselves during registration or in day-to-day use of the LMS. Also, keep in mind that metadata fields are defined at the branch level and that the metadata you keep about one set of learners might differ from another set.
Define Data Integration	Loading the existing data is just half the battle. Next, we look at keeping that data up-to-date and healthy. While we have several built-in data integrations to popular software, in our experience each customer has some data point we have never seen before and we will plan for this integration.
Loading of Historical Data and Learning Content	To get ready for the launch of a new LMS we must load in your population of Learners, add Learning Activities of all types and stock the pond with all the auxiliary assets we need, including Certificate Templates, Locations, Equivancies, etc. Also, most of our clients had a life before Thinking Cap and we commonly load historical data from all kinds of formats to recreate a learner’s history in our LMS.
Branding and Experience	Until we know how many branches you are likely to have which require their own URL and corresponding Learner Experience it is impossible to create a plan for rolling each out. The common tasks are to define the pages in the learner experience, gather and apply content to pages, set up any self-registration and make roughly one thousand choices about the interface. Finally, we need to define how you plan to drive Learner discovery of Learning Activities. This includes allowing for searching, browsing, creating a catalogue of Activities with Categories and determining the metadata we will allow Learners to use as filters when looking for items in browse or search.
Additional Professional Services	When we reviewed your requirements, we highlighted areas where we will need to make changes or create add-ons to support your needs. During the kick off and planning meetings with a new client a few or more of these inevitably come up. Your Onboarding Coordinator and Solution Architect are always looking to make the LMS fit your community rather than forcing your community to fit the LMS.
Implementation Timeline	While a successful onboarding can be done in as little as a few weeks, experience has shown that we can expect the onboarding process to take 4 months on average. Again, this will be determined during our Period of Discovery.
Training	We provide onsite training to our customers at no additional charge, and we return annually to refresh that training. In fact, our LMS is so flexible and capable that we see these sessions not only as training opportunities but also an effective way to update your team on new possibilities based on our most recent updates. When the time comes to use a new function, a designated mentor will deliver the micro-training you need and will pitch in until your administrators master these new skills.
Vendor shall comply with relevant Government of Ontario Information Technology Standards (“GO-ITS”) and Elections Ontario IT data security standards for collection, use, storage, and disclosure of Personal Information	yes
The Vendor shall ensure that the Solution's client tenant and data including elector, stakeholder and user data and information will not be accessed, used, disclosed, processed, or stored outside Canada and will reside in Canada only	yes
The Vendor shall ensure the LMS is fully bilingual. The language preference (EN or FR) must persist throughout the user session and in any future sessions,	yes
Vendor shall configure and implement a Learning Management System that complies with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), specifically the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA	yes
Relevant Project Experience	Thinking Cap was founded in the spring of 2001, launching our first version of the LMS In 2003. Since inception, we’ve grown to deliver Learning Management Solutions to clients on four continents in the corporate, higher education, association and non-profit sectors. Ontario is our home Province, and we are proud to deliver LMS systems to Canadian Manufacture Excellence and Build Force Canada, both of whom are former Canada Sector Councils. We also have experience delivering to Sick Kids, Ontario Health and RECO, the governing body for Real Estate licensing in Ontario. When considering Elections Ontario’s unique needs in an LMS partner, we understand you service a diverse, geographically diversified audience. You experience upwards of 90% user turnover between general elections and your chosen LMS partner must be able to accommodate for an efficient ramp-up to provide training for over 50,000 workers with minimal notice. Our many years’ experience delivering to audiences as large as Amazon’s 1.5 million active users in our LMS demonstrates how Thinking Cap provides the scope, complexity and scale you require.
Capabilities and Expertise: The Proponent should demonstrate core competencies, technical skills, and experience relevant to the Project's needs. The Proponent should provide its qualifications, certifications, and past projects of similar size and scope.	Thinking Cap LMS provides tens of thousands of course completions daily. With over three million active Learners across 40 customers, our system is constructed from the ground up as a real-time scalable platform with the highest levels of security and reliability. Large global enterprises such as Amazon trust our boutique firm with their Learning systems for good reason. Our LMS is a cloud-based system based on metadata for describing Learners and Learning Activities which we use to create complex rules that automate the entire system and reduce administrative workloads. This model allows highly complex Learning programs to be adapted and delivered with little customization required. Thinking Cap offers the most powerful learning portal builder in the industry, allowing for maximum control over the Learner experience. Our LMS accommodates 26 languages. Thinking Cap delivers on a 99.97% uptime guarantee which is backed up by redundant systems and ongoing monitoring by our team and third parties. Our live phone support is available Monday to Friday from 8 am Eastern to 8 pm Pacific and on weekends from 9am to 5pm. Support via our online tools is available 24/7. In emergencies, a live person can always be reached, day or night.
Methodology and Planning	We understand that your request for proposal includes a requirement to provide a detailed project plan. However, due to the highly flexible design of our product and collaborative nature of our processes, we feel strongly that such a plan must be built by us as a team following an initial period of discovery. We would be delighted to make any agreement between us contingent on an agreed-upon schedule, and we are able to achieve this rapidly. Onboarding includes, but is not limited to collaborating and working with you on following key components: Defining Branch structure Defining metadata Loading of historical data and learning content Defining data integration points Defining branding and user experience System Configuration Determining Reporting Needs Establishing Training and Mentorship Requirements
Define branch Structure	For determining the structure of the LMS branch tree, we look at the audiences that make up both the Leaner and administrative communities. Some of our clients have one branch that all Learners use but have a hundred or more branches under the root branch to divide access to data. Other clients have 50 or more individually branded branches.  Part of branch setup involves reviewing all of the branch-level resources and rules to determine which are best set at top levels and inherited down and which should be set by individual branches. In addition to inheritance, our software is capable of setting rules for sharing Learning Activities between branches where any branch sharing an object can determine its own enrollment rules and certain other independent settings. Should we decide collaboratively to proceed with your stated preference of a second instance, we would implement a bespoke Professional Services solution to extend the sharing rules to a second LMS.
Define Metadata	Our LMS is driven by metadata, so it’s important that we invest time up front to understand which rules will direct your solution and what data will be necessary to implement it. Once we understand the data, we need to determine where it will come from. Sometimes, metadata comes to us via a sync feed to a data source; sometimes it comes as a payload on user login via SSO to an identity provider; and sometimes it comes from the users themselves during registration or through day-to-day use of the LMS. We endeavour to keep data very fresh and not depend on login to update users.
Loading of Historical Data & Learning Content	To prepare for the launch of a new LMS, we must load in your population of Learners, add Learning Activities of all types, and stock the pond with all of the auxiliary assets we require such as Certificate Templates, Locations, Equivalencies, Webinar Providers, Credit Categories, and so on. The planning process will examine samples of the data we can expect to receive from your existing solution, and we will be able to write scripts to convert the supplied data to an easily importable format.
Define Data Integration	Loading the existing data is only half the battle. Next, we look to keep that data up-to-date and healthy. We have several built-in data integrations to popular software, but we fully expect to encounter new data points in any onboarding process.
Branding and Experience	Furthering our intent to deliver a highly customized product, we require more information before we can provide a comprehensive plan for roll-out such as how many branches will have their own URL and a unique Learner Experience. In a typical roll-out, the common tasks are to define the pages in the Learner Experience, gather and apply content to those pages, set up any self-registration, and make about a thousand choices about the interface. Should we be selected for the next step of the RFP process, we will create a sample Learner view. Finally, we need to define how Elections Ontario wishes to drive Learner discovery of Learning Activities. This includes allowing for searching, browsing, creating a catalogue of Activities with Categories, and determining the metadata that we will allow Learners to use as filters when looking for items in browse or search. It’s important that we get the balance correct from the start between Prescribed Learning and Self-Discovery. Over time, how the system is used day-to-day will drive feedback and recommendations, and we can incorporate this into the Learner Experience.
System Configuration	All functions in our LMS are managed as discrete permissions that can be assembled into Roles that reflect your administrative team. This can be defined as a small group of all-powerful super-users or a distributed group with targeted roles and responsibilities. We will work with you to discover and create these Roles. There will then be choices to make around the default setup of Learning Active Types. This work will tune the LMS so that it more deeply reflects your needs. This includes configuring some settings up front so that they never need to be changed again, defining the order in which settings are presented to administrators when they’re adding new objects, reviewing all 40-plus notification types to decide if they’re needed and how they should be configured, and even building custom nomenclature rules so that the LMS speaks to you and your employees in your own commonly understood internal terms, not ours.
Reporting	In addition to the many ad hoc reports found in our LMS that are designed to answer administrator questions quickly, we also have a full set of highly configurable reports. These reports, once set up, can run on a scheduled basis and be delivered to any number of users. During the onboarding process, we will establish the initial set of reports required to give you the ongoing intelligence your team needs. Thinking Cap’s built-in learning analytics engine gives a deeper insight into your learning program, so that you can demonstrate value and support key decisions with real data. Thinking Cap reporting system allows you to efficiently track training efficiency, its effectiveness and engagement in real time.  We have made it extremely simple for you to create reports only your team needs and schedule recurring reports for an automatic delivery list of recipients. Additionally, you can target certain groups of users to share your customized reports with! Out-of-the-box reports available: Completion Report System Access Report Demographic Report E-Commerce Report Accreditation Expiry Report Global Tokens Report Prerequisites Report Demonstration Authentication Report Exceptions Report
Risks / issues management and mitigation	Thinking Cap is a Single-Tenant Architecture Cloud Service hosted on Microsoft Azure and AWS. This means that each client of Thinking Cap is hosted in our data centre on their own database and computing resources. This ensures no change of piracy or security cross contamination can occur. Our host data centre is certified annually for ISO/IEC 27001:2005, SOC 1 and SOC 2 SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 and is Level 1 compliant under the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS) as verified by an independent Qualified Security Assessor (QSA). Thinking Cap uses Tin Foil Security as our Third party for Penetration Testing. This is done ahead of each release to look for new vulnerabilities. We also get the results for independent reviews done by The British Council annually. This is in addition to the multiple reviews done on the underlying Azure network infrastructure. Azure is a PCI Level One facility which is patched continuously. We also update 3rd party libraries as needed to keep current. All Thinking Cap clients are hosted behind a Firewall. Access to all resources is closely controlled by IP and User Account. Only senior staff have access to LMS data. All User Passwords are stored encrypted. All backend administrators of the Thinking Cap SaaS are based in Canada. All Users with any access to the servers, Thinking Cap databases and application are in Canada. All parts of the application are access controlled by username and password. Each account is given roles and permissions that limit the functions and data the account is able to access. The LMS itself is a Multi-Tenant Architecture. Each independent group in your origination can be hosted in their own Thinking Cap “branch”. branches are logical partitions on the Thinking Cap LMS. You have full administrative control over all branches and can delegate varying degrees of control over specific branches to your groups. Delegation is done by a user with the permission to modify the security of users in a branch giving another User a “Role”. Roles are a collection of permissions. The Application allows for hardened password security including uniqueness of passwords, encrypted passwords, enforcement of strong password selection and automatic password expiry. User Name and Password may not be the same. Your data is stored encrypted at rest. The Keys are managed by Microsoft Azure and the passcodes to the keys are held by 3 members of the Thinking Cap team.
