D2L Brightspace vs. CATS Applicant Tracking System

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
D2L Brightspace
Score 5.1 out of 10
N/A
Brightspace is an academic and corporate learning management platform. It provides core e-learning features, as well as mobile accessibility and granular personalization and analytics insights.N/A
CATS ATS
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
CATS is a web-based recruiting software. Users can manage the entire recruiting process including custom job applications, posting jobs, resume parsing, custom recruitment workflows, and generating customized reports. Pricing is tiered per user, per month.
$69
per month
Pricing
D2L BrightspaceCATS Applicant Tracking System
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Annual Pro Plan
$69
per user, per month
Monthly Pro Plan
$99
per user, per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
D2L BrightspaceCATS ATS
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact vendor for pricing information. 30-day free trial is available.Please visit the CATS pricing page to compare plans and features
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
D2L BrightspaceCATS Applicant Tracking System
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
D2L BrightspaceCATS Applicant Tracking System
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
D2L Brightspace
5.9
10 Ratings
32% below category average
CATS Applicant Tracking System
-
Ratings
Course authoring2.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library10.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal9.87 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content9.69 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly1.19 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.49 Ratings00 Ratings
Assignments2.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration2.19 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics2.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning8.49 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
D2L Brightspace
-
Ratings
CATS Applicant Tracking System
8.2
19 Ratings
3% above category average
Job Requisition Management00 Ratings9.517 Ratings
Company Website Posting00 Ratings9.517 Ratings
Publish to Social Media00 Ratings8.617 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting00 Ratings10.017 Ratings
Customized Application Form00 Ratings9.518 Ratings
Resume Management00 Ratings8.119 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention00 Ratings4.618 Ratings
Candidate Search00 Ratings6.219 Ratings
Applicant Tracking00 Ratings7.619 Ratings
Collaboration00 Ratings8.612 Ratings
Task Creation and Delegation00 Ratings8.615 Ratings
Email Templates00 Ratings9.519 Ratings
User Permissions00 Ratings8.517 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts00 Ratings9.517 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings4.618 Ratings
Best Alternatives
D2L BrightspaceCATS Applicant Tracking System
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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Score 8.7 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
D2L BrightspaceCATS Applicant Tracking System
Likelihood to Recommend
1.5
(45 ratings)
8.1
(28 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(25 ratings)
8.4
(10 ratings)
Usability
6.4
(11 ratings)
2.7
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(2 ratings)
5.9
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
4.5
(1 ratings)
Online Training
4.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.6
(3 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
D2L BrightspaceCATS Applicant Tracking System
Likelihood to Recommend
D2L
If you're an educational institution (K-12, Higher Ed, etc.), this is an amazing tool, and it will provide you all the functionality to support anything you may want and need it to do. If you are looking at Brightspace as a tool for corporate training, I'm not sure exactly how good or bad it will be for you. My guess would be that it likely depends on your organization's size. Along that line, what I can speak to is how we use it for our customized training and in-house professional development/training, and it works fantastically for that. While we primarily use it for normal higher ed coursework, we regularly do training and professional development for all of our employees and I manage those along with our HR department. Because we use it for many other things as well, all of our employees are familiar with the product, which makes our trainings go that much smoother and makes my job that much easier.
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CATS Software
It has a great parsing feature and the extension is very helpful. Many ATS systems do not support parsing within LinkedIn...this one does. I was sad to see this option go when we finally transitioned. I would almost keep CATS just for the LinkedIn parsing if I knew I could easily get the information OUT of the system once it was there. A good API/webhook would be great, but sadly the API connections don't work well. Our firm also works with companies with multiple sites all across the US. There was never a way to "nest" a location with a parent company. Because of this, being able to research or report on a true client relationship was not possible. It was a very manual process.
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Pros
D2L
  • Allowing users to embed content links from YouTube or Google Drive enables learners to experience a richer lesson.
  • Providing a powerful editor that allows developers to also include content from Adobe Stock as well as textbook publishers and cloud storage companies gives more power and creative ability to instructors.
  • Providing scaling for mobile and traditional computer systems ensures students will not have issues on the go.
  • The customization of home pages and groups enable courses to be used for small training sessions with breakout groups, large courses with separate sections, and even just more engaging courses that present themed icons and logos.
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CATS Software
  • Simple to implement, SaaS based tool that needs no in-house IT support or resources
  • Customizable reports, labels, fields, applications
  • Affordable
  • No long term contract, month-to-month with ability to cancel anytime
  • Data backups are simple
  • Email directly from the candidate record with response coming into Outlook is easy to configure and creates record and updates status automatically
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Cons
D2L
  • One can feel a bit rushed on the Brightspace platform during the log-out period. Security requirements may require this, but it makes end-users more conscious about getting through content than taking notes.
  • From my experience, there is not a direct connection between the platform and Outlook.
  • Some content on the platform can feel redundant.
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CATS Software
  • I would like to see either an integration with a robust reporting tool that would allow me to design my own custom reports with a data export or more built-in reporting options.
  • Mobile app is currently mostly just a look-up tool. I would like it to have the ability to do more - add tasks, update pipelines, etc.
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Likelihood to Renew
D2L
I would never give any system a perfect score. In the technology environment today we need to be constantly looking at ways to improve the user experience and LMS companies like Desire2Learn need to know that we have options today with other systems and they need to stay current with features and listen to their customers.
