Smooth LMS Overview

Smooth LMS is the employee training and certification app built into Smooth HRMS. Learners, trainers, and HR admins use the same company login on your site (for example https://yoursite.smoothhrms.com). Smooth LMS delivers a course library (modules and lessons), quizzes and assignments, SCORM imports, completion certificates, instructor-led cohorts (LMS Batch), structured programs, and corporate mandatory training with due dates and validity periods.

Help URL: smoothhiring.com/help/lms/getting-started/overview

Table of Contents

1. What Smooth LMS does
2. How LMS fits with Smooth HR
3. Desk vs learning portal
4. Core records
5. Typical training workflows
6. Desk paths
7. First-week setup checklist
8. Roles at a glance
9. Tips
10. Troubleshooting
11. Related guides
12. HRMS integration

What Smooth LMS does

Smooth LMS uses corporate terminology in the desk: Module = Course Chapter, Lesson = Course Lesson, Cohort = LMS Batch, Trainer = course instructor row. The public portal lives under /lms (configurable via lms_path in site config).

How LMS fits with Smooth HR

HRMS owns the employee master, onboarding tasks, and compliance ledger. LMS owns content delivery and learning progress. The integration layer (lms.lms.hrms_integration) runs on HR document events:

• Employee created — if user_id is set and the user lacks LMS Student, the role is added automatically.
• Employee Onboarding created — published courses with Mandatory Training checked enroll the employee's user and create LMS Training Assignment rows (default due date 30 days out).

Regulatory compliance (I-9, license renewals, policy attestations) remains in Employee Compliance. Attach LMS certificate PDFs or quiz reports to Employee Document when auditors need proof on the HR file. See Employee records for linking users to employees.

Desk vs learning portal

Course Creators and Moderators often author in the portal course editor (/lms/courses/new/edit) while admins monitor completion from the desk. Employees rarely need desk access; desk_access is off for LMS roles by default.

Core record types

LMS Course — title, trainers, category (LMS Category), tags, published flag, mandatory/validity, chapters table, certification and pricing tabs.

Course Chapter — module within a course; optional SCORM package upload extracts manifest and launch file.

Course Lesson — markdown body, YouTube URL, quiz ID, assignment question, trainer notes; linked to a chapter.

LMS Enrollment — member (User), course, progress; created manually, via cohort, program, onboarding hook, or mandatory assign API.

LMS Batch — cohort with start/end dates, seat count, courses child table, instructors, live class schedule.

LMS Program — ordered course list and program members.

LMS Training Assignment — employee (User), course, due date, status (Pending / In Progress / Completed / Overdue).

Typical training workflows

Compliance library (self-paced):

1. Create categories (Safety, HR Policy, IT Security).
2. Build courses with modules/lessons and quizzes.
3. Mark critical courses Mandatory Training + Validity Period (Days).
4. Assign via onboarding hook or assign_mandatory_training from desk/portal admin tools.
5. Export quiz results PDF for audits; attach to HR compliance if required.

Instructor-led cohort:

1. Publish courses first.
2. Create LMS Batch with dates, seats, and linked courses.
3. Enroll employees via LMS Batch Enrollment.
4. Run live classes (Zoom/Google Meet) from batch timetable.
5. Batch Evaluator grades assessments; certificates issue on completion.

Onboarding bundle:

1. Configure Employee Onboarding template tasks.
2. Ensure mandatory LMS courses are published.
3. On onboarding submit, integration enrolls the hire automatically.

Desk paths

First-week setup checklist

1. Confirm Smooth HR and Smooth LMS are enabled on your account (your Smooth administrator or Smooth support).
2. Open LMS Settings — enable portal sidebar items (Courses, Cohorts/Batches, Statistics as needed).
3. Assign Moderator to L&D admins, Course Creator to authors, LMS Student to employees (or rely on HR auto-role).
4. Create LMS Category rows matching your training taxonomy.
5. Publish at least one pilot course; verify /lms/courses loads for a test employee user.
6. Link employees to users in HR; test onboarding enrollment for a mandatory course.
7. Review Learning workspace charts for enrollments and certification counts.