Agile methodologies	While Thinking Cap comes with a large number of features out-of-the-box, we follow an “Agile” process for the implementation, consulting and additional services work. This process is an iterative development methodology, delivering functionality to the customer with each iteration. From our read of the RFP we don’t anticipate a large Professional Services project as part of the implementation but we still feel it is important for your team to understand how we work. Thinking Cap’s Iterative Development: allows customers to re-evaluate priorities and strategy every two weeks allows the vendor to refine estimations continuously from iteration to iteration allows the customer to get evidence that the development effort was equal to the price charged ensures that the project is never more than one iteration off target delivers a functioning release every iteration provides more product support to customers In short, the customer gets more control and more accountability while the developers get reasonable goals and the ability to refine estimates over the project.
Quality Assurance / Test Plan	During the development phase, the custom application pages and templates are created. With a shell of the site prepared and a database ready, each of the dynamic pages is programmed in ASP.Net using C# and the functionality is completed. Before the site is ready to move into the next phase of development, the programmer and the Quality Assurance (QA) team will review the documents defined in the previous phases to ensure that each page meets those requirements. Coding and creating the stories from each iteration is a straightforward process when the proper planning has been done. The challenge is to ensure that only best production practices are followed. Thinking Cap's QA team independently monitors each development project and governs, absolutely, as to the level of quality which goes into each Thinking Cap project. We put each piece of functionality through its paces, checking manually and with specialized tools, that the site functions as designed, within file and screen size constraints and with all necessary documentation. This process is performed on multiple browsers and platforms to ensure uniform excellence for employees. At the end of each iteration we deliver fully coded and tested pieces of functionality. Once all required stories are completed over a number of iterations, the site is ready to go live. Iteration ends with the presentation to the client of each story completed in the Iteration.
Communication plan and Reporting	The Proponent should describe how it will communicate Project progress, milestones, and any deviations from the schedule. The Proponent should describe reporting frequency, format, and channels to ensure there’s clear visibility and accountability throughout the Project execution phase. (delete description after review) Upon signing a trainer would be scheduled for a one to two day session to introduce your team to the LMS. Our Project Manager will manage the implementation process, which begins with a kickoff meeting to outline the project requirements in detail and connect Thinking Cap with your necessary staff. After this meeting your project is added to our project management tool including the details of each integration task. This is where your project will be tracked. A primary developer and quality assurance tester would be assigned to your LMS for implementing and testing the integration. Day-to-day ongoing support of the LMS will be managed by our support team. A primary support coordinator is assigned to each customer upon their signing with Thinking Cap. Our support team is responsible for answering any questions you may have about the LMS, notify you of updates to the LMS and report on the progress of any tickets being tracked in our support system. In our experience, large requests are rarely missed. It’s smaller ones such as a change to the welcome message on a Learner’s transcript page that are easier to lose in a sea of emails. That’s why we manage any and all issues, requests, and questions through our bespoke ticketing system. We’re so meticulous about it that whenever we receive a direct email outlining a concern, we reply with a ticketing reference number. This allows us to ensure that we address every one of your micro-jobs, which can be especially numerous and arduous during the onboarding process, seamlessly and with a failsafe flagging system to ensure that each request is attended to in order of priority.
Organizational Structure and Leadership: The Proponent should describe the organizational structure, leadership team, and key personnel. The Proponent should demonstrate their experience, qualifications, and the leadership expertise of senior management as reflected in the company's direction, values, and approach to business	Behind our industry-leading systems and processes, there’s another reason our customers love us: our people. Rather than sales or expansion, we are a relationship-focused team built on excellence, transparency and collaboration from the ground up (as we hope is evidenced from our client examples and references). If we can’t meet your requests, we will say so. If there is a better way, we will fight for it. During onboarding, your project will be touched by a number of people. We believe that having a single point of contact from each team is essential to progress success. On our side, this point of contact is the Onboarding Coordinator (Project Manager), who is joined by the Solution Architect (Executive Sponsor) and Technical Lead. Onboarding Coordinator (Project Manager) - Lia Martinez  Lia Martinez holds a Diploma in Business Administration from George Brown College. She has been with Thinking Cap for over 5 years and has led or been an integral part of the onboarding team for over 10 clients including Amazon, Framework Homeownership, SDMS, Community Care Information, and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.  Solution Architect (Executive Sponsor) – Douglas Wallace  Douglas Wallace, a Thinking Cap founder, has been the company’s President since its inception in 2001. Prior to his current role, he was Manager of New Media at Passport Online. Doug has 20-plus years of experience in Web and software development as a systems architect and Product Manager.   Technical Lead - Radu Pogaceanu  Radu Pogaceanu, Senior Developer, has a Masters’ Degree in Computer Science from the University of Craiova, Romania. He has been with Agile for over 10 years and has deep working knowledge of every aspect of both Thinking Cap and the integration points to multiple AMSs, Federate SSO providers, and the encryption and transport mechanisms underlying most common APIs. Prior to joining Agile, Radu was a Java Programmer for Asigra.  Agile.Net is a team-focused boutique corporation with no anticipted personnel changes during the period of your scheduled contract. Thank you for including Thinking Cap in the mix of LMSs you will be reviewing.
Product Offering	Thinking Cap has been commercially available since 2003. Regular software updates are automatically rolled out every two months with hotfixes in between as necessary. We are constantly refining functionality and making features developed for specific projects available to all clients. We strive to maintain consistent two-way communication and actively welcome feedback and input best exemplified by our annual in-person event “Thinking Camp”. Each autumn, we invite our core clients and entire team to meet together on Toronto Island for two days where we share ideas, suggestions, industry trends and best practices with one another. Our product is built on customer feedback: Thinking Camp directly shapes the continued improvement and evolution of the Thinking Cap LMS.
The Vendor’s LMS Solution must have a means for administrators and learners to communicate with each other (e.g. a discussion board integrated into the LMS) that can be moderated by EOHQ administrators.	yes
The Vendor’s LMS Solution must enable integration with third party communication tools (e.g. Twitter, YouTube)	yes
The Vendor’s LMS Solution must allow for customizable electronic notifications/emails to be sent from the system.	yes
The Vendor’s LMS Solution must provide easy sharing/upload of documents (minimal restrictions).	yes
The Vendor’s LMS Solution must allow for customizable communication (i.e. emails)	yes
The proposed LMS solution is a Cloud-based solution.	yes
The proposed LMS solution must be hosted in Canada. Both production and back-up data centres should be hosted within Canada.	Thinking Cap is hosted on Azure and all our Canadian Clients are hosted in a Toronto based Data Centre with backups and failover in Quebec City.
Executive Summary: About Thinking Cap	With over 20 years' experience The Thinking Cap LMS provides tens of thousands of course completions daily. With over two million active Learners, our system is constructed from the ground up as a real-time scalable platform with the highest levels of security and reliability. However, do not take our word for it - when large global enterprises such as Amazon trust our boutique firm with their Learning systems, they do so for good reasons. Our LMS is founded on a metadata-based system of rules for describing Learners and Learning Activities that requires as little or as much intervention as the administrator desires. This model allows for the adaptation and out of the box delivery of highly complex Learning programs. Added to this an incredibly user-friendly Learner View that can be customized to the pixel. We believe we offer the most powerful learning portal builder in the industry. Thinking Cap delivers on a 99.97% uptime guarantee, whilst constantly monitoring for performance and security, both with our own team and through third parties. Our live phone support is available seven days a week from 8 am to 8pm Eastern, and support via our online tools is available 24/7. In emergencies, a live person can always be reached, day or night. Should we be selected as your LMS partner, you will have a dedicated concierge throughout your onboarding process who will meet with you weekly and act as a full-time advocate for you with our team.
Course Content/Design	Our learning solution meets all industry standards for learning, security, and usability. Thinking Cap was the second LMS to be SCORM 2004 certified, and we are active contributors to the ongoing development of the standards and best practices in the LMS industry. We support all common file and eLearning formats including SCORM courses, AICC, MP4, PowerPoint, HTML5, Images, Word, PDF and HTML files. We support SCORM 1.2 or 2004 packages. We completely integrate with Articulate 360 and Storyline. Thinking Cap is a roles-based system, and any role can be tagged with any numerous permissions including allowing specific users the ability to import content. Thinking Cap has a Media Library and all items in the library are under revision control and tagged with any number of Custom Fields for each searching. These items can all be surfaced in the Learner View on the My Media page. Thinking Cap offers many Learning Activity types and even allows you to use these to create new types. The base types include eLearning, Instructor Led, Attestations, Assessments, Assignments and Surveys. To bring these all together to create curriculums we have Thinking Cap’s Learning Paths. Learning Paths can have one or more Activity Groups each with their own rules for “Rolling Up” Scores, Success and Completion. We have flexibility for Required vs Optional Activities and we provide options for flow control to define the path a Learner may take as they complete the Learning Path. As easy as Learning Paths are for Learners they are just as easy to build for an Administrator. We have a fully Drag and Drop interface for building Paths and in integrated search so you can you draw from your entire library to build paths quickly and with as many layers and options as you want. Once you have your paths, you can use the editor to make any changes just as easily. You can even make Learning Paths that contain Learning Paths.
Course Administration	Thinking Cap can track face to face training delivered in a traditional classroom setting. We also support Webinars and other distance learning via our integrates with WebEx, Zoom, Go2Meeting and Adobe Connect. These are called "Virtual Rooms.” We are adding support for Teams this spring. When a Session is created for an ILT you can select one of these rooms and we will perform the set up with the provider via our integration. For the Learner, they simply click enter at the approved time and they are launched in the Webinar. Thinking Cap provides a sophisticated solution allowing for multiple and reoccurring sessions, various attendance tracking options and waitlisting. The system manages the availability of locations both real and virtual. In addition, we track the schedules of individuals and never allow cross booking of learners, instructors, or locations. Thinking Cap helps you keep an eye on everything with a robust system of 21 notifications, many of which you can select to turn off globally or set on a course-by-course basis. You can even define the text for the subject and body and personalize them with “power tags.” We have enrollment notifications, completion notifications, past-due notifications, course reminder notifications to name just a few. These notifications cover self-enrollment.
Communication Features	We offer several collaborative features. Discussion forums and chat rooms across the entire platform or at the course or learning path level. Users can use email to post on forums, attach files to posts, and vote on replies and posts. We also have an internal messaging interface. Thinking Cap has reminder notifications and Past-due notifications which can remind learners about upcoming activities and past-due to alert them when the time has passed. Once registered in a course a learner/ would receive an enrollment notification to alert them about being added to a course and following up with instructions on how to access the course and the start date for the course. The internal staff can be tagged with the permissions to receive emails for when learners are enrolled.
