Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review Paycom has really helped us to configure our timecards and payroll to fit our unique pay structure. The system made it easy for staff to understand and not just the payroll/HR department. We use paper pay checks, and the system uses the "home location" for delivery which is not necessarily where the employee works, just where they pick up their check. If we used direct deposit, I am sure that would not be an issue.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Customer Support- Jaco Lau and Jeff Sullins have been highly responsive to all of our needs and customizations Customization capabilities - we have had to build an End-To-End performance management system that now fits and meets our needs Functionality - the tools and intuitive use of Paycom makes for a great user-experience. Our employees are already embracing it and have expressed gratitude for moving to this new platform. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Update alert system for employees. When and employee misses a clock in so he/she requests a missed punch correction, the alert saying missed punch will continue to pop up at the employee until a manager approves said punch request. It confuses employees and makes them think they didn't request the punch so they do it again. It should not keep alerting said employee if he/she made a change to fix it. If anything, it should alert the manager until said requests are approved and/or denied. Provide the employees pay rate in the edit grid layout section of payroll Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review We've made the mistake of moving away from Paycom to a PEO which had made a lot of promises, that they could not keep. Less than a year after that transition, we returned to Paycom and are happier than ever.
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review The system is very user friendly. Once you navigate where your information is stored under the forms you are golden. While the training amplified my capabilities and knowledge, I could have jumped into the system without and training and managed just fine. This probably one of my favorite parts about Paycom!
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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.
Read full review They are very dependable and I have never experience any outages
Read full review Performance 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.
Read full review It is a solid product and was out first payroll software that we have used
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Our TSR has been wonderful to work with. Every step of the way he was quick to respond and answer any questions we had. I knew I could reach him at any time (day or night) and he would be available to assist. Implementing a new HRIS system is obviously a huge task and I contribute all our success to our rep Kurt! Of course, with any implementation, there were bumps along the way and issues. But I always knew we would work as a team to get those issues figured out. Working in the Paycom system has been smooth and easy to learn and I enjoy the employee self-service interface. Our managers have had positive things to say and are all excited about the changes we have been able to make to our organization due to Paycom being implemented.
Read full review In-Person Training Did not participate in the in-person training due to distance; training was completed online
Read full review They were a sales person and not really a good trainer.
Read full review Online Training 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.
Read full review All the online training modules were short and straight to the point. Every module teach you how to use the system. If there is one thing they know how to do is training. We did implementation during the pandemic so all had to be done online or via zoom meetings.
Read full review Implementation Rating 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.
Read full review Not at all satisfied it was a nightmare we spent over 8 months with the implementation team having issues after issues all related to the Puerto Rico regulations (half my employees are in Puerto Rico) and at the end we were moved over from the implementation team to the production team without all the issues being resolved
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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 .
Read full review ADP is too complex, too many people to go through to get what you need, as you need it. I can only say that I don't want to ever have to go back to using ADP again., Wherever my career leads me - I will lead them to PAYCOM!!
Read full review Scalability 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.
Read full review They are not able to meet our current needs
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Saved time, 2 person HR department so time is limited. With reduced time for onboarding we have been able to focus on other areas. Improved employee satisfaction- employees enjoy the ease of use of the system and the ability to use on their phones. Reduced background check/drug screening costs- prior providers were absorbent in the amount we paid compared to Paycom. Read full review ScreenShots D2L Brightspace Screenshots