Cornerstone Galaxy vs. Influitive

Cornerstone Galaxy is a good solution for larger companies that focus on training and want to offer a variety of options to their employees and departments. It is highly customizable. It does require a tech savvy team to set-up, and maintain. This is not a set-it-and-forget-it system. From an LMS perspective, it wouldn't be my top choice for employees who only need a mobile-friendly approach.

We have seen success with information sharing. Giving customers another way to access our resources has been a huge help for them. While we see good engagement numbers there are still some limitations to getting our advocates to complete the 'harder' challenges, like a testimonial or reference

Incentivized

• Ability to provide multiple customizable access roles from general end user to full system admin and anything in between
• Powerful reporting system in the LMS to track a plethora of data points within the platform (user data, training information, transcript information)
• Great options to customize the look and feel of your "home page" to best meet your company's needs and goals.
• Ability to customize the transcript view for learners (i.e. when Completed training will move to their Archived transcript, what to do with Inactive training on transcripts)

Incentivized

• Allows you to create compelling and engaging challenges that help your content stand out.
• The gamification system enables a seamless rewards program that doesn't require a big manual lift.
• The data and insights are easy to access, analyze, and guide you toward your north star.

Incentivized

• Sometimes finding the right answer to your support question can be a bit more difficult than it should be.
• I would like to see more OSHA related courses.
• At times, the administrative interface seems to need to be updated, but the tradeoff honestly might be the absolute rock-solid stability of the platform.

Incentivized

• The Admin view is not as intuitive as the user view and the functionality just isn't as great. I wish it had almost the same layout/interface as how the customer sees it so I didn't have to constantly enter Preview mode.
• I wish there were more included integrations in the regular Influitive package.

Incentivized

As long as pricing stays reasonable, we will likely stay with Cornerstone for at least one more contract renewal. It would be a large task to migrate all of our content to a new system. However, the LMS landscape is diversifying with new startups that are showing some real innovation.

Incentivized

Depending on the cost and new features to be added, our company might be motivated to renew the use of Influitive. However, a lot depends on the year to come and the enhancements that can better our experience and add more gamification to the platform. Adding elements that can woo our target audience.

Incentivized

Easy to use, easy to learn, lots of support during the learning process. There are a few parts of the system we don't use and I'm hesitant to begin using because other clients have said they're difficult and cumbersome (certifications) or outdated (libraries)

Overall, Influitive is very easy to use for customers. There's a bit of a learning curve for new admins, but that's only because Influitive isn't always intuitive. The UI is confusing in certain places. I expect something to be in one place, and I find it somewhere else entirely. This is the only reason my usability rank isn't higher

Incentivized

I haven't really had any major availability problems. The service is practically impeccable but it is true that at times, due to server and latency problems, the application has been slower. But these have been specific issues that have resolved themselves.

Yes, always available and extremely quick. The availability is 10 on 10 for sure. We also have situations where their team might not be working or on a holiday, but if we have an event, they are available and ensure smooth running. That is the beauty of having Influitive take care of you.

Incentivized

I haven't seen many issues at all with load times. Sometimes learning assignments will take longer then expected but it is still reasonable. They have taken great effort over the last couple years to speed things up like reports and search results so I expect that effort to continue in the coming year.

Incentivized

Influitive AdvocateHub interacts with Blackbaud Champions and is an on-time response system. What I mean by that is once data is entered in Influitive AdvocateHub, it is updated in real time and I can access a computer and the data is there immediately. Sometimes the rewards do not show up right away and I am under the assumption that the delay is caused by an influx of traffic.

Incentivized

Its always important to have support when you are facing problems and when you are the main admin of the organization. Cornerstone Support is very supporting when you have not found the answer in the help guide. its very useful to have a team support to guide you.

Incentivized

If a problem can be easily addressed, Influitive Support is all over it! They're fast and always easy to work with. Some of the larger, or more unique problems, can get a little lost. I'd love to see a bit more follow-up on these more important issues, instead of me needing to reach out to find the status of a previously submitted issue. Overall, everyone at Influitive is kind and wants to help!

Incentivized

we use also to admin all our training in person events and sessions. Its easy to admin this kind of trainings and automatize some processes we have. Also de user experience and the integration with other systems helps to the employees to use more. All modules integrated oriented to develop people is the principal reason to have CSOD. The training administration is very complete and allows to automate many processes.

I was taught and made to show all features that could help me learn more about the platform and this was great hands-on training for me. I picked up things faster than others and did have time to create challenges and make changes while someone was around to supervise and help.

