The LMS features that matter most are the ones that deliver, track and prove training: a course builder with SCORM support, assessments, enrolment rules, certificates with expiry, role-based permissions, standard reports, single sign-on, an API, automated reminders, audit logs and accessible, mobile-friendly pages. Everything else is a nice-to-have until your use case makes it essential.
This LMS features checklist covers 60 features in ten groups. Each one is marked must-have or nice-to-have for a typical organisation, with the test to run in a demo and the situations that change its priority. Of the 60, we rate 31 as must-haves and 29 as nice-to-haves.
It is written for buyers who are defining requirements before they talk to vendors. Many LMS features lists online are short and written by a vendor about its own product. This one is vendor-neutral, and where a feature depends on a technical standard we link to the body that publishes it. Standards were checked in October 2026.
How to use this LMS features checklist
A features list is only useful if it shortens your decision. Use it in four passes:
- Strike out what you will never use. If you do not sell courses, e-commerce is noise. Removing it now stops it influencing the score later.
- Adjust the priorities. Our labels fit a typical employer training its own staff. The section on organisation types shows which nice-to-haves become must-haves for training companies, universities, associations and regulated employers.
- Turn each must-have into a test. "Supports SSO" proves nothing. "Sign in from our Entra ID tenant during the demo" does. The last column of every table gives a test you can copy.
- Score vendors on the same sheet. The scoring section near the end explains how to do an LMS features comparison without letting a long nice-to-have list hide a missing must-have.
Two definitions keep the labels honest. A must-have is a feature whose absence would stop you launching or would force a manual workaround every week. A nice-to-have improves the experience or saves time but has an acceptable workaround. If this is your first selection project, pair the checklist with our 9-step method for choosing an LMS.
Content and assessment features (1 to 12)
These features decide what learners see and how you check that they learned it. They are also where standards matter most, because content outlives platforms.
Course creation and content
SCORM remains the common format for packaged e-learning. The ADL Initiative describes SCORM 1.2, released in 2001, as the first widely adopted version, and SCORM 2004 4th Edition, released in 2009, as the most recent. Newer content may use xAPI, published as IEEE 9274.1.1-2023, or cmi5, an xAPI profile for content launched from an LMS. Our guide to SCORM vs xAPI vs cmi5 explains when each one fits.
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Built-in course builder | Must-have | Build a short course with a video, a document and a quiz without leaving the LMS. Time how long it takes a new admin. |
| 2 | SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 import | Must-have | Upload one of your own packages. Confirm completion, score and resume all work, not just that the file opens. |
| 3 | xAPI and cmi5 support | Nice-to-have | Launch a cmi5 package and view the statements it sends. A must-have if your authoring tool publishes to these formats or you need data beyond completion. |
| 4 | Video hosting with resume and captions | Must-have | Upload a long video, stop halfway, return on another device and check it resumes. Add a caption file. |
| 5 | Content reuse and versioning | Nice-to-have | Use one lesson in two courses, then update it. See whether both courses change and what happens to learners in progress. |
| 6 | AI-assisted drafting with human review | Nice-to-have | Generate a lesson outline or quiz from your own document. Check that nothing is published without approval and ask where your data is sent. |
Assessments and exams
Assessment depth varies more between platforms than any other area. A compliance quiz and a certification exam are different products.
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Quizzes with question banks and randomisation | Must-have | Build a quiz that draws ten questions at random from a bank of thirty, so two learners get different papers. |
| 8 | A range of question types | Must-have | Beyond multiple choice, check for matching, ordering, fill-in and free text. List the types your subject needs before the demo. |
| 9 | Assignments with rubrics and manual grading | Nice-to-have | Submit a file, grade it against a rubric and return feedback. A must-have for education and skills-based programmes. |
| 10 | Timed exams with attempt limits | Must-have | Set a time limit, a pass mark and a maximum number of attempts, then see what the learner is shown after failing. |
| 11 | Online proctoring or browser lockdown | Nice-to-have | Sit a proctored test and review the evidence an invigilator would see. A must-have when the result leads to a licence or certification. |
| 12 | Surveys and course feedback | Nice-to-have | Attach a feedback form to course completion and view the results by course and by trainer. |
Delivery and certification features (13 to 24)
Delivery features control who gets which training and when. Certification features turn completions into evidence.
