Saba Enterprise 2005.

Saba Enterprise 2005, learning management system, Saba (877-722-2101, www.saba.com).

Saba's latest product suite release is Saba Enterprise 2005, which continues to build on Saba's vision of supporting human capital management as an integrated set of disciplines. This review focuses on the learning-related aspects of Saba Enterprise 2005. Within that "learning" space, Saba continues to add useful new capabilities while at the same time making smart incremental design improvements across its broad range of features.

This review was completed before Saba acquired THINQ Learning Solutions, Inc. According to Saba, it will not integrate the current THINQ platform with the Saba system. It will support THINQ customers for three years and encourage them to shift to the Saba product.

OVERVIEW

Saba defines its market position as a provider of human capital management solutions. Saba Enterprise 2005, the company's latest suite of offerings, consists of enterprise applications for learning, performance, and talent management that can be deployed upon a common foundation. The focus of this review is the core LMS--Saba Learning--with references to how other components of the Saba Learning Suite extend the core functionality.

USER ENVIRONMENT

The Saba Enterprise 2005 user interface design is both visually appealing and functionally effective. It combines standard menu-driven navigation with portal-style features that may be personalized by users, and both the menu and portal elements are clean and easy to read. The ability of users to personalize some of their own interface attributes is an appealing capability, but Saba 2005 also provides a new set of configuration capabilities for system administrators to more effectively design the user experience. The combination of user personalization and back-end configuration tools offers a robust set of capabilities.

Users begin access to the system from a role-based homepage that includes a menu bar for navigating to major system functions such as learning, assessments, collaboration, etc. A user will see some variation in menu items based on their role and permissions, i.e., managers see more menu options than users who do not manage leams. Most of the homepage real estate is made up of a selection of portal-style elements that provide shortcuts to key features or quick views of critical information. Users may choose which of these elements to display (and some display attributes) via a "preferences" feature. A user may have multiple opportunities to make such preference choices, depending on the number and type of roles they perform (learner, manager, training administrator, etc.).

Saba 2005 adds two visual design enhancements to this portal-style approach that improve the user experience. Some of the elements are designed with a subtle-3D effect that makes the overall page impression less flat and results in an interface that is easy to scan and identify important items. The second enhancement is incorporating more graphical representations of information. One capability allows users to choose between having some information represented on their homepage in graphical form or as text. Users will also see graphical-view options in Saba 2005 for such items as complex curriculum paths.

Saba 2005 also makes use of web services technology, an industry-standard approach to allowing multiple applications to share data and functionality. An example of web services use within an LMS environment might be integration with an organization's corporate intranet/portal environment or email system. Users may access specific learning data or perform specific learning-related functions from the portal rather than by directly accessing the LMS.

LEARNING DELIVERY

Saba covers learning delivery basics by supporting industry e-learning standards and by providing virtual classroom capabilities. But it also extends delivery options to include a feature-rich learner collaboration environment.

For content-driven learning activities, Saba 2005 includes the ability to configure Saba Player, the environment in which content is launched from the LMS. The environment could be anything from a standard, unaltered browser to a branded environment unique to an organization. In either case the Saba Player configuration options provide organizations with more tools to improve their own community's user experience. Saba 2005 also includes functionality that allows laptop users to download learning activities, complete the activities offline, and then synchronize results with the LMS upon reconnecting to the network.

Saba supports integration with major virtual classroom providers such as Centra (which it recently acquired), WebEx, Interwise, and Microsoft Live Meeting through the Saba Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Connector. Integrating any virtual classroom tool with an LMS raises functional challenges in such areas as seamless event scheduling, learner registration, and reporting. Saba's VLE connectors provide a standardized approach to incorporating virtual learning capabilities into the Saba LMS workflow.

COLLABORATION

Saba Collaboration provides one of the more intriguing capabilities in Saba 2005. Collaboration provides learner community tools such as threaded discussion boards, instant messaging, document repository, access to experts, and even Wiki boards (similar to weblogs). Saba's implementation of learner community tools allows users to self-subscribe to different communities or to have membership automatically assigned based on attributes such as job function or organization. Users then have access to a community homepage (designed in the familiar Saba 2005 portal style) that highlights recent community news, document postings, and discussion threads as well as current membership lists.

LEARNING MANAGEMENT

Previous releases of Saba included pre-configured functionality designed to meet the requirements of several target learning environment segments: corporate universities, customer education, regulatory compliance, sales/channel readiness, and channel certification. Each of these segments requires unique sets of attributes that are only relevant within the segment. Customer education environments, for example, typically require e-commerce capabilities that are not relevant in a corporate university environment. Saba 2005 still provides these predesigned configurations, but with the extensive configuration options built info the system (see User Environment), their value may be more as a starting point for designing an environment than as a pre-defined solution.