Record Keeping, Reporting & Integration	Data displayed within the system is real time. Thinking Cap’s built-in learning analytics engine gives deep insight into your learning program, so that you can demonstrate value and support key decisions with real data. Thinking Cap’s reporting system allows you to efficiently track training efficiency, its effectiveness and engagement in real time. Thinking Cap's reports are highly customizable and allow you to hide and show columns that are relevant. Use the reports to track learner's progression, exam results, history of training plus more. Administrators can easily navigate reports in their intuitive and customizable dashboard Reports can be reviewed on-screen, print or exported as Excel or XML.
Technical Requirements	Thinking Cap will host your solution in the cloud on Azure and AWS servers. In our system your application server(s), Storage and database are private to you and not shared with other clients. All data in your database is stored encrypted at rest and all transfer to the browsers of your users is done via HTTPs. Using TLS version 1.2. The entirety of the Thinking Cap application is protected via firewall. There is only port 443 access to the web server and no public port access to the database. Access to the application is via roles you will create using permissions sets we allow you to use to define roles. A Single Super-User account will be given to you and from that account you may create other administrative users of varying permissions. All encryption keys are managed by Thinking Cap and only three individuals at Thinking Cap having access. Thinking Cap is hosted in a PCI level 1 certified facility, there is a physical separation of your data from that of other customers. Access to your data is physically and logically locked down to limited access. TC has ongoing penetration testing done by third parties as well as independently by other clients and has been vetted by amazon application security to manage amazon employee data. In addition to hosting with Azure, we use a CDN (content delivery network) where images, videos and documents are stored on Edge servers close to your audience. Thinking Cap uses Tin Foil Security as our Third party for Penetration Testing. This is done ahead of each release to look for new vulnerabilities. This is in addition to the multiple reviews done on the underlying Azure network infrastructure. Azure is a PCI Level One facility. We store all Logs for as long as you are a customer and can hold for additional time is requested. Databases can be restored to any point in the past 30 days and monthly snapshots can also be created and maintained. Thinking Cap delivers on a 99.9% uptime guarantee and page load times are less than 2 seconds.
Technical Requirements	Thinking Cap offers a PIPEDA compliant and SOC2 Type 1 certified cloud-based Learning Management System hosted in Canadian Azure datacentres. We are fully integrated with SAML 2 based SSO including ADFS. Like PIPEDA we also follow GDPR standards as well and have built in capabilities to gradually forget inactive users based on an information assessment, we will make with you around all your User Metadata. Thinking Cap can use one or more SSO integrations in any of the Branches we create for your set up. In the case of Active Directory, we can also set up an ongoing User Sync to keep the LMS up to date with changes to personal automatically. Every function in the Thinking Cap LMS is exposed as an XML Web Service. This allows us to create unique integrations to pass LMS data back into your other systems including SharePoint. The entire LMS is well documents and custom PDF based Training Manuals can be generated by our system. In addition to this, our Onboarding team creates setup guilds for your team and our support department that documents how your LMS is configured and why. Support is an included element of our solution is not sold as a separate add on. Upon launch the Onboarding team with provide a seamless hand off to the support team who will be your day-to-day contacts after launch of the solution. All administrators will have accounts on our support system and can access this system or 24x7. Phone and live chat support is offered by our Toronto based support team 7 days a week 8am-8pm Monday-Friday and 9am-5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Outside of these hours and on Canadian holidays, support is available via the Helpdesk. In emergencies, a live person can always be reached through our pager support 24/7. While nearly unheard of, any scheduled down time would be approved by your team ahead of time. 7.7 Thinking Cap is fully integrated with LinkedIn Learning. When you go to add an eLearning Activity the LMS will allow you to browse objects in the Linked IN library from within Thinking Cap and allow you to create Activities based on the Linked In package. To the Learners Linked IN Learning Courses will appear side by side with all other eLearning Activities. Thinking Cap has full support for SCORM 1.2 and all editions of 2004. We were the third LMS to be certified on Edition 3. We also support AICC packages. Thinking Cap has advanced enrollment logic that allows you to define how different audiences access Activities. For any given Activity you can define any number of group and the approvals required by that group. English is the primary language of the LMS, but it is also able to present content in over 25 additional languages if you wish to enable them. As a Canadian based company, a multilingual interface has been there in from day one. Based into the User Experience of Thinking Cap is Bootstrap which is a framework for rendering adaptive Web Pages that load intelligently on any side screen. Using Bootstrap Thinking Cap runs well on PCs, Tablets and Phones and across all modern browsers. There are no built-in predefined pages in the Thinking Cap LMS Learner Views. You will work with the Onboarding team to configure pages so that the catalogue of Activities a Learner may select to enroll into and the lists of items they are already taking are presented in the most user-friendly way possible. In addition to these pages, we have several “Page Tiles” that can be used to help learners pick up on the last item they were working on, view leaderboards for gamification and other tools all designed to help Learners find what they need quickly and beautifully. The Administrative interface for managing Activities in Thinking Cap is clear and intuitive. The onboarding team will work with you to create “Presents”, “Wizards” and “Exclusions” for Activity Settings so your Admins have the least amount of overhead for managing their day to day. The LMS automates much of the process so a small team of admins can manage even a large catalogue of Learning Activities. Waitlisting, Multiple Sessions, Certification Rules, Cohorts…. The ability for your team to find a setting to support any business rule is the hallmark of a mature LMS like Thinking Cap. Reports in Thinking Cap are created via a simple to use wizard that allows you to define and filter the reports to a very high degree. These reports can be run against a single Activity or can report across an entire Branch of the LMS and its children. Reports are delivered as Excel Spreadsheets and include both a summery as well as the data used to create the Summery so you can further manipulate the data locally. Reports can be set to run on an automatic cadence and can be distributed to any user you wish to view it. There are over 40 discreet Notification Types in the LMS ranging from Enrollment notifications, Due date reminders, Overdue reminders and the list goes on. Each Notification can be predefined as a template and each template can be customized with “Smart Tages” so they are personalized. Notifications can be delivered via email or SMS, and you can define the audience so overdue notifications can be progressively escalated to a supervisor. Too many emails in a supervisor’s box? We support digests as well so more information can be communicated in less messages. All notifications are available via the internal mailbox as well and all messages read in the LMS or in your own email reader are tracked and logged. We provide the ability to define Certifications for an Activity or group of Activities. This includes how long the certification is good for and any credits, certificates or badges that need to be issued. We can support this for all users of for groups of users each with different Certification requirements including managing any number of unique thresholds for recertification. We track every action taken by any user of by the system itself. No action in the LMS goes unrecorded and we maintain these logs for as long as you are with Thinking Cap. Logs can be searched from the Branch, the Activity or by any User so it is always simple to get an answer. We have a ton of question types you can use when creating a Feedback Survey, inducing branching questions. You can attach these over and over across any number of Activities and Activity Types. When adding multiple Feedback Forms to a single Activity they are concatenated for the end user, so it seems like a single set of questions. You can set multiple Feedback thresholds to support asking questions upon completion as well as timed period in the future to better gauge training effectiveness. Feedback can be reports for a single Activity or across some or all activities where the form is used. Every function in the LMS is defined as a Permission. When you create a new “Role” you can attach any of these permissions to define the Role. Roles can be assigned to Users at the Branch level so you may have one set of powers over one group of learners and learning and another over another. When a user doesn’t have a permission for a function that function is hidden from the User Interface. This is import as a solution as large and capable as Thinking Cap can be complicated. By only presenting the functions a User is intended to use the unwanted and confusing elements disappear and Admins can focus on their tasks. Thinking Cap has both an Assessments Editor for creating quick Tests and Quizzes as well as a full Authoring tool with rich Interactive Widget support. The authoring tool is 100% browse based and built right into the LMS. The Objects created as SCORM 2004 and can be exported out of the system for use in any other LMS in the future if needed. The LMS supports import of data files and data types. We primary use spreadsheets to import and export data around Learners, Training Histories and Activities. Our Media library allows importing of images, vide sect for use in Course creation, Learner View Customization and Related Content to support Activities. We can also provide a near real time data dump to files or to an external database like AWS Aurora. Managing Vendors can be done in a few ways. The most straight forward way to divide them up into their own branches that are children of the main Branch. The best way to manage Vendors will be based on several factors we will work with you to define during onboarding. Once we understand their relationship to training and Learners better, we can comment more fully on how to incorporate them. The Thinking Cap LMS uses Custom Metadata fields to defin all objects in the system. Users tend to have the most fields and some of these are simple items like Names and emails while others tell us information about users, we can use to automate the system. Thes metadata fields cover over 10 different data types and are used across the system to simply the management of Users. Users can be added to the system via automated syncs, SSO Provisioning and the creation of individual users by hand or via the upload of bulk users from spreadsheets. We support multiple Activity Types including eLearning, Instructor Led both face to face and virtual. For virtual we are integrated with all major Webinar Providers including Teams, Zoom, Adobe Connect, Web Ex and GoToWebinar. We support Attestations which are activities that track actions in the real world where the Learner or an Approver is signing off on Portfolio, Demonstration or comprehension type activities. We allow you to deliver training across multiple Activities or the same or different type via Equivalencies and we allow grouping of Activities into larger Learning Paths. There is no LMS that allows for the branding variety of Thinking Cap. When you create a Learner View in Thinking Cap you have full control over the page and navigation structure and the look and feel of every element of every page. You can start with the dozens of font, size and colour options and go beyond with control over the CSS and Java Script. There is no vison you can have for your Learning Experience that we cannot support. During onboarding we will take you branding guidelines and deliver on them perfectly. Your Onboarding team is experienced helping you get the most out of the system. They will work with you to deliver the solution and will transition you to the support team who will be there for you with mentorship and support in the long term. For all our experience and marquee clients we are still a boutique LMS where you will be on a first name basis with the support team. Our reporting can tell you about the metrics of the Activity including time spent, average scores etc. If you are using SCORM CMI interactions, we can report of these across your group of learners as well as for an individual. In addition to this we have specialised reports to help you find users you might need more help or who’s performance might be suspicious. You can always import external data or create webhooks so it in brought in automatically. Our Integration with Linked In allows users to find the training in Thinking Cap and for the LMS to get back completion data in real time.
