Item: Cornerstone OnDemand
Rating: 10
Author: Tina Pegar

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Cornerstone OnDemand to support all learning across the organization as well as offer training opportunities to an affiliated organization. It assigns training based on need of the staff as well as is used for optional training and registration into larger organization sessions when needed. It solves out need for compliance training assignments and tracking as well as support the administration side and professional development opportunities.

Pros and Cons

Automatic recurring assignments are easy to get that refresher training out without needing to assign it fresh each time.
Reporting 2.0 makes it easy to write and share your reports with just selected filters. Making it easy for people receiving it to just change what they need to see.
Learning Admin Console makes it easy to peek at what is going on in your portal and open up connected reporting when needed.
Success Center is a great resource for getting peer answers to questions and learning about the releases and suggesting changes that should be added to the roadmap.

Their Product Support can take a long time to respond and/or give incomplete responses so you have to go back and forth to get the correct response.
Certifications exist but are in bad need of an update to make them more user friendly as they are the only way to set an expiration date.
Reporting 2.0 can have more latency issues then other parts of the system and it is always when you really need to grab that report.

Return on Investment

We needed a system that would help us switch from all in person training to online content and blended content and it does that with an easy to use interface.
In person session scheduling and tracking used to be a pain and the no show rate was high using ILT and having the registration easy to use and have calendar appointments emailed on registration has increased our attendance.
Playlists have allowed up to move our learning culture forward as we can connect content by topics and it makes it easy for our staff to pick what they want to take on that topic.

Alternatives Considered

Workday Human Capital Management, SumTotal Talent Development and Saba Cloud

We selected Cornerstone versus Saba during our initial implementation because of the Administrative resources and the easy of use for administering training at the time Saba had a better learner experience in our reckoning. Now they are one company so it seems we chose well. We implemented Workday HCM and there was some consideration on moving to their learning platform but Cornerstone does more and offers a better use experience so we are sticking with Cornerstone Learning.

Key Insights

Do you think Cornerstone OnDemand delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cornerstone OnDemand's feature set?

Yes

Did Cornerstone OnDemand live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cornerstone OnDemand go as expected?

No

Would you buy Cornerstone OnDemand again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Workday Human Capital Management, Articulate 360, Rise

Likelihood to Recommend

I think CSOD is great for most organizations it does have a hefty price tag so making sure the robustness is leveraged is important when choosing the correct system for your organization. I appreciate that they have quarterly releases so the product is getting updates often versus some other LMSs when that is less frequent.

Users and Roles

9600 - All employees and most of our non-employees that are provisioned have access to Cornerstone. There are some regulatory/compliance trainings, some departmental trainings and professional/personal development offerings.

Support Headcount Required

1 - We have a single centralized resources for Cornerstone Support (end user and superuser support) and a network of training administrators across the organization that manage their own training and help to make system decisions. We call it the federated model and it helps to keep autonomy for the training groups but they have the support they need.

Business Processes Supported

Certifications for regulatory training with expiration dates
Assignments that recur
Playlists to connect topical resources together.

Innovative Uses

We use a user form as part of a material to collect job function responses that then assign training.
We leveraged forms, form tasks, approval workflows and electronic signatures to collect performance appraisals last year .

Future Planned Uses

Teams integration
Learn App

Likelihood to Renew

10

We are happy with the product and the features offered.

Products Replaced

Yes - We didn't have an LMS before Cornerstone and instead leveraged manaul processes in PeopleSoft, SharePoint (with some workflows) and Access databases or Excel. We wanted something more automated and easier for the administrator to use. As well as that could host self paced content and track expiration dates for required training.

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability

We wanted it to be so much more user friendly then our other solutions so it could truly be that one stop shop we were aiming for.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I think we did really well and I wouldn't change the process.

Implementation Rating

8

The Cornerstone people assigned to our project were wonderful, we struggled with the "partner" that was assigned to our implementation and they made the process so much more difficult then it needed to be. So, select the partner carefully when implementing.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house
Third-party professional services

Bluewater Learning- https://www.bluewaterlearning.com/cornerstone-partnership/

Implementation Phases

No

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - We did the majority of of the change management with very little coaching from our implementation partner. It went well as our team had a lot of experience in change management.

Implementation Issues

Certifications - Incorrectly configured
Understanding functionality options
Working with Implementation Partner

Training Types Used

Online Training

In-Person Training

Online Training

10

It was great there were curricula to get me started then I could play in the test environments to figure out how I wanted it to work. They have fully revamped since our implementation ad the content is even better now.

Product Configurability

7

I think we can configure enough of the user experience to meet our needs particularly with welcome pages, custom pages and HTML however some of the workflows are hard coded and we wish we had some more preference options there. It does overall provide a friendly front end to our users.

Configuration Lessons

Practice, practice, practice in your test environment to know how something will work for the end user as well as the administrator. The other thing is to take advantage of the Success Center for asking about best practices from other customers.

UI Customization

Some - we have done small customizations to the interface - We had help setting up our Welcome page to be custom but it has been easy to update for rebranding purposes.

Extensibility and Customization

No - we have not done any custom code

Additional Customization Considerations

We are doing a lot with leveraging Reporting 2.0, FTP and Edge Import which is sort of customizing or being creative with pieces of functionality that are available.

Support Rating

6

I think they are working on enhancing and making their support better over the last few years however it is still a trouble point. It can take forever and a lot of back and forth to get a clear answer or work done. They are great for classic work orders however such as security or functionality turning on and those go really fast. I do think they still struggle with the line between an issue and a "project".

Cornerstone OnDemand Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Kept well informed Quick Initial Response	Slow Resolution Poor followup Problems left unsolved Difficult to get immediate help Need to explain problems multiple times

Premium Support

We are in the middle support package. We picked it as the bottom one doesn't allow for you to be as involved in the direction of Cornerstone and with support.

Bug Resolution

Yes - It was resolved not as timely as i hoped but it was resolved.

Exceptional Examples of Cornerstone OnDemand Support

I think the Regional User Groups are my favorite thing rather then the actual contacting of Support.

Usability

9

Great for an end users however there are places like the transcript that switching around can be confusing.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using	None

Easy Tasks

Use Learning Search to find content
Use Learner Home to see everything you need learning wise
Express class to give ad hoc credit

Difficult Tasks

ILT session copying
Test editing
Certifications in general

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes, but I don't use it

Scalability

10

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

Reliability and Availability

10

There are few outages and when there is the "trust" site is updated rather quickly and tickets are now connected together much better.

Performance

10

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.