Thought Industries

Pros

It's easy to use and customize things, and when I don't know how to do something there's a robust help site I can go to for information. The platform is capable of every function we need and they are always making improvements and adding functionality so we can stay cutting edge. I love that we're able to offer some education for free, and other courses at a cost for users. TI makes it easy for us to do both and the detailed reporting helps us track information about all of the users visiting the site. I genuinely love using this platform.

Cons

The platform can be a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for and in my book, this is well worth the investment.

Pros

I am attracted to the modern, sleek design of the platform, as well as the ease of integration.

Cons

I do not enjoy the limitations on logging in as other users for discovery / troubleshooting purposes. The home/manager portal buttons atop the page are confusing and change based on where you are on the site, this is confusing to most of my internal users.

Pros

Focus on customer training, whereas most learning platforms are primarily for HR and internal training. Thought Industries is built to distribute (and sell) training to customers. Also great features for Panoramas, or customized environments for specific customers.

Cons

I feel they struggle with usability and flexibility. It's one of the clumsiest CMS's I've worked in as a developer, and feels like they're figuring out how to build this system as they go. That's a bit frustrating when you're building customer-facing content... UI and UX are critical, and they are lacking here. Additionally, they have struggled to distribute content on a global level, though that was one of our requirements during our evaluation and sales discussions. We've faced significant issues with compliance, payment, and legal issues outside of the US.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Thought Industries

Pros

I do like that TI is working to improve the platform all the time. They aren't afraid to roll out new features to stay relevant.

Cons

We have had several instances where things stopped working as expected, and users admins were affected. Sometimes things change in TI without warning that affects our users, and it puts us in a difficult spot.

Pros

I have found the overall school configuration and course authoring easy to use. There are many ways to customize the learner's experience. The people at Thought Industries are great to partner with, especially [SENSITIVE CONTENT]. She helped our team navigate all the parts to get our school up and running. Additionally the support team members I've encountered [SENSITIVE CONTENT] are very thorough, with quick replies & recorded video explanations. The Office Hours and the academy are great resources for learning the platform.

Cons

The reporting continues to evolve, and I appreciate that movement forward. However, understanding how the report "dimensions" match up with the fields of the platform is not always clear, as different wording is used. So that takes a bit of trial and error. Additionally, I wish there was more ability to target messaging to different Panoramas at the page and course detail sidebar levels. Finally, the learning paths could benefit from more customization options.