The service is down and cannot be accessed	Response Time 30 min Resolution Time (resolution may involve providing an interim solution/workaround until an LMS site wide patch can be deployed) 1 hour
Moderate degradation of service	Response Time 2-4 hours Resolution Time (resolution may involve providing an interim solution/workaround until an LMS site wide patch can be deployed) 4-6 hours
Minor degradation of service	Response Time 4-8 hours Resolution Time (resolution may involve providing an interim solution/workaround until an LMS site wide patch can be deployed) 12-24 hours
Reporting and Communications	Onboarding your company into Thinking Cap will be managed by our dedicated onboarding team. This project will follow an agile methodology. The requirements will be turned into user stories and broken up into two-week Sprints. Each sprint will follow these steps. Sprint kick-off meeting – to review and any possible change the planned tasks for the sprint. Scheduling working settings – for any tasks that require further discussion with the client, working session(s) are scheduled, usually these meetings are scheduled weekly at the start of the project to simplify team scheduling. User story tasks as complete – this will happen through-out the two-week sprint. Completed user stories are tested – this happens as each user story is completed. Evidence is provided of the results of the testing. Sprint debrief meeting – to review completed user stories This approach allows us to meet all the following requirements Project status/update - Every task is logged in a ticketing system allowing clients to access real-time status updates on each project task. Add to that the sprint meetings where Thinking Cap will report on the status of the Sprint tasks. Consultation – Sprint meetings and working meetings will give the client a chance to discuss project requirements in more detail. Changes – Every sprint meeting is a chance to make necessary changes to the overall project plan and how the project’s requirements are to be implemented. Challenges – Every sprint provides an opportunity to assess potential challenges, such as scope creep. Comparing the user stories to the baseline plan will help keep the project on-track, while still allowing for flexibility of implementation. Risk – Every user story is assessed based on potential risk. Higher risk tasks, such as those involving importing of existing records data or integrating with external systems, are scheduled earlier in the project. This helps us address the outcomes in earlier sprints. Other – At the end of each sprint, the client will see their LMS slowly evolving. As setting are applied, and integrations are connected, the user journeys will become closer and closer to the desired end-result. This will give the client a cleared picture of the final delivery sooner and to help drive implementation decisions throughout the project. Formal reports that are presented to the client include the following. These reports will be made available from within a project branch in the Thinking Cap LMS. This branch will include access to these reports, resources including user journey flow diagrams, links to the Thinking Cap Support website and more. Project plan – provided at the start of the project, listing the user stories, by sprint, and their risk assessment. Sprint plan – provided at the start of each sprint Sprint report – provided at the end of each two-week sprint, outlining each scheduled user story task, the status, and testing results. Project plan update – provided at the end of every other sprint, updating the the plan with any changes made during the sprint planning meetings. These reports will include the following requirements. Met deliverables – Included in the Sprint Reports and Project Plan Updates Unmet deliverables – Included in the Sprint Plans, Sprint Reports and Project Plan Updates Contingencies – Included in the Sprint Plans, Sprint Reports and Project Plan Updates Risk – Included in the Project Plan, Sprint Plans, Sprint Reports and Project Plan Updates
Responsibilities	Proponent’s project lead Onboarding projects of this nature will be assigned a project team that will include project managers, coordinators, quality assurance testers, technology leads (for integrations and data management). Project lead: Isobel Wallace Over 20 years of elearning industry experience, managing onboarding and development projects. Author of an agile project management book. Skills › SCORM, Project management, user experience design, and more.
Language of Work	All work and all communications will be provided in English.
Security Requirements	Thinking Cap is governed by a strict set of Security and Privacy Practices that are codified in our SOC2 Type 1 certification. We share this with all our clients as well as many of the artifacts that are produced from time to time including PEN Testing results, Automated Test Results and other audits. Transparency is the watchword when it comes to Security, and we will always disclose any breech immediately and work with you on any resulting steps.
Acceptance Criteria	Acceptance of deliverables is managed is several key ways. A ticket is tracked for each individual project task. This ticket is sent for approval only once the task has been completed and tested. Evidence is provided of the completion for the client to review. Approval of this task is given to the client to review and approve the task, which in turn will close the ticket. Sprint meetings will also provide an opportunity to review the completed deliverables, and if requested, a sign-off form could be added to the process to approve the deliverables presented at the end of each sprint.
What is usually referred to as a course, usually 1 hour in length, consisting of on-page text content, short videos, images, reference documents, quizzes, exams or surveys.	We support various activity types including elearning courses (SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, AICC, MP4 videos, PDF documents, PowerPoint presenations), Instructor-led courses (face-to-face or virtual), assignments (graded), attestations (self/proctor signed off activities), assessments (small quizes or complex exams) and surveys. Any combination of activity types may be bundled together into a learning path and all of these may also prompt learners to submit feedback.
A branch in the LMS created specifically for a client company. Their users are limited to the Learning Centre. They have unique Training Plans. LCs may be branded specifically to the client. Additional LCs are used for demo purposes and for course development.	Yes, the Learning Centre branch may have its own users, activities, integrations and more. The branch may have its own learner view/portal, which may be branded and customized.
A branch for clients who don't use their own LC. In this branch only the generic template modules are available.	Yes, you may have any number of branches, including a branch with a subset of the modules (activities) and with different branding.
A combination of modules which may differ by Learning Centre (aka Learning Path or Bundles)	Yes. We support Learning Paths which can act as a curriculum, made up of one or more groups of activities. The admin may control the sequence of activities to be completed, and which activities are required for completion.
Client creates a module that is generic. This module serves as baseline for client-specific (LC-specific) modules and is also used for clients who are not using a custom version.	We can do this in two ways. First, we support Custom Activity Types, and each type is based on one of our base Activity Types of eLearning, ILT, Attestation, and Survey. When you create a custom type you can define any number of predefined defaults and you can define when a default may be overwrtitten. Combine this with custom metadata targeted to a custom type and you have a powerful template system to greatly reduce administrative time and a means to maintain constancy and quality. The other way to do this is via Clone, where you can use a prototypical activity as a seed for additional ones.
Clients may have access to unique modules and customized template modules, which are based on the Template Module. Differences may be additional pages, deleted pages, client specific images, client specific text, client specific reference documents. The result is that for each Template Module, there may be 100+ customized versions.	Modules may be customized in a multitude of ways to create hundreds of distinct Learner Experiences. Feedback from past and current clients alike speak to the intuitive design of Thinking Cap, and our comprehensive training period and ongoing support will ensure your clients understand how to best utilize optionality to achive their desired results.
Audiences are defined by roles (e.g. pilots, mechanics, flight attendants). A module may be applicable to multiple audiences where some of the module content is applicable to all audiences and others are applicable to specific audiences only. Presently, Client creates multiple versions of the module. In the future, one module with visibility by audience could be an option.	Yes, Thinking Cap supports the creation of metadata fields (i.e., roles) that in turn may be used to build audience groups. Groups can be used for enrollment options (self-enrollment and automated enrollment), branch membership, user connections and more. Which audience groups see or are enrolled may be managed in many ways, depending on the client's preferred user experience.
Client will have internal users of the system that have access to all Learning Centres or subsets of Learning Centres. Permissions must be customizable. Client users are usually limited to their Learning Centre, or their user groups in the Client generic LC. Roles will include Finance Manager, Super Admin, Admin, Content Creator (SME), Content Customizer (SME-B), Approver, Auditor, Training Manager, Student. It may require ability to customize client roles between Learning Centres (A Training Manager in one LC has different permissions than a Training Manager in another LC.	Yes, a LMS admin role may be created to describe each of your different types of administrative users, with each being granted only the specific permissions they require. A user is then assigned the role(s) at the branch level, giving you full control over what the LMS admin may do, on each specific branch. We also support different types of user connections (i.e., mentors to managers). These users do not need administrative permission. Once they are matched with the learner(s), they can access a dashboard page with everything they need.
Tracking of training activities and completion and certification, including historic records and training records uploaded to the Learning Centres are of extreme importance. Training records must be searchable by learner and can be filtered to specific certificates. Training records can be changed by specific roles only and can be retrieved by Learning Centre or across all branches.	Yes, Thinking Cap logs and tracks everything, starting with the activity enrollment records (both generated in the LMS, or imported from another LMS). This includes every SCORM-level communication during each learner's course session. All of these records are searchable/browsable via various transcript-related pages by both admins and the learner's connections (i.e. managers). The data is also available through activity metrics pages, reports, and can be sent in near-realtime to integrated data stores (i.e., AWS Aurora), your HRIS and/or CRM systems (i.e. Salesforce).
Ability to enable a Training Manager to approve a certification/training record electronically.	Yes, we support several options for this, from activity e-signatures, proctor sign-offs for attestations and assignment grading.
Because learners may be in location with limited bandwidth, the learner content and delivery of learning content must support a low bandwidth delivery.	Yes, we optimized everything about the LMS, including the delivery of content from a local server (CDN).
An option would be the consideration to offer downloading of content - we'd like to understand how to secure the content IP with this option.	While content is not downloadable by default, aspects could be. Any file may be provided for download as an activity resource.
Despite their potentially limited bandwidth, there is an expectation that the system is fast for learners and administrators/course creators alike.	The application’s needs for bandwidth are very minimal; a user with under 1mb/s will have no issues using the system. The bandwidth needed to take a course, however, is completely dependent on the bandwidth requirements of the course you add to the LMS which is at your discretion.
Learners can access the module/curriculum and their dashboard from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.	Yes, our learner view is responsive out-of-the-box, adapting the page layout to fit your device's dimensions. This includes both Android and iOS devices, with various sizes from phones to tablets to laptops to desktops.
Learner Mobile App an asset (especially for iPads)	Both mobile apps as well as table-friendly interfaces to the LMS are options for learners.
Reporting of activities on the platform will be very important for this account in order to achieve business improvement and efficiencies. For example reports that demonstrate incomplete course creation processes, usage stats across all learning centres and sales related information. We will need to understand the reporting capabilities and options to create custom reporting. Alternatively, integration options with Business Information systems.	The LMS provides reports on these data points, as well as integrations with external data tools (i.e., AWS Aurora).
The LMS is a core functionality of this organization's business offering. Hence, uptimes close to 100% are a mandatory requirement. Also, the ability to submit tickets in various severity (defined by client) and SLA to support high severity ticket resolution 7 days/week during North American business hours is of extreme importance. Three types of tickets: content issue, technical issue, and enrollment/records issue. Each would be directed to unique persons within Client.	Yes, our support team is available during North American business hours (coast to coast), by ticketing system, email or phone. Tickets are responded to within 2 business hours, with resolution or workaround presented within specified time-frames depending on severity. Learner-facing issues which prevent learners from accessing their content are always given a high priority. • Priority 1 (Critical) - Resolution or workaround within 12 hours (24/7) • Priority 2 (Urgent) - Resolution or workaround within 3 working days • Priority 3 (High) - Resolution or workaround within 15 working days • Priority 4 (Medium) - Resolution or workaround within 15 working days • Priority 5 (Low) - Resolution or workaround within 30 working days
Enrollment is typically handled in two steps, creation of profile and subsequent enrolment into modules or curriculum. This can be done manually by learner or by learner groups in bulk. We are seeking to understand automation options such as automatic enrolment in recertification according to Training Plans and synchronization with other systems such as Salesforce for billing purposes.	Yes, we support several types of enrollments: manual (by admins), manual (by the learner's manager) self-enrollment, self enrollment with approval (by admin or manager), and automated enrollment. Audience groups may be created (i.e., Pilots), with groups auto-enrolled into any activity you specify this audience should take; any activity that you specify this audience could take, the group is added to the list of self-enrollments (where self-enrollment is limited to groups). Should you chose to pull a group into their own branch (i.e., a Flight Attendants branch), then auto-enrollment may also be applied all branch learners.