Incentivized

The online modules are pretty good. You can access them at any time, which we have done. You learn a lot in the beginning, but having the ability to retake short lessons when you are working on those items was very helpful.

Incentivized

The training was extensive and gave me the knowledge/ skills that I needed in order to implement my advocacy program using Influitive's Advocate Hub. I also meet on a regular basis with my Customer Success Manager. My Success Manager helps give me ideas for my program and helps me ensure that it's successful. Influitive is really invested in my success. They act more like a partner than a vendor

The implementation was pretty difficult. We felt they (Cornerstone) didn’t properly allocate the resources to complete our implementation in the timetable we wanted.

For example, we worked on Workday and SSO integrations - work that we had specifically contracted for in advance. When we were ready to work on that project, they didn’t have the people ready to help us, so it took a lot longer than necessary. That was my biggest pain point.

The implementation approach we went with was a self-led implementation. We would speak to the implementation manager once per week, and self-trained. We met with implementation manager to discuss issues, review things that we’d learned for 1 hour. We found that wasn’t enough. Other things would come up outside that one hour window that we couldn’t get answers to. We didn’t have anyone to ask about those things and we had to wait to ask during our weekly meeting.

The advantage of the self-led implementation approach was that it was really inexpensive – significantly less than the implementation cost for the other systems that we looked at. I also liked that we could pace ourselves. There were however big roadblocks. We would have to make sure the right resources were available. We had an implementation/project manager with a lot of experience and felt that the person was knowledgeable but missed on a few things.

In hindsight, I would still go with the self-led implementation, but knowing what I know now, I would ask for the integration person to be available more. I would work that into the contract. With single sign-on, we needed deep linking to build direct links through a Single Sign-On tool, e.g. when someone gets an email, it directs them to training. But it has to go through SSO to get them to the correct link. Deep linking wasn’t turned on in our system and they had to activate it. We encountered little things like that – sequencing pre-requisites which were problematic. We tried to troubleshoot ourselves.

I recommend you consider contracting for some extra implementation hours and determine when they are going to be available. Work it into the contract that you have the ability to call tech support during implementation. In addition to weekly implementation meetings, they have technical webexes – 4 every week, but 2 didn’t apply to us – one as we were using SSO. The challenge is they were not always relevant – we had specific questions that didn’t fall into those categories

I think some of the key insights I can put forward are all aligned to simply being organized. Make sure you have a well thoughts out plan where you have taken all factors into account. Prioritize the list of deliverables, and make sure you have all the right people alighed to assist internally & externally. If you have a well organized plan you will be set up for success.

The user experience is a lot better than using SumTotal as an admin CSOD makes working easy. Without having workarounds. Reporting is a lot better than both platforms. Reporting in CSOD is complex however easy to manage and create when you understand the data points collected

Incentivized

Vanilla is great for forums, but they don't have the gamification/challenges piece that is so important toward building advocacy. I've found a similar circumstance with Salesforce communities--good if you're looking primarily for crowdsourced tech support and QA, but nothing "sticky" for really building a thriving community, or the advocacy piece

Incentivized

It is important to be familiar with the terms and annual increases in licenses and other aspects of the contract. I recommend analyzing this from the beginning and the permanence is relevant because Cornerstone updates its modules and brings out new features that may allow you to leave a module to acquire another

It's a great product with some pieces that are set but many things that can be customized as needed for individual needs

Incentivized

When I stayed using we only had a hundred or so Advocates and now we have 2100+. Pretty amazing product!

As I have said before, I have no doubt that the services of the Cornerstone sales people were very good. In particular, our salesperson spent a lot of time in contact with us to make the process go smoothly. Perhaps being a large company in some cases the times were slowed down but it is something normal to take into account.

• We are in the process of trying to increase employee engagement through content expansion. We are in the early stages of this.
• The Edge Import Tool, in conjunction with Reporting 2.0, has done a great job of helping to automate/semi-automate tasks for huge time savings.
• Maintaining compliance. Achieved through dynamic/automated groups, assignments, communication, and reporting.

Incentivized

• Influitive has helped us generate hundreds of reviews on sites like G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra, which has resulted in various awards and positive placement on grid reports.
• Influitive has helped us generate dozens of case studies and hundreds of quotes that can be used in sales and marketing campaigns.
• Influitive has generated thousands of survey responses to help our product team better understand what our customers want, which has had a direct impact on our product roadmap.

Incentivized