HRMS + LMS Integration Overview

Smooth HR and Smooth LMS are designed to work together on your Smooth HRMS account. When both products are enabled for your company, HR workflows in the People desk and learning workflows in the Learning workspace share the same User records, Employee master data, and authentication. That shared foundation is what makes auto-provisioning, onboarding training, and compliance handoffs possible without custom scripts or nightly CSV imports.

This guide explains how the two products divide responsibility, where they connect automatically, and which HRMS processes you should configure first. For step-by-step setup of each integration point, use the child pages in this section—especially Employee Auto-Provisioning, Onboarding Mandatory Training, and Compliance vs LMS Certificates.

Help URL: Overview

Smooth HR docs: Getting Started Overview

Table of Contents

1. Why install both apps
2. Capability map
3. Shared identity model
4. Automatic integration hooks
5. Where HR ends and LMS begins
6. Desk and portal navigation
7. Recommended rollout sequence
8. Roles and permissions
9. Reporting across HR and learning
10. Troubleshooting
11. Related guides

Why install both apps

Most organizations need two different kinds of employee records:

Smooth LMS excels at delivery and measurement of learning. Smooth HR excels at people records, compliance status, and lifecycle events. Installing both on one site lets HR create an employee once and immediately grant LMS access, enroll mandatory courses at onboarding, and later attach completion certificates to the HR file.

Without integration, HR would export employee emails, import them into a separate LMS, and manually reconcile completions against Employee Compliance—error-prone and slow. The built-in hooks described in Employee Auto Provisioning and Onboarding Mandatory Training remove that friction.

Capability map

The following table summarizes the official capability split (see also your internal hr-lms-capabilities.md reference):

Important distinction: course completion certificates from LMS are separate from HR compliance records until HR explicitly links them. Read Compliance Vs Lms Certificates for the recommended handoff workflow using Employee Documents and Employee Compliance.

Shared identity model

Integration assumes a 1:1 link between Employee and User:

1. HR creates or converts a person into an Employee record in Smooth HR (People overview).
2. The Employee must have a User ID (user_id field) pointing to a user account with login credentials.
3. When the Employee is saved, Smooth LMS automatically adds the LMS Student role to that User (see Employee Auto Provisioning).
4. All LMS enrollments, assignments, quiz submissions, and certificates reference the User email—not the Employee ID directly.

If you create Employees without linked Users—common during data migration—you will not see auto-provisioning until HR completes user creation. The User Roles & Permissions guide explains how HR Manager, HR User, and LMS Student roles interact.

Applicants in Recruitment typically become Users only after offer acceptance and Employee Onboarding. Plan your hiring-to-learning timeline accordingly: learning assignments should start after the Employee record exists with user_id populated.

Automatic integration hooks

Smooth LMS connects to HR records automatically (no custom scripts required on your site):

These hooks live in lms.lms.hrms_integration and run with elevated permissions so HR users do not need LMS Moderator access for provisioning.

Manual complements: HR and L&D staff can still assign courses anytime via Assign Training from HR using LMS Training Assignment or desk enrollment tools. Automatic onboarding enrollment does not replace department-specific assignments—it establishes a baseline.

Where HR ends and LMS begins

Think of HR as the system of record for employment and LMS as the system of record for learning activity:

Smooth HR owns

• Organization structure, job history, and tenure (Tenure & Lifecycle)
• Signed policies via Signature Templates and Signing Portal
• Compliance status, renewal dates, I-9/EEO structured fields on Employee Compliance
• Payroll, leave, attendance (Payroll, Leaves, Shift & Attendance)

Smooth LMS owns

• Course authoring, publishing, and SCORM packaging
• Learner progress percentages on LMS Enrollment
• Quiz scores on LMS Quiz Submission (printable via Quiz Submission Report)
• LMS Certificate PDFs for course completion
• Cohort schedules, live class Zoom/Google Meet links, and batch dashboards

When auditors ask "Is this employee compliant with annual harassment training?", answer from Employee Compliance in HR—with the LMS certificate attached as verification. When instructional designers ask "Did the learner pass the quiz?", answer from LMS.

Desk and portal navigation

Learners hired through Onboarding Portal may complete HR paperwork and LMS courses in parallel once provisioned. Communicate clearly which tasks live in which portal to reduce "I can't find my training" support tickets.