We require to understand your approach to content and data hosting and any data volume limitations and how this may impact pricing of your platform.	Data is stored in data centres around the world and delivered from the nearest server to your location. Data storage is limited to specific regions to comply with privacy reguations (i.e. Canadian customers' data is stored in data centres in Toronto and Qubec City). Our pricing model is based on the number of active users in the system; we have no limits on data usage of any kind.
We are interested to learn about the different pricing models available to handle the scope of this LMS. In the requirements below we consider licensing as well as subscription models.	The LMS license pricing is based on active seats and nothing more. We do not charge extra for access to any module in the LMS. LMS license discounts are avaialble for mult-year commitments. Otherwise, we support the following ecommerce payment models for selling your content to learners: • Base prices and with alternative prices (offered automatically to learners matching specific criteria). • Coupons/promo codes for either discounts or free activity access. • Passes, which bundle a group of activities for sale for limited time access. • Subscriptions, which provide recurring access to all activities
Licensing Model: The Super Administrator/Finance Manager can monitor usage of licenses in the license model. The Super Administrator can see how many licenses have been used. How many licenses are available and how many inactive users are enrolled to the site. License limitation alerts. Super Admin can add licenses if needed.	Yes, LMS admins with permission may access the licensing information from inside the LMS. A monthly update of the number of active seats used during the annual license period is avaible LMS-wide or broken down by branch. Once the active seats exceeds the current license, seats will be charged monthly at the rate of the current license. If the increase is rapid we may reach out and recommend moving up to the next license to save money, before billing for the extra seats.
Licensing Model: The administrator can manage the account in the platform. The Super Administrator can add licenses in the platform.	License caps may be added and edited to each branch by your Super Administrator.
Subscription Model: Extension of contract. Flexible subscription models that allow for easy scalability. This could include pro-rata adjustments for mid-cycle changes in subscription levels. The Super Administrator/Finance Manager can extend subscriptions in negotiation with the LMS Account Manager.	If you purchase a 500-seat licence, it can burst up to meet your needs. Flexibility is handled through the overages process, where you are fully aware in advance of any costs and how the increases would come (i.e. pro-rated additional seats over 500 in the license period).
Unlimited number of Learning Centres (presently about 400). Each Learning Centre may have custom branding, custom content, (e.g. customized curriculum/learning paths) separate users, yet, can be managed from primary branch with ease.	We do not limit the number of branches in our LMS.
Unlimited number of users both in category of system and course administration, training manager type roles and learners. Presently up to 15,000 active monthly learners (growth expected to 50,000 active monthly learners). Stress on the system during peak times (Jan 1, Apr 1, Jul 1, Oct 1) to be expected. We would like to understand the impact the number of users have on subscription or licensing pricing and what pricing bands you offer.	Thinking Cap will scale automatically to meet your needs (i.e., during peak times). We do not charge per access, only per active seat. An active seat is a user whose account was active during the LMS license period.
Ability to customize roles based on detailed permissions. Roles can be different by Learning Centre and specific to Learning Centres.	Yes, all functions/features in our LMS are tied to their own permissions that can be assembled into LMS Admin Roles that reflect your administrative team. This can be defined as a small group of all-powerful super-users or a distributed group with targeted roles and responsibilities. We will work with you to discover and create these Roles.
Ability to set business rules to manage content creation processes including limiting permissions and access by role, automated notification to progress content creation tasks and approvals. Please review the below section for more details.	Yes, content creation may be managed using several features of the LMS. • Activity wizards, which allow you to select which settings to prompt admins to fill in when creating new activities • Activity default, which allows you to select what activity settings should be applied to all of the selected type of activity (i.e. all elearning courses should send an enrollment notification), and which of these settings may be overridden by admins when creating new activities • Content review, where admins may enrol subject matter experts into a new package and provide feedback before the package is released to learners. • Admin review, where admins are prompted to review any new activities' settings prior to being released to learners.
Log of all activities. Reports can be filtered and downloaded or viewed online. Logs are searchable by tags such as user, role, activity, learning centre, date and date ranges.	All actions taken in the LMS are logged. These logs are available to admins by branch, activity or learner. These logs are filtered by data and searchable. Additionally, we provide acccess to data via dashboard pages (i.e., branch dashboard, activity dashboard and manager dashboard) to provide insights and reports for deeper analysis. Reports may include data that is filtered by date ranges, user metadata and much more. Reports may be summaries only, or include the data behind the summary calculations and either downloaded as Excel files or saved to secure FTP folders.
Ability to either integrate with website where E-Commerce is handled or to offer E-Commerce option for sale of individual modules or bundles. Bundles may incur unique pricing or discounts by LC. Favorable merchant conditions if payment goes through LMS provider is needed (cost and access to funds).	We support the integration of external shopping carts, including custom website carts.
Ability to package modules into bundles for the purpose of sales or offering in course libraries. Bundles (Curriculum) may differ by Learning Centre.	Yes, we support the bundling of activities into learning paths, which allow for sequencing, and roll-up options for full curriculum management. Learning paths may trigger enrollment into all activities in the learning path to simplify this step for learners and admins. Where you wish to list activities on specific subjects, for example, you do not need to create a learning path. Instead, simply create a page in the leaner view that lists all pages on a specific subject, then the list of activities will be updated automatically as new activities are added.
Ability to create Training Plans by client (LC). The Training Plan can be a multi-year program of various modules or various curriculum where the annual combination of modules and curriculum changes over time. New Learners will be assigned Training Plans. Need to understand how the assignment of training plans can be automated. Training Plans may differ by client and by Learning Centre.	Yes, new learning paths may be created by admins at any branch and targeted to any audience(s), and therefore these audience groups may be automatically enrolled into the learning path. Managers may create personal learning paths to assign to their team members in a more manual approach.
Ability to integrate with Salesforce and Operator Control Software via API or two-way synch	Yes, we integrate with SalesForce. There are a number of configuration options for this integration.
Meet or exceed the minimum Accessibility requirements for USA and Canada	We are WAGII-compliant and run both manual and automated tests to maintain compliance.
Optional access control features such as MFA are desirable (must not be a requirement for use)	Yes, we support MFA (Multi Factor Authentication) for users logging into the system and it is not required. We also support email address validation as part of the first-log in process.
Spanish translation of content - Automated through AI	LMS is translated into multiple languages, including Spanish, on both the Learner and Administrative sides. However, this is not automated through AI. It is automated through a different type of automation process.
Learning Centres are branches set up for specific clients. They contain the client specific users (students and training managers) and provide access to the client specific Training Plans. The Training Plans are modules and/or curriculum that are specific to these clients and may contain custom content or custom branding.	Yes, branches contain their own dashboard, activities, users, media, integrations and settings. Each branch may have its own learner view, which in turn may have branding personalized or inherit from another branch. Customization of branches is a core function of Thinking Cap and one of the main reason many of our clients chose us as their LMS partner.
Learning Centres can be branded with custom colors, logos and images.	Yes, Learning Centres' branches have a comprehensive set of branding options, from the logo, colour palette, images and layout to advanced options that allow for customized JavaScript and CSS to be imported. This allows us to match your brand to the pixel.
Reporting by LC for the client via user friendly reporting dashboard and ability to roll-up on organization-wide level for Administrators.	Yes, our LMS provides many reporting options which are available LMS-wide or for branches including the following: • filterable by date ranges or the data inside the report • downloadable in Excel or automatically exported securely • a summary of the data that may also include the data set being reported on • scheduled to run at a regular cadence • shared with other recipients
We are seeking simplification in the business rules to provide course content to Learning Centres supported by the LMS. Presently some of the content is generic, some is customized by LC, and some is unique. Some content applies to all audiences, other content is specific to audiences. Presently, template courses are multiplied and refined by audience and then multiplied and customized by LC. We are seeking process improvement to limit numbers of versions and make customization and updates to content more streamlined.	Activities may be shared across branches. We also support the ability to connect content with the same learning outcomes using a feature called an Equivalancy. Learning paths can bundle in both branch-specific activities and shared activities, as well as equivalences. Learners can be automatically enrolled into the appropriate activity in the equivalency.
Additional LCs required for account management. Additional LCs may be required for maintaining the business. This may include a Sandbox LC, a course development LC and a LC for demo purposes	Yes, any number of LCs (branches) may be added to a tree of branches at any time by an admin (who has permission).
LC Customization Workflows: Introduce workflows that guide LC administrators through the customization process, ensuring that all necessary steps are completed and validated. This could include checklists and templates for common customization tasks.	Workflow process are available for subject matter review, and/or LMS administrative review. Feedback may be collected during content review steps. Most LMS admin steps are automated, depending on the type of activity.
Primary Learning Centre Branding. The primary Learning Centre contains client branding (logo, colors and imagery) which is set up in the initial platform configuration and which can be adapted by the Super Admin.	Yes, we support comprehensive branding options for al branches, including the Primary Learning Centre that includes logo (and other images), colour palettes, page layout and much more. Learning Centres may also add any pages they wish to their learner, which also support additional layout options.
LC Branding. See under Branching/Learning Centres.	Yes, we support comprehensive branding options for all branches, including the Primary Learning Centre that includes logo (and other images), colour palettes, page layout and much more. Learning Centres may also add any pages they wish to their learner, which also support additional layout options.
Learning Centre Course Library. The options are displaying the library of courses on the website via an integration for the website e-commerce option or to have a library of courses before log-in on the LMS for the LMS E-Commerce Solution. Please indicate your recommendation.	We support the creation of any number of "Catalogue" pages to any branch's learner view. When admins create a new learner view page, they may select to include learning activities and prompted to filter the list, and select layout and user experience options. We would recommend starting with the following pages. • "My Training" listing all activities the learner is enrolled into • Role-specific pages which only learners in that role may access (i.e., "Pilot Training") that would only list activities targeted to learners of that role. • Activity type-specific pages (i.e., "Flight Attendant Certifications") that would only list activities targeted to learners of that role of a specific type of activity. There is no limit to the number of pages you may include on any one branch.
Course Library. Library of course topics. Selection needs to be by role (Example: Hazardous Materials for Pilots and Hazardous Materials for Flight Attendants)	Yes, admins may create any number of pages, and either list one library-type page that includes a Role filter, or a series of these pages (one for each Role). Access to these pages may also be restricted by the learner's role.