Learning delivery
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Learning paths and prerequisites | Must-have | Chain three courses so the second unlocks only after the first is passed, and view progress across the whole path. |
| 14 | Enrolment rules and a self-enrolment catalogue | Must-have | Create a rule that enrols everyone with a given job title, then add a user with that title and watch it fire. |
| 15 | Instructor-led and virtual sessions with attendance | Must-have | Schedule a session in Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet from inside a course and mark attendance afterwards. Skip this only if all your training is self-paced. |
| 16 | Drip scheduling and due dates | Nice-to-have | Release lessons weekly and set a due date relative to enrolment, not a fixed calendar date. |
| 17 | Mobile access | Must-have | Complete a course, including a SCORM module and a quiz, on a mid-range phone. Ask whether mobile is a responsive site, an installable web app or a native app. |
| 18 | Offline access | Nice-to-have | Download a lesson, switch to airplane mode, complete it and check the result syncs later. A must-have for field and site workers. |
Certification and compliance
If any of your training repeats on a cycle, expiry and recertification save more admin time than any other feature on this list.
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Certificates with custom templates | Must-have | Design a certificate with your logo, the learner's name, the course and the date, and download the PDF. |
| 20 | Expiry and automatic recertification | Must-have | Set a 12-month validity and show what the learner and manager receive 30 days before expiry. Optional only if nothing you teach ever expires. |
| 21 | Public certificate verification | Nice-to-have | Open a certificate's verification link while signed out and confirm it shows holder, issue date and status. Ask about Open Badges 3.0 if you issue portable credentials. |
| 22 | Compliance dashboard | Must-have | Show one screen listing who is overdue, due soon and complete for a mandatory course, filtered by team. |
| 23 | E-signatures and policy acknowledgement | Nice-to-have | Have a learner read a policy and sign it, then find the signed record. A must-have in regulated manufacturing and life sciences. |
| 24 | Continuing education credit tracking | Nice-to-have | Assign credit hours by category to a course and view a learner's total against a requirement. A must-have for licensed professions and membership bodies. |
User management and reporting features (25 to 36)
These features decide how much manual work the platform creates for administrators and whether managers can act on the data without asking for a spreadsheet.
Users, roles and structure
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Roles and permissions | Must-have | Create an instructor who can grade one course but cannot see other courses or user data. Ask how many custom roles are allowed. |
| 26 | Groups, departments and hierarchy | Must-have | Model your real structure, such as region, site and team, and confirm reports and enrolment rules can use every level. |
| 27 | Bulk import and attribute-based enrolment | Must-have | Import a CSV of 200 users with departments and check they land in the right groups and courses without further clicks. |
| 28 | Manager dashboards | Must-have | Sign in as a line manager and view only your own team's progress and overdue items. |
| 29 | Multi-tenant portals or branches | Nice-to-have | Create a second portal with its own branding, users, catalogue and administrator who cannot see the first. A must-have for training companies, franchises and customer academies. |
| 30 | Custom user fields | Nice-to-have | Add a field such as licence number or cost centre and use it in a report and an enrolment rule. |
Reporting and analytics
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | Standard completion and progress reports | Must-have | Open a report of completion by course and by person, and drill from the total down to one learner's history. |
| 32 | Custom report builder | Nice-to-have | Build a report that joins a custom user field with quiz scores, then save it for reuse. |
| 33 | Scheduled reports by email | Must-have | Schedule a weekly overdue report to a manager who does not sign in to the LMS. |
| 34 | Export to CSV, Excel or PDF | Must-have | Export a full training record for one person and a full completion list for one course. Check dates and time zones in the file. |
| 35 | Assessment and question analysis | Nice-to-have | View which questions most learners get wrong and how long attempts take, so you can fix weak questions. |
| 36 | Learning record store and BI access | Nice-to-have | Query raw learning data through an API or connector from your BI tool. A must-have if xAPI data or company-wide dashboards are part of your plan. |
Integration and engagement features (37 to 48)
Integrations decide whether the LMS becomes part of daily work or one more password. Engagement features decide whether people come back without being chased.
Integrations and standards
Single sign-on usually runs on one of two standards: SAML 2.0 from OASIS, or OpenID Connect, an identity layer on top of OAuth 2.0. Our comparison of SAML vs OIDC for LMS single sign-on covers the choice. User provisioning has its own standard, SCIM, defined in RFC 7644. For connecting external learning tools, LTI 1.3 from 1EdTech (formerly IMS Global) uses OpenID Connect, signed JWTs and OAuth 2.0 workflows.