In either case, Saba's learning management features include a rich set of capabilities to manage programs, resources, and competencies. Learning activities can be managed as traditional classroom, virtual classroom, self-paced, or any mix of the three in a blended program. The system supports certifications as a special type of activity. Resource management includes the ability to schedule instructors, book rooms, and manage expendable resources including products such as CDs that need to be shipped to users. Within the core LMS, competencies can be mapped to Saba's job type/job role framework and to learning activities, providing learners with a reference structure for focusing on the most important activities to build proficiency in their job.

Saba 2005 now also includes the concept of an "audience," a defined group of users that can be used by training administrators to target learning activities or information. Audiences can be created using almost any data attribute associated with users in the LMS (e.g., organizational information, job function, hire date). In previous releases, efforts to define access to learning activity information depended in large part on using Saba's domains and security list features, often a cumbersome proposition. The new audience functionality should greatly improve the ease with which organizations can adapt the LMS to focus users on the activities and information most relevant to them.

Saba's learning management capabilities have always been extensive. Training administrators have access to a wide variety of ways to package and deliver learning activities, including options designed to support highly regulated training environments such as electronic signatures and mandatory certifications. Saba 2005 continues to extend capability across the board in learning management.

CONTENT AUTHORING AND MANAGEMENT

Saba Enterprise 2005 includes the option to add Saba Content Management, a full-featured learning content management system (LCMS). A detailed review of Saba Content Management functionality is outside the scope of this review. But the availability of an integrated LCMS puts Saba in a position to offer a content management solution that is tuned to support their LMS, a plus for organizations that design and develop their own e-learning content and wish to minimize LMS/LCMS integration issues.

Saba Content Manager includes the ability to organize content objects into a repository and associate metadata with the objects; organize and manage content development project teams (including subject matter experts); establish version control on learning content; manage review cycles; and, finally, publish to the LMS. Organizations may use any number of off-the-shelf content authoring tools to actually create the content objects managed by Saba Content Manager.

Saba does also offer its own authoring tool called Saba Publisher. It can be used to create standards-based courses as well as tests and assessments. Content can also be created for offline use (downloaded from the LMS).

REPORTING AND ANALYSIS

Saba Enterprise 2005 includes both a standard capability to provide reports and an optional offering in Saba Analytics, a reporting and analysis environment that is relatively new to the learning management marketplace. The standard capability includes dozens of pre-defined reports designed to meet the most common requirements of different learning environments such as a corporate university, regulated industries, and commercial training. Reporting may be further customized using Crystal Reports. Saba's integration with Crystal Reports also supports the ability to have users email copies of reports on an ad hoc or scheduled basis.

Saba Analytics is one of the few business intelligence applications on the market that is intended specifically to support learning and human capital management. Although it is designed to incorporate data from other information systems (sales, customer service, etc.), it also serves as a much more powerful analysis environment for data that resides exclusively within the LMS.

Saba Analytics incorporates the concepts of measures (numerical quantities, such as number of enrollments) and dimensions (ways to organize groups of measures, such as business units). In a typical analysis, a user may first look at one measure across one or two dimensions such as enrollments (measure) in the sales organization (dimension) during the last fiscal quarter (dimension). Applying additional dimensions as filters can segment this analysis even further: enrollments in the sales organization during the last fiscal quarter, filtered by a specific course, region, or manager. Overall, Saba Analytics incorporates more than 40 standard measures and 15 dimensions. Saba also provides a developer's guide to extending measures and attributes using industry standard technology.

PRICE

What LMS providers include in the functionality of their core LMS product can vary in ways that may be significant for an organization. Bersin & Associates (www.bersin.com) conducted a research study in 2004 to help identify these cost issues. Some generalizations emerged. Licensing costs ranged from $5 to $50 per user; implementation averaged two to three times licensing costs; and maintenance fees were between 18% and 22% of licensing costs. But the research also showed wide variation in actual experience.

The best approach to understand the financials of buying and implementing an LMS is to start building the business case rather than looking specifically at price points.

RECOMMENDATION

Saba continues to push its functionality to balance breadth, depth, and configurability. Saba Enterprise 2005 has an excellent set of features to meet requirements in different learning management environments--corporate, commercial, regulatory, extended enterprise, etc.--but the system's most attractive attribute is the ability to easily configure these features to suit an organization's specific requirements.

Saba Enterprise 2005 star rating

CATEGORY

User environment          4
Learning delivery         4
Learning management       4
Content authoring/mngmt.  4
Reporting and analysis    4
Overall rating            4