Course Library by Learning Centre. The Administrator can determine which courses are available in a Learning Centre Library. Selection process depends on the solution of the enrolment process. Self Service option by LC where training manager can assign modules or curriculum to learner versus Full Service option where administrator assigns modules or curriculum to learner or group of learners.	Activities shared to the LCs may be pulled in automatically based on rules, or manually for exceptions. Enrollment may also be manual or automated, depending on the LC.
Super Administrator permissions. The Super Administrator can set up accounts for individuals of any role in any learning centre individually and in bulk actions.	Yes, we support this admin role with these these permissions.
The Super Administrator can move a learner account from one Learning Centre to another. Previous training records stay with the learner.	Yes, training records are tied to the learner, the activity and the branch where the enrollment took place. When a learner is removed from a branch, their record remains.
The Super Administrator can archive any account in any learning centre. Archiving accounts means that training records and functional logs are kept for a minimum of 5 years.	Yes, we support the deactivation of an account. All records and data associated with the account remains accessible to the admins. After a selected amount of time, inactive accounts may be automatically anonymized, leaving their records and data, with only their personally identifiable data removed.
Administrator permissions. The Administrator can set up accounts for individuals of any role in the learning centres they are assigned to as administrator individually and in bulk actions	Yes, we support this admin role with these these permissions.
The Administrator can move an account from one Learning Centre to another as long as they have access to both Learning Centres. Previous training records stay with the learning centre.	Yes, we support this admin role with these these permissions.
The Administrator can move an account from one Learning Centre to another as long as they have access to both Learning Centres. Previous training records stay with the learning centre.	Yes, this permission may be granted to an admin. The associated training records are tied to the learner, the activity and the branch where the enrollment took place. When a learner is removed from a branch, their record remains.
The Super Administrator can archive any account in any learning centre. Archiving accounts means that training records and functional logs are kept for a minimum of 5 years. (Active users have unlimited access to historical training records.)	Yes, specific permission may be granted to an admin role, such as the deactivation of an account. All records and data associated with the account remains accessible to the admins. After a selected amount of time, inactive accounts may be automatically anonymized, leaving their records and data, with only their personally identifiable data removed.
The Super Administrator can assign permissions to any training manager to set up accounts in their own learning centre or within their group of learners.	Yes, we support this admin role with these permissions.
Where the Training Manager does not have self-service enrolment permissions, they can submit a request form. (Eg. Learner name, email, role, training plan) Form is customizable by Learning Centre. Upload of CSV with learners permitted. (Sample CSV link to be provided in the form.)	This will depend on the process you wish to support. Where possible these are automated. There are many enrollment options, and user permissions to ensure this process is as streamlined as possible.
Automatic learner account creation. Where a course library exists with self service function in a learning centre, a new learner account will be created upon selection of the course for a new individual and the individual will be enrolled in the course/learning path selected. (see Self Service for more details).	Yes, learners may browse a list of activities, and when they opt to enroll/purhcase, be prompted to create an account.
A learner that is set up in a specific Learning Centre will only be able to access content from that Learning Centre. A learner that is set up in the generic Learning Centre can be assigned to a group that is also managed by a Training Manager	Yes, a learner may only access activities from branches they are a member of. Membership in branches may be applied manually by admins, automatically using membership groups, or manually by the learner when registration is enabled for the branch. Learners may also be automatically included in groups (based on their metadata such as their Role) and connected with other users (i.e., their manager or regional lead).
Learner access to their account information. A learner can view their account information. They can not edit their own account settings other than updating their email address and complete a password reset.	Visibility and editing options are available on a metadata-basis. Some metadata you may set to be visible and editable, some visible but not editable, and others not visible to learners.
User ID. User will receive a specific User ID by Learning Centre. They may have access to multiple Learning Centres using the same email address. It must be assured that any API linking to training record systems will be by Learning Centre.	Yes, a learner has an LMS ID. An additional login may also be added (i.e., member ID, or employee ID).
Administrator enrolment functions (these permissions may be granted to various roles in the account). The administrator can enrol learners in any course in any learning centre.	Yes, admins with permission may manually enroll learners into activities.
The administrator can enrol learners in bulk in any course in any learning centre.	Yes, admins with permission may add a group of learners into an activity or a group of activities
The administrator can unenrol a group of individuals from any courses they are enrolled in from any learning centre in one action	Yes, admins with permission may manually withdraw learners from activities.
The administrator can unenrol any individual from any selection of courses they are enrolled in from any learning centre in one action	Yes, admins with permission may manually withdraw a learner from activities.
The administrator can unenrol a group of individuals from any courses they are enrolled in from any learning centre in one action	Yes, admins with permission may manually withdraw a group of learners from one activity or a group of activities.
Training manager enrolment functions. The training manager may be enabled to enrol an existing learner in any course in their own learning centre only	Yes, admins or managers with permission may manually enroll learners into activities.
The training manager may be enabled to enrol a group of existing learners in any course in their own learning centre only	Yes, admins or managers with permission may add a group of learners into an activity.
The training manager may be enabled to unenrol a learner or a group of learners from any course in their own learning centre only	Yes, admins or managers with permission may manually withdraw a learner from activities.
Automatic enrolment. Where a course library exists with self service function in a learning centre, the learner can self-enrol or be enrolled by the training manager upon course/curriculum selection. (see Self Service for more details).	Yes, learners may self-enrol into any activity where their enrollment method is enabled. And admins or managers with permission may manually enroll their learner into these activities.
Notifications. The course administrator can set up unlimited customized notifications for each module/curriculum based on some default settings such as:	Yes, we support both automated notifications, triggered by events in the LMS, as well as announcements. These may be customized to your chosen branding, layout and content, as well as the cadence and reciepients where applicable.
Enrolment notification to learner/training manager	Yes, we support automated enrollment and enrollment reminder notifications.
Due date notification to learner/training manager	Yes, we support three upcoming due date reminders, a due date notification, and three overdue notifications.
Off-the-shelf self service. A learner can self-enrol in a module/curriculum in a learning centre that has self-service enabled. In this case, they have access to a learning library from which they can select either a module/course or a curriculum/learning path. Upon selection of such training unit, they either are required to pay via Credit Card or to confirm the commitment for the training unit to be added to their account for billing.	Yes, learners may either self-enroll into free activities where self-enrollment is enabled, or purchase activities where self-enrollment is enabled and a price is assigned. The credit card payment is processed by the selected payment processor.
Training manager self-service enrolment. A training manager can enrol a learner from their group or within their learning centre in a learning centre that has self-service enabled. In this case, they have access to a learning library from which they can select either a module/course or a curriculum/learning path. Upon selection of such training unit, they either are required to pay via Credit Card or to confirm the commitment for the training unit to be added to their account for billing. (Either of these payment options may be disabled from the Learning Centre they have access to.) May require an approval process from an administrator.	Yes, managers or learners may purchase an activity for someone else using a Buy for Others option. These purchases are processed using the same credit card payment processing as for an individual learner; however, in these cases, the purchaser is given a code to share with the learner to use to enroll in the activity.
Super Administrator can create and edit notifications. Super Administrator can set up automated system notifications for system account access, course enrolment, content unlocked, course completion, certification and recertification. System notifications can be customized by Learning Centre.	We support these and many more automated notifications.
Administrator can create and edit notifications on a Learning Centre level. Administrator can edit system notifications for the Learning Centres they have access to.	Yes, we support a comprehensive list of notifications, all of which may be set with custom default, branding, layout, content, cadence and recipients. Based on your branch structure, admins can determine which may be overridden by admins in child branches or activities.
Training Manager messaging options. A training manager can send direct messages to their learners (e.g. completion reminders)	A training manager can send direct messages to their learners (e.g. completion reminders)
Learners can read their notifications. A learner can read their notifications within the portal in the messaging centre once logged in. Learners can choose to have notifications auto-forwarded to the learner's email account or SMS message. User controls the settings. Email receipt/open tracking required.	Yes, users may also read their notifications and messages via the learner view's Inbox, regardless of the method of original delivery (email or SMS). Read receipt events are logged and visible to admins with permission to show if the message was read via the LMS, email client or elsewhere. Learners may also opt to have their messages redirected to an alternative email address using a setting in their Profile.
"Memo" system. Specific users can issue Memos to groups of individuals or indivuals in their Learning Centre that can only be viewed in the platform and reading is tracked and logged electronically.	We support announcements to filtered audiences, either at the branch (LC)level or at an activity-level.
The course creator can create a module/course. A course creator can create module pages. Module pages can consist of images, text, video, hyperlinks and attached PDF documents. A module is a combination of pages that are linked in a specific sequence. Sub chapters within a module are an option.	Our Studio features supports the creation of multi-page courses, with media, assessments and more.
Duplication of module/curriculum. The course creator can easily duplicate an existing module or curriculum and adapt it with customizations for specific Learning Centres. They can also easily move or copy content between modules or merge portions of existing modules into new modules across Learning Centres.	Yes, we have a Clone option for activities and learning paths. Assessment questions, survey questions and media may also be copied and/or reused.
Opportunities to increase interactivity and engagement without increasing bandwidth requirements or adding to course creation complexity. We are seeing opportunities to increase interactivity and engagement. However, limitations to bandwidth required and complexities to course creation have been limiting this in the past. What are the options your LMS provides?	Our content creation tool, Studio, has a large number of HTML5 based interactive widgets. These are all targeted at low bandwidth. Video which is the highest user of bandwidth can be greatly improved when videos are uploaded to Thinking Cap and use true streaming and not file download or progressive streaming.
Audience specific modules. Option 1: The course creator developed modules specific to audiences identified by their profession.	Yes, out of the box.
Option 2: The course creator indicates which module pages can be visible by all learners enrolled, or by a subset of learners defined by their profession (e.g. pilot, mechanic, flight attendant)	Yes, out of the box.
Customized modules. The above mentioned modules serve as templates for customized modules. A customized module may have custom images, text updates, reference documents. They are assigned to a specific Learning Centre. Customized modules may also have audience specific content as per above options.	Yes, out of the box
Custom modules. Custom modules are unique to a Learning Centre and contain unique content.	Courses developed in our Studio are branded to the branch (LC). If they are then shared to other branches, the original branch's branding may be continued.
Curriculum. A curriculum is a combination of modules (aka Learning Path). A curriculum can include modules in a predetermined sequence (pre-requisites) or may be free to complete in any order by the learner.	Yes, out of the box
Version tracking for modules. Module templates are updated regularly. It is important to track which version is the basis for any of the customized learning content and to make updating the customized modules easy. We are seeking for insights into how the LMS supports managing the content over time, audience groups and customized modules. Need ability to edit a module that has already been assigned to a learner and automatically notify learner about updates.	Yes, out of the box
A curriculum consists of various modules that may have various versions. It is important to know which module version is part of which curriculum and to track which module version/curriculum version a learner has completed and when recertification will be required.	Yes. Versioning of content is available, with the ability to support minor and major versions which have differing impact on learners already taking the course.