Optional: enable Make LMS the default home in LMS Settings so frontline workers land on /lms after login while HR staff bookmark /desk/people.

Recommended rollout sequence

Follow this sequence on a staging site before production:

1. Company and roles — Company Setup and User Roles & Permissions.
2. Compliance types — Define renewal rules in Employee Compliance (Documents & Compliance Overview).
3. Onboarding templates — Onboarding Templates with required documents and tasks.
4. LMS settings — General LMS Settings: notifications, guest access, employee tab visibility.
5. Publish mandatory courses — Mark Is Mandatory on core courses (harassment, safety, IT policy).
6. Test hire path — Create a test Employee Onboarding, verify LMS role + enrollments (Onboarding Mandatory Training).
7. Compliance handoff — Document how L&D attaches certificates to HR (Compliance Vs Lms Certificates).
8. Manager assignments — Train HR on bulk assignment for role changes.

Roles and permissions

Align HR and L&D on who may mark Employee Compliance Complete versus who publishes LMS courses. Separation of duties prevents learners from self-certifying regulatory items.

Integration with Employee master data

The Employee record in Smooth HR carries fields—Department, Designation, Branch, Reports To—that downstream HR processes use for approvals, payroll, and org charts (People Overview). Auto-provisioning intentionally does not copy those attributes into LMS on insert; LMS enrollments key only on User email. That keeps the hook fast and avoids stale copies when HR later transfers an employee.

If L&D needs department-scoped reporting, use LMS batch cohorts named by department or schedule manual assignments after org placement is final. HR should update Employee master data before assigning compliance-specific training tied to Employee Compliance categories like safety or harassment.

When offboarding (Tenure & Lifecycle), disable the User rather than deleting Employee—LMS historical enrollments and quiz submissions remain for audits while active access stops immediately.

Email and username alignment

User login email usually equals login email in most Smooth HR deployments. LMS LMS Enrollment.member and LMS Training Assignment.employee both link to User, not Employee.name. If HR creates Employees with a work email but the User record uses a personal email from applicant stage, provisioning still runs—but learners may log in with an unexpected address.

Standardize during Recruitment → Employee Onboarding: convert applicant email to corporate email before Create Employee, or update User email with HR approval. Document the rule in your Onboarding Template welcome task.

Coordinating with IT and SSO

Sites using social login or SSO still require a user account linked on Employee. The LMS Student append runs regardless of password vs OAuth login method. Verify SSO JIT provisioning creates User before Employee insert, or insert Employee only after IdP first login—otherwise the hook skips until user_id is populated.

System Managers should exclude Guest and Administrator from bulk LMS Student backfills.

Account health check (support)

If employee emails do not match LMS access, contact Smooth support for an account audit.

employees = frappe.get_all("Employee", filters={"status": "Active"}, fields=["name", "user_id"])
for e in employees:
    if not e.user_id: continue
    roles = frappe.get_roles(e.user_id)
    if "LMS Student" not in roles:
        print(e.name, e.user_id)

Fix by appending role or correcting user_id. This is not part of standard product UI—run during migration cutover weekends.

Communication templates for HR

Include in new-hire packets (editable in your template):

• LMS URL: https://your-site/lms
• Login: same credentials as Onboarding Portal
• Support contact: L&D mailbox vs HR helpdesk boundaries
• Mandatory timeline: aligns with default 30-day assignment from Onboarding Mandatory Training

Clear messaging reduces duplicate tickets to HR for training access that auto-provisioning already solved.

Reporting across HR and learning

Future enhancement (optional custom hook): auto-create Employee Compliance when LMS Certificate is issued. Today this is a manual or scheduled reconciliation step—document your SOP in Compliance Vs Lms Certificates.

Troubleshooting

Related guides

LMS integration (this section)

• Employee Auto-Provisioning
• Onboarding Mandatory Training
• Compliance vs LMS Certificates
• Assign Training from HR
• LMS Settings — General
• Live Classes Overview

Smooth HR

• Getting Started
• Onboarding Overview
• Documents & Compliance Overview
• Employee Compliance
• People Overview
• Recruitment Overview
• Performance Overview

Last updated: May 2026

Smooth HR (HRMS)