Most L&D teams rely on prebuilt LMS dashboards or CSV exports without realizing the real power of their learning data lies in how it’s structured. This is a crash course in understanding LMS data models, including how data is stored in relational tables and how APIs can unlock deeper insights.
Gain a comprehensive understanding of how courses, learners, and tracking data are structured, empowering you to ask smarter questions, generate targeted reports, and make data-driven decisions that drive organizational impact. We’ll explore common structures (courses, learners, enrollments, completions), highlight typical limitations of exports, and show how understanding the underlying model gives you more flexibility, better reporting, and smarter questions. No technical background required! We’ll use visual examples, simple metaphors, and real-world L&D scenarios to make the invisible architecture of your LMS make sense. If you’ve ever wondered “Why can’t I get that report? This session is for you.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand what a relational data model is and how most LMSs store and organize data
- Learn the key data relationships behind courses, learners, and tracking
- Discover what APIs are and how they can give you more access than standard reports
- Gain confidence in working with technical teams or vendors to ask for the right data