Image Management. Images can be edited in platform (resizing, cropping, automatic adjustment to available space)	Yes, out of the box
File Management. Ability to manage files across platform and Learning Centre specific with ease. (e.g. simplified naming conventions or file structure).	Yes, out of the box
The course creator can create a quiz. The course creator can create quiz questions based on a variety of templated quiz questions including (true/false, multiple choice, multiple options, fill in the blanks, sorting, connecting sentence fragments, hotspots, etc.) Quiz questions can be made available to all courses through a question library that allows for search or filtering. A "master" quiz library is required for Client template modules. Ideally, when changes are made too these questions, need to ability to export the change to all affected LCs.	The course creator can create quiz questions based on a variety of templated quiz questions including (true/false, multiple choice, multiple options, fill in the blanks, sorting, connecting sentence fragments, hotspots, etc.) Quiz questions can be made available to all courses through a question library that allows for search or filtering. A "master" quiz library is required for Client template modules. Ideally, when changes are made too these questions, need to ability to export the change to all affected LCs.
The course creator can set quiz settings. The course creator can create the completion settings for the quiz of the course they are creating, which will be applicable to the course in the template version and any customized versions. Quiz questions may be audience specific. (Settings may include % of correct answers required, number of attempts). While quizzes are not graded, they may be a prerequisite to continue in the module.	Yes, admins may select a passing score for each assessment.
Quiz completion tips. The course creator can develop completion hints for quiz questions. After reviewing the hints, the learner can progress to complete the quiz questions again. The quiz question page also includes the link to the reference page where the content was covered.	Yes, admins may provide feedback for each question and the number of attempts allowed for each question.
Completion settings. Completion settings may included minimum % of questions completed correctly, number of attempts.	Yes, admins set the minimum passing score for the assessment, the number of attempts allowed for the overall assessment, and the number of attempts allowed for each question.
Branching capabilities for scenarios. The course creator can set up scenarios with branching as part of the quizzes/exams. Scenarios may have a situation description, various options that lead to outcomes. Based on the options selected, the learner receives feedback on a step-by-step basis or at the end of the scenario. Automatic grading is available.	Yes, we support branching scenarios in our authoring tool.
The learner can walk through a scenario, reading the situation and then making decisions that lead to new situations. They may received feedback on a step-by-step basis (e.g. in ungraded quizzes) or at the end of their decision tree (in graded exams).	Yes, learners taking the course will read through the scenario step and pick their next step.
Graded scenario decisions are available in the reporting for training managers and auditors to review.	Yes, all assessment questions, regardless of type, are used to calculate scores. The details of the learners' answers are also sent using interactions, and available in reports.
Setting up exams. The course creator can set up exams that are graded by the system within or at the end of a module. An exam is a graded quiz that needs to be completed successfully for certification. The course creator can select questions created in the quiz question bank for the exam)	Yes, assessments may all be graded and certificates awarded upon successful completion (for passing learners only, if desired).
Practical exam options. Ability to add practical exercises with off-line approval by Training Manager to the Completion Criteria of a module (e.g. successfully demonstrating use of fire extinguisher)	Yes, these can be created using our Attestation-type activities, which can be set to require a proctor sign-off (i.e. manager sign-off).
Exam settings (default with unique adaptation option by exam).	Yes, questions in an assessment group may be set to be randomized, or also to randomly select 15 questions from a list of 30.
	Yes, out of the box
Notifications. The course creator can set up automated notifications:	Yes, out of the box. Yes, see above for all notification options. These apply to these notifications also.
Successful completion to learner, training manager	Yes, out of the box
Unsuccessful completion to learner, training manager.	Yes, out of the box
Daily/Weekly summary to course creator	Yes, out of the box. Yes, we support "digest" emails which summarize events that happen during the week.
The course creator can replicate the same settings from the quizzes to the exam.	Yes, out of the box
Test-out option. Competency based approach for recurrent training: Ability to provide a subject-specific Exam test-out option for modules specific to Learning Centre/module/subject sub-section. If Test-out exam is successfully completed, obligation to go through content is lifted.	Yes, out of the box. Yes, this is possible using our Equivlancy feature, which connects activities with the same learning outcome.
Grace Period. A Learning Centre may have a grace period by module for completion deadlines.	We support due date extensions by Admina and Supervisors. Due dates are used to trigger a series of notifications, including three different overdue notifications. Discussion required to configure the LMS to manage this extended period.
Exam analytics roll-up. Ability to get exam analytics across learning centers. How are students doing on exam question x for all learners who completed that training module.	Yes, we support reporting of assessment questions across activities and branches.
Module completion. The data that constitutes a successful completion of a module includes (completion criteria is optional by module and may differ between Learning Centres)	Yes, out of the box
Min time spent in module (optional by module).	Yes, out of the box. We follow the course SCORM messages and only mark courses complete when the course sends the completion message. Minimum time spent is supported for learning paths and certificates, where the LMS controls the calculation of completion.
Number of pages viewed.	We follow the course SCORM messages that includes interactions and objectives. These are the best method to record bookmarking and progress details in a course.
Min/max screen time per page	We follow the course SCORM messages which includes interactions latency.
% of Video watched	When the System Administrator uploads a video (MP4) as the course package, the LMS wraps this as a SCORM-compliant course, with a video editor that supports a setting for how much of the video must be watched before it is considered complete.
Quizzes completed successfully	Yes, out of the box
Exam successfully completed	Yes, out of the box
Successful completion of practical off-line Exam exercise	Yes, out of the box
Curriculum completion. A curriculum is considered complete when all modules of the curriculum are complete.	Yes, out of the box. Yes, a learning path's completion is based on the activities inside. You may also set some activities as optional, with a minimum number of optional activities to be required. Completion of an activitiy outisde the learning path, which exists in a learning path, will be included in the learning path.
Certificates. The course creator can set up a certificate for each completed module/curriculum.	Yes, certification templates may be created and made available to activities in the branch (and child branches).
Customization. Certificates can be customized by module/curriculum/Learning Centre/client with branding and content as well as data automatically available on the certificate	Yes, any activity may select from any of the templates available. The certiicates use "Smart Tag" features to populate the activity and record-specific information (i.e.., activity title, learner name, date completed)
Certificate Data. Data that transitions to the certificate can include: learner name, module/curriculum name and version, module time, completion date	Certifcate templates may include "Smart Tags" to populate the activity and record specific information (i.e.., activity title, learner name, date completed)
Export options. Training Records can be exported to external systems or can be synchronized with Training Record Systems via API (inbound and/or outbound)	Learners may export their own transcript records. System administrators may export transcript reports using reports. Automated transcript records may be exported to a secure FTP folder. Integrations may be enabled to send completions in near real-time to shared data stores (i.e., AWS Aurora).
Automatic Training Records Management. Completion statistics are maintained for all learners in all Learning Centres and can easily be accessed by various user roles (e.g. Learner, Training Manager, Auditor, Course Creator, Administrator, Customer Service Representative)	Metrics are avaialble in several places in the LMS, from the learner's dashboard, the learner leaderboard, the manager dashboard, the admin transcript for each learner, reports and data exports.
Historical Training Records. Training records must be kept indefinitely for active learners and for a minimum of 5 years after a learner has been archived. Records must be secure and unchangeable - regulatory requirement.	Training records are always kept, for both active and inactive users. Anonmyized learner records are also saved but tied only to an anonymous account.
Training Records stay with Learning Centre. Training records stay with the Learning Centre even if the learner moves from one Learning Centre to another and has an updated email address.	User's unique identify is not tied to their email address. Learners may change their email addresses, as long as it is unique within the LMS.
External Training Records. Learners and Training managers can upload externally obtained training records to the portal and this data will be maintained in the same way.	External training records may be added via the learner's transcript and may prompt for evidence of completion. Externally awarded badges may also be imported to the learner's transcript.
Note taking. Learners have ability to add notes to any pages within a module. Notes can be exported.	We support the ability for learners to take notes. However, adding an export of these notes would require a customization.
Ask Instructor. Learners have ability to click an Ask Instructor button on each module page which sends their question to their Training Manager	We support customer service integrations that do this, but this would be more messaging a local admin and may require customizations.
Inactivity Log-out. Session log-out if a user surpasses an inactivity threshold.	Yes, out of the box
Learner inactivity log-out. Learner inactivity leads to credit removal on a Learning Centre/module basis.	This is configurable through the administrative dashboard.
Increased interactivity. A number of learners indicated it would be a "nice to have" if the courses were more interactive and engaging. At the same time, some liked the ability to click through. So any course modification would have to allow for a degree of both clicking through and interactivity.	We offer select 'gamification' options and are actively incorporting new badges into the LMS as ways to offer enhanced engagement. We will collaboratively determine the ideal combination of click-through and interactivity during your initial period of discovery.
Training document repository. Ability for Training Managers to upload and host additional training documents or manuals in a Learning Centre specific document repository	Yes, out of the box
Reporting Dashboard by Learning Centre. A user friendly manager dashboard is available to the Training Manager for each Learning Centre or for the Training Manager of a group of learners in the primary Learning Centre.	Yes, managers have access to a dashboard that allows them to see insights and data on their learners, their learner's activity enrollments, and any tasks they have been assigned.
Learner Dashboard. The learner sees on their dashboard their modules/curriculum, modules/curriculum in progress, modules/curriculum completed, quiz and exam results, modules/curriculum due and due dates	Yes, learners see a home page dashboard with the selected insights and content chosen for that branch by an admin. We offer many options from leaderboards, learner profile insights, recent activity, upcoming events and more.
Completion Reporting. Modules are listed with completion dates, completion statistics (percentage completion), time spent on module, min time and max time.	Note: Completion percentage within a course is not a SCORM method supported by most course authoring tools. In the absense of this, we use 0% for not started, 50% for in progress, and 100% for completed.
Reporting Filters for Training Manager. The manager can filter their Learning Centre reports by module, learner, completion stats, due dates.	Yes, out of the box
Reporting for administrators. The Administrator can view rolled-up reports across all users and learning centres and filter these reports by Learning Centre, module, curriculum, learner, completion stats, due dates.	Yes, out of the box
Financial analysis. The Super Administrator and Finance Manager can analyze usage reports for profitability statistics. Modules may have different pricing based on bundling for clients/Learning Centres.	Yes, there are reports available that include sales processed by the LMS. We also support the automatic sending of data (i.e., purchases, enrollments and completions) to Salesforce.
Integrated process management. Seeking a system that allows for integrated content creation process management with tracking of content creation and user enrollment across team members and notifications as tasks are handed from one member to another. Processes follow a generic template that can be adapted by Learning Centre or client.	We have created systems for clients in the past to accomplish similar goals. We will need a deeper understanding of your specific needs to determine whether we can modify an existing system or must create a new one; either way we can accomodate this.
Content Customization. Develop a streamlined process for clients to request and review customizations (potentially through a self-service portal)	We can configure a self-service portal to accomodate this.