Roles at a glance

Tips

• Use Disable Self Learning on sensitive courses so enrollment only happens via HR assignment or cohort.
• Keep Employee.user_id populated before onboarding; otherwise auto-enrollment skips.
• Separate LMS Certificate (course completion) from Employee Compliance (regulatory record) unless you wire a custom hook.
• Feature courses on the portal home with Featured and LMS Category filters.
• Run demo seed (setup_wizard_complete) only on sandbox sites.

Troubleshooting

Related guides

• Desk vs portal
• Roles and permissions
• First setup
• Courses overview
• Cohorts overview

HRMS integration

• Employee Onboarding overview
• Employee records
• Employee Compliance

Enterprise rollout playbook

Phase 1 — Foundation: install apps, configure LMS Settings, categories, roles. Phase 2 — Content: publish mandatory compliance library and pilot cohort. Phase 3 — Integration: verify Employee.user_id coverage, onboarding hook, and compliance attachment SOP. Phase 4 — Communication: manager email templates with portal links. Phase 5 — Metrics: weekly review of /desk/learning charts and Statistics mandatory widget.

Executive sponsors should see one dashboard: completion rate by department (export enrollments joined to Employee department via user email). Document mapping between LMS course list and HR compliance types before auditors ask.

Governance, auditing, and data retention

Training data in Smooth LMS is standard Frappe JSON in MariaDB plus files in public/files and public/scorm. HR audits typically require evidence of who completed what by when. Export desk lists (LMS Enrollment, LMS Quiz Submission, LMS Training Assignment, LMS Certificate) to CSV for sampling. Quiz submission print formats provide question-level detail suitable for safety investigations or harassment prevention audits.

Retention policy should align with HR document retention: keep LMS submissions at least as long as related Employee Compliance records. When employees depart, disable User accounts but retain enrollment history unless legal counsel approves purging. Version course content via amended records or annual duplicated courses so historical completions still reference the correct curriculum year.

System Managers should restrict Moderator role membership and enable login activity review on sensitive cohorts (executive leadership programs). Pair LMS reports with HR onboarding status from Employee Onboarding overview to prove training preceded start date when required.

Frequently asked questions

Do employees need desk access? No. LMS Student is portal-only by default; send {site}/lms/courses links.

Can one user be both Course Creator and Moderator? Yes on small teams; larger orgs should separate author vs publish duties.

How do we handle contractors? Create User + optional HR employee record; assign training like employees via Employee records linkage or direct enrollment.

What breaks if HRMS is down? LMS continues serving published content; new hire auto-enrollment pauses until Employee/Onboarding APIs succeed.

Are certificates legally equivalent to HR compliance rows? Not automatically—store PDFs on compliance or document types when statute requires.

Performance and scale notes

Large enrollments (5,000+ users) should batch assign overnight via assign_mandatory_training rather than manual enrollment rows. Rebuild website cache after bulk publish. Monitor background workers if email notifications queue heavily. SCORM packages should be optimized zip exports to reduce disk usage during large uploads.

Additional troubleshooting

Operations calendar (recommended)

Integration smoke tests with HRMS

1. Create test Employee with user — confirm LMS Student role.
2. Submit test Employee Onboarding — confirm enrollments when courses mandatory.
3. Complete course — attach quiz PDF to test Employee Compliance row.
4. Archive evidence in document compliance SOP.

Support runbook (L1)

Collect: user email, course/cohort name, screenshot of error, timestamp. Check enrollment exists, course published, role present. Escalate to System Manager if SCORM extract failed or permission hooks deny batch access. Reference Employee records to fix missing user_id before reassigning training.

Last updated: May 2026

Smooth HR (HRMS)