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CATS Software
Our company has been using it and enjoying the benefits for a few years now. Its a perfect system for our end goal of finding the best candidate effectively and being able to track and write reports on our progress.
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Usability
D2L
Overall, the learning environment works as expected. However, there are plenty of bugs. For example, for a few versions, trying to print out a PDF from the Content screen in several browsers would produce a blank page. We inform D2L support about these issues, most of which are known issues. However, they are very slow to respond. D2L seems to spend more time selling than actually coding and testing their product. Most of the issues are not major -- however, there have been a few that are unbelievable. In fact, this past week we had a sudden issue where the "Submit" button in quizzes would not appear if users had a certain browser/operating system combination. This is a major problem, if students cannot submit their exams! D2L is slow to respond to these kinds of situations, which do occur more often than I would like.
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CATS Software
not recruiter friendly. workflow is not good
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Reliability and Availability
D2L
Both students and instructor enjoy the 24-hoiur access. After, all isn't that the point of online learning. As an instructor located in an Eastern time zone state it is great to connect with students located in a Pacific time zone state. I have gotten comments about the early hours I am in the course room grading assignments . . . 4:00 a.m. PST; 7:00 a.m. EST So, it's sleep time for my students and "first cup of coffee" time for me.
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CATS Software
No answers on this topic
Performance
D2L
Easy to navigate; little to no delay from one section of the course room to another; actually fun to use after overcoming the learning curve.
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CATS Software
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
D2L
I have had excellent support from Desire2Learn. Any ticket that I submit is acknowledged immediately and the correction is usually almost as quick. We use this for thousands of classes and it is pretty well liked by both faculty and students. We have been using it for almost 4 years now and most of our instructors have become pretty proficient with it.
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CATS Software
I've had mixed results with asking for support. Sometimes they gave a quick answer and sometimes my emails were never responded to. Some responses were a single word.
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In-Person Training
D2L
Did not participate in the in-person training due to distance; training was completed online
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CATS Software
No answers on this topic
Online Training
D2L
The training provided online did not, necessarily, fit the version of the system that I was using. Screens were somewhat different and not all options were readily available. This could have been due to customization on the part of my institution however, I rather believe it was due to version changes and training materials not yet being updated.
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CATS Software
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
D2L
The D2L implementation team listened to our concerns and built a system based upon our needs. We wanted to keep them after the initial implementation.
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CATS Software
This is an incredibly easy system to implement. There is no hardware or software required, it's entirely SaaS based. Compared to other systems I've implemented, it's breathtaking. Customization can all be done directly in the tool, there is no need for any involvement of consultants and most of the information you cannot figure out intuitively is covered in the knowledge base
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Alternatives Considered
D2L
I have used Blackboard Learn 8 and 9. I am currently learning about Canvas. Blackboard is overall much clunkier and lacks the intuitive feel in some parts of D2L. Its grade book is much harder to control and manipulate than D2L's. Its navigation menu can be more radically modified from the default than D2L's, but this doesn't seem that useful to me. Discussions in Blackboard can be more easily reorganized than in D2L, but no grading of discussions is possible. Blackboard Assignments is a good innovation which allows markup directly in the students' submissions, but it displays student work in a confusing manner that doesn't allow for any customization, and its markup options need further tweaking. Furthermore, no rubrics can be used in Blackboard in any way to grade any kind of work (that I am aware of). Overall, I would choose D2L over Blackboard.
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CATS Software
We used to use Sendouts (prior to it being acquired by Bullhorn) - and it wasn't browser based like CATS so instead of being able to access it from a home computer, laptop, mobile phone, etc. you could only use it on the computer with the software uploaded - which is a hindrance. It also wasn't as customizable as CATS. We picked CATS because it the price was right, it was browser-based, had email-integration, and integrates with social media and job posting services to share your jobs
with the public.
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Scalability
D2L
During my first semester working with Desire2Learn the integrated learning management system was more down than up. This meant reconfiguring assignment due dates, frustration for both the instructor, students, and help desk staff. After an upgrade, Desire2Learn has been reliable.
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CATS Software
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
D2L
  • I cannot speak to whether this system is less expensive than the more fully featured Blackboard, but employees are far less efficient, frustrated, and require frequent calls to the help center to set up fairly simple course templates.
  • I have been asked to consider teaching courses which will be completely online at my current institution. I have done such online courses several times at other universities, but I have decided Desire2Learn is too frustrating and cumbersome to do so. I am now exploring using Google Drive to teach a course online. Otherwise, I will not teach online until required or I find an alternate system.
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CATS Software
  • We went from Excel spreadsheets to using CATS so honestly anything would be an improvement. But CATS has saved tremendous time on an on-going basis in terms of managing the career portal automatically.
  • Being able to log email conversations with the click of a button from Outlook right into CATS has been a time-saver and also has helped numerous times in providing better follow-through to candidates and providing better tracking of candidate interactions and what they have previously said (or not).
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ScreenShots

D2L Brightspace Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

CATS ATS Screenshots

Screenshot of Easily view candidates, without leaving the job order, using the candidate preview. Even quickly communicate with candidate via SMS without leaving your current screen.Screenshot of Candidate ProfileScreenshot of Add filters to quickly search and narrow down your candidate database.Screenshot of