Approval process. Process management includes approval processes for content or learner enrollment. Ability to set up these approvals in a customized way by Learning Centre.	Workflow processes are supported for the course creation and publishing steps. Enrollment approval processes are also supported, and may include different team members or levels or automation.
Internal/external The process management and notifications may include internal and external users	These can be configured however you choose.
Logs. The administrator has the ability to view logs of any activities taken in the system including user data and timestamp.	Yes, we log every action by every user in the system and more. Logs are accessible to admins with permission by activity, user and branch.
Training Plan. Enrolment into modules/curriculum based on Training Plan (by Learning Centre/Learner)	Yes, out of the box
Recertification notifications. Notifications sent to Training Manager/Learner based on Training Plan (by Learning Centre/Learner)	Yes, managers may be selected as recipients or copied recipients on notifications.
Process Flow. See Process Management	Yes, out of the box
Manual Override. An Administrator can override automated processes	Only system administrators may override processes.
Content Updates. We are seeking solutions that increase efficiencies in content creation, for example updating generic content in customized module versions.	Yes, out of the box
Question Generation. We are seeking solutions that increase efficiencies in content creation, for example the use of AI to generate question pools.	We can propose a variety of content creation efficiences during our period of discovery; currently we do not offer AI integrations.
Manual comparison. Integrated AI that helps with identifying changes in operator manuals would be an asset.	We do not currently offer AI integrations.
Language Feature. AI translation assistance for content to Spanish	Thinking Cap is currently available in 27 languages (including Spanish); we do not currently offer AI translation assistance.
Salesforce integration. The company uses Salesforce as CRM. Data from the LMS needs to be passed through to Salesforce for usage tracking and as baseline to invoicing (Salesforce is integrated with Quickbooks for invoicing).	Yes, we integrate with Salesforce and may send data at a set cadence or near real-time data as relevant events happen in the LMS. These events are selected during the onboarding process.
Salesforce sync. Minimum daily synch, preferred is real time data. May require two-way synchronization.	This is configured during the Salesforce integration.
Data expected to be available in Salesforce. Number of users by client account (Can be Learning Centre or groups/individuals on the Client Learning Centre) by group (e.g. pilot, mechanic, etc)	Yes, out of the box
Number of modules/curriculum assigned by user groups/user	Yes, out of the box
List of users by group	Yes, out of the box
Training plan by user group/user	Yes, out of the box
Operational Control Software. Scheduling requires up-to-date certification. Therefore, clients may want to integrate their scheduling control software with the LMS to draw training records into their scheduling software. One-way integration on a daily basis of training records of their users (Learning Centre or user specific)	New integrations may be added. Each system's API would be reviewed during our discovery phase of onboarding to determine the optimial integration set-up.
Project Management Software. Preferred option is an integrated process management module to manage the production processes of courses. However, if such a module is not available, integration with systems such as trello or basecamp is required.	We have facilitated similar integrations for clients in the past.
Business Information System. Depending on the capabilities of the Reporting of the LMS, an alternative approach could be the integration with a BI system for improved reporting.	We offer very robust reporting options. We also support several data export options that accommodate external BI systems.
Sharepoint. Integration for file management with Sharepoint.	We have facilitated similar integrations for clients in the past. We would define the files to be included during our discovery phase of onboarding.
The account has access to code improvements without upgrades. When the vendor updates the system, enhancements will be available to the account. The administrator will receive regular release notes.	All LMS customers are given the same LMS. When new features are added to the LMS, all customers receive them.
Impact on customization. Impact on customization is considered in releases.	Testing of the LMS accomodates for customization settings.
Time of major releases. If the releases impact up-time, releases are scheduled outside North America main business hours. Scheduled downtime notifictions at least 48 hours prior.	Releases do not impact up-time.
The administrator has access to a support team. The access to the support team is handled through a support dashboard and ticketing system	Access to our support team is also available by phone or email.
High priority support. Direct personal access to support for high severity tickets.	Access to our support team is available by phone, email or ticketing system.
The learner can contact support directly. Learner Support for technical issues only (e.g. log-in)	We provide support for LMS administrators only. We do not provide support for learners, though we do support teams that support these learners.
SLA. Describe your typical SLA arrangements	Thinking Cap’s Support team is available by phone, email and our online Support ticketing system. Live support is available Monday to Friday between 8:00 AM- 8:00 PM EST and on weekends between 9:00 AM EST and 5:00 PM EST. Outside of these hours, and on Canadian holidays, support is available via the Support ticketing system. In emergencies, a live person can be reached through our emergency support 24/7. Response and resolution times are as follows: Priority 1 (Critical) - any Incident or support issue which causes the entire System to be unusable by the Client or End Users Response within 60 minutes (24 x 7) via phone or email Resolution within 12 hours (24/7) Priority 2 (Urgent) - any Incident or support issue which causes key areas of the System or content in the System to be unusable by the Client or End Users Response within 2 hours Resolution within 3 working days for fix or work-around to be available Priority 3 (High) - any Incident or support issue which does not cause the System to be unusable but significantly impacts on the End Users’ ability to perform a required action Response within 1 Working Day Resolution within 15 working days for fix or work around to be available Priority 4 (Medium) - any Incident or support issue which does not cause the System or content to be unusable but has some impact on access, usability, and accuracy of the System Response within 1 Working Day Resolution within 15 working days for fix or work around to be available Priority 5 (Low) - any Incident or support issue which has no significant impact on access and usability of the System. Response within 1 Working Day Resolution within 30 working days for fix or work around to be available
System Down notification. If system is down, a notification page is available for users.	Yes, out of the box
Content in html. Content pages can be extracted as HTML only on a page-by-page basis. How do you propose transition of content? Do you offer any automation for this?	We have a series of tools that we use during our onboarding projects to import content. These tools depend on the format of content/nature of the data.
User data. User data by Learning Centre.	We have a series of tools that we use during our onboarding projects to import user accounts and metadata. Some of these are also available to System Administrators.
Training records. Training progress as well as completion data	We have a series of tools that we use during our onboarding projects to import historical records. Some of these are also available to System Administrators.
Certificates (historic back 5 years). PDF documentation for all certificates backdated 5 years	We have a series of tools that we use during our onboarding projects to import certificate PDFs.
Reference Documents. Usually PDF documents that are specific to Learning Centres and are linked to in course content	We have a series of tools that we use during our onboarding projects to import media and resource files.
Designs. Colours, Logos and custom images for Learning Centres	Each of your Learning Centers can be uniquely customized to the pixel depending on your preferences. This is a task undertaken by our onboarding team, but also available to system Administrators.
Data hosting. Do you offer a self-hosting option?	No
Web hosting solution. Where do you host the data? How do you back up data and keep it secure?	Thinking Cap will host your solution in our Azure Data Centres local to you. In our system, your Application server(s), Storage and database are private to you and not shared with other clients. All data in your database is stored encrypted at rest and all transfer to the browsers of your users is done via HTTPs using TLS version 1.2. The entirety of the Thinking Cap application is protected via firewall. There is only port 443 access to the web server and no public port access at all to the database. Access to the application is via Roles you will create using permissions sets we allow you to use to define roles. A Single Super-User account will be given to you and from that account you may create other admin users of varying permissions. All encryption keys are managed by Thinking Cap and only three individuals at Thinking Cap have access.
Access speed. How do you achieve high content delivery speeds around the globe?	We host content content in various access points around the world using Content Delivery Network (CDN). This ensures that content is sent from the server closest to your location.
Security Certifications. Do you have any security certifications? Please describe.	Thinking Cap is SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 and SOC 2-certified. We are compliant with many privacy and security regulations including: Australian Government IRAP, CCCPPF, Cloud Security Alliance CCM, EU Model Clauses, FBI CJIS (Azure Government), FedRAMP, FERPA, FIPS 140-2, FISMA, Food and Drug Administration 21 CFR Part 11, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), HIPAA, ISO 27001/27002, MLPS, PCI DSS Level 1, Singapore MTCS Standard, United Kingdom G-Cloud.
Privacy regulations. How does your LMS support privacy regulations?	Thinking Cap is SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 and SOC 2-certified. We are compliant with many privacy and security regulations including: Australian Government IRAP, CCCPPF, Cloud Security Alliance CCM, EU Model Clauses, FBI CJIS (Azure Government), FedRAMP, FERPA, FIPS 140-2, FISMA, Food and Drug Administration 21 CFR Part 11, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), HIPAA, ISO 27001/27002, MLPS, PCI DSS Level 1, Singapore MTCS Standard, United Kingdom G-Cloud.
Accessibility. How does your LMS support accessibility needs for learners and training managers with visual or auditory limitations? Do you have a read-to-me feature for on-page content built into the LMS?	Thinking Cap supports WCAG 2.1 AA requirements and conforms to the Government of Canada’s Standard on Web Usability and Web Accessibility. These are tested both manually (using screen readers) and automatically on a regular cadence. We have additional features to aid in the delivery of accessible versions of course content, where old course packages are not accessible.
Trial/Pre-launch. Do you offer a free trial or a special pre-launch conditions? Please describe.	We offer access to a sandbox for an LMS review for administrators. Sample content, learners and admin accounts may be added to assist in this review process.
Product Roadmap. How often do you update the platform with new features? What is your product roadmap and how do you manage feature releases? Please describe.	Thinking Cap invites customers to attend our annual Thinking Camp event. At this event, customers and product teams discuss the product and plans for the future. These plans culminate in our Roadmap. This gives our product team a chance to discuss requirements with our customers and determine the best solution or feature. All new features are rolled out to all customers. Larger updatest to the LMS are rolled out to System Administrators for review first, prior to general release for all current users of the LMS.
Disaster Recovery. What is your disaster recovery plan? How often is it tested? What are the RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) in your disaster recovery plan?	Our SOC2-certification dictates our distaster recovery checklist, including managing different disaster senarios, response procedures, data back-up and recovery, testing and maintenance procedures and more. A copy of our SOC2-certification is available upon request
International standards and regulations. Can you detail how your LMS complies with international standards and regulations (not just local)?	Thinking Cap is SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 and SOC 2-certified. We are compliant with many privacy and security regulations including: Australian Government IRAP, CCCPPF, Cloud Security Alliance CCM, EU Model Clauses, FBI CJIS (Azure Government), FedRAMP, FERPA, FIPS 140-2, FISMA, Food and Drug Administration 21 CFR Part 11, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), HIPAA, ISO 27001/27002, MLPS, PCI DSS Level 1, Singapore MTCS Standard, United Kingdom G-Cloud.
Legal disputes. In cases of legal disputes, what support do you offer?	Clients that require support during an internal audit or legal dispute may contact our Support team for help in gathering all applicable data.
Off-boarding. What happens if we choose to end our contract? How is data handled?	Data may be extracted from the LMS using a variety of reports and data export features.

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