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 37 | Single sign-on with SAML 2.0 or OpenID Connect | Must-have | Sign in from your own identity provider in a trial tenant. Ask whether SSO costs extra. Very small teams can live without it. |
| 38 | SCIM provisioning or HR system sync | Nice-to-have | Deactivate a user in the directory and watch the LMS account close. A must-have above a few hundred users, where manual leaver handling fails. |
| 39 | REST API and webhooks | Must-have | Read the public API documentation before the demo. Create a user and fetch completions with a test token, and trigger a webhook on course completion. |
| 40 | LTI 1.3 | Nice-to-have | Launch an external tool from a course and return a grade. A must-have in higher education, and useful anywhere you embed third-party labs or content. |
| 41 | CRM and payment integrations | Nice-to-have | Show a completed course appearing on a contact record in your CRM, or a paid order creating an enrolment. |
| 42 | Chat and collaboration alerts | Nice-to-have | Send an assignment or reminder into Slack or Microsoft Teams and open the course from the message. |
Engagement and communication
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 43 | Automated notifications and reminders | Must-have | Set reminders for enrolment, approaching due dates and overdue items, edit the wording and copy in the manager. |
| 44 | Gamification | Nice-to-have | Award points and a badge for a course, view the leaderboard, then switch each element off. Being able to disable it matters as much as having it. |
| 45 | Discussion forums and social learning | Nice-to-have | Post a question in a course forum and check who is notified and who can moderate. |
| 46 | Learner home page and search | Must-have | Sign in as a learner. What is due should be obvious within five seconds, and search should find a course by a word in its description. |
| 47 | Multilingual interface and content | Nice-to-have | Switch the interface language as a learner and check emails and certificates follow. A must-have for workforces in several countries. |
| 48 | AI tutor or assistant | Nice-to-have | Ask it a question the course answers and one it does not. It should cite the course and admit what it does not know. Ask what is logged. |
Security, accessibility and deployment features (49 to 60)
These rarely appear in a demo unless you ask, and they are the features your security, legal and procurement teams will examine most closely.
Security, privacy and accessibility
For accessibility, the reference is WCAG 2.2, a W3C Recommendation with three conformance levels: A, AA and AAA. Level AA is the usual target. Legal baselines differ: the Revised Section 508 Standards for US federal agencies incorporate WCAG 2.0, and the ADA Title II web rule for state and local government sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 49 | Multi-factor authentication or passkeys | Must-have | Require a second factor for administrators at least, and check it can be enforced by role, not left optional. |
| 50 | Audit logs | Must-have | Change a learner's completion as an admin, then find the entry showing who changed it, when and from what value. |
| 51 | Encryption and backups | Must-have | Ask for written answers: encryption in transit and at rest, backup frequency, restore testing and how long a full restore takes. |
| 52 | Privacy tools | Must-have | Export all data held on one person, delete that person, and set retention periods for logs and inactive accounts. |
| 53 | Accessibility to WCAG Level AA | Must-have | Request the accessibility conformance report, then complete a course using only the keyboard and again with a screen reader. |
| 54 | Data residency choice | Nice-to-have | Ask which regions your data and backups can be hosted in. A must-have where law or contracts keep data in one country. |
Deployment, administration and commercial terms
| No. | Feature | Priority | What to check in the demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 | Deployment choice: cloud or self-hosted | Nice-to-have | Ask whether the same product can run on your own infrastructure and whether features differ. A must-have when policy rules out shared cloud hosting. |
| 56 | White-labelling and custom domain | Nice-to-have | Apply your logo, colours and domain, and check that emails and certificates carry no vendor branding. A must-have for external audiences. |
| 57 | E-commerce | Nice-to-have | Sell one course and one bundle of seats, apply a coupon and issue an invoice with the correct tax. |
| 58 | Sandbox or staging environment | Nice-to-have | Ask for a separate environment where you can test integrations and upgrades without touching live data. |
| 59 | Full data export and migration tools | Must-have | Ask how you would leave. You should get users, enrolments, completions, certificates and content in open formats at no extra charge. |
| 60 | Support and uptime commitments | Must-have | Read the service level agreement: uptime target, support hours, response times and what happens when they are missed. |
Must-have LMS features by organisation type
The labels above describe a typical employer. Your sector moves several features across the line. Use this table to adjust the checklist before you send it to vendors. Numbers refer to the features above.
| Organisation type | Nice-to-haves that become must-haves | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Regulated employer | E-signatures (23), SCIM or HR sync (38), data residency (54) | Auditors ask