Overview
A leading global investment management firm wanted to scale its advisor education program. They partnered with our team to create a seamless, on-brand learning experience that runs on a headless implementation of Adobe Learning Manager (ALM) as well as Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). The platform is designed for global scale and features:
- Headless ALM implementation with fully custom frontend and custom content nesting for a differentiated, branded learning experience
- Sophisticated, automated learner cohorts to deliver the right experiences to the right learners
- Flexible, ungated learning pathways to promote learner autonomy
Organization
Our client is an enterprise wealth management firm. A key way they go to market is via a network of thousands of independent financial advisors operating across multiple regions.
Challenge
We had already conducted extensive user and market research to develop a set of Signature Moments, priority features that could make or break the partner learning experience. We had also guided the client through a discovery phase to help them select the right-for-them LMS: Adobe Learning Manager. Now, the challenge facing our tech team was to build these features on the new platform in a way that was highly branded, personalized, and designed for scale. The challenges fell into three main buckets:
Branded experience
Because this partner training experience was an important partner touchpoint, it had to be both on-brand and brand-building. Since out-of-the-box just could not meet the brand requirements, how could a custom front-end be integrated with the existing backend functionality?
Complex cohorts
The client had complex personalization needs, with different cohorts of learners requiring different content based on a variety of criteria including geography and firm. How should users and learner cohorts be organized, particularly across geography and firm?
Personalized learning pathways
The learning experience design also called for a high degree of learner autonomy to allow partners to choose their own learning pathways. How should courses be structured to serve a wide range of advisor needs, and how could the UI/UX best support learner autonomy?
Here’s how our tech team solved each of these key questions.
Solution
Our end-to-end learning services [link] ensure excellence by aligning strategy, content, technology, and operating models to create engaging, innovative, and scalable learning experiences. Our client had already created a learning strategy and tested it in the market with an MVP learning experience. Now, it was time to build upon that foundation and scale what they knew worked.
Custom front end for a differentiated, branded experience
To meet the demands of the client’s world-class brand, we built a completely custom front end application. The custom front end opened up options for new content types, UI/UX features, and navigation. Key features included:
- Headless Adobe Learning Manager Implementation
We implemented ALM in headless mode, decoupling the platform’s backend functionality from its default front-end interface. This allowed us to use ALM’s robust learning management capabilities while building a completely custom user experience layer on top. - AEM-enriched course landing pages.
The client was already using Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) for content management. Our custom front end controls the design and layout, while AEM supplies content that brings each course landing page to life. This allowed the client to use a larger range of content types across the learning experience while simultaneously simplifying content operations. - In-Page content rendering.
Adobe’s Fluidic Player was embedded to deliver SCORM content seamlessly within the custom front end. Instead of a series of launch-and-exit interactions, the learning experience is seamless and easy to navigate.
User architecture and content strategy for complex cohorts
Our client needed to deliver the right content to the right learners. This required a detailed content roadmap that aligned content to role, seniority, region, and firm. To deliver that content without creating undue administrative burden, the team created a seamless SSO experience including auto-provisioning using Okta. By integrating Okta for user authentication, a custom application with additional learner data, and Adobe Learning Manager, the client could leverage the existing cohorts within Adobe Learning Manager without additional administrator intervention. This is the underlying architecture required to deliver personalized learning experiences at scale.
Learning experience navigation for multiple personas
Beyond the complexity of learner cohorts, the client also needed to meet the needs of advisors’ learning preferences and career stage. The learning design called for flexible, ungated learning experience navigation that gives advisors autonomy over their learning journey.
To meet these specifications, our team of technologists used nested course structures beyond what’s standard within Adobe Learning Manager. We also integrated Adobe Learning Manager with Adobe Experience Manager to take advantage of additional data and content types. Finally, we built a deep linking functionality into the custom front end, enabling advisors to share or bookmark a direct link to any specific asset or page within a course.
Together, these features enable personalized learning pathways that meet the needs of a wide range of learner personas.
Impact
The result is a learning platform that enables our client to consistently deliver industry-leading learning experiences. Their courses have won several awards, and learners consistently rate them highly.
Our technology team was able to customize Adobe Learning Manager to meet our client’s specific needs for tech stack compatibility, personalized learning, a differentiated experience, and scale, avoiding many of the common constraints of an out-of-the-box LMS implementation. Because the technology work stream progresses in lock step with both content design and learning strategy, the learning platform can grow with the client’s ambitions, ensuring learning continues to serve as an engine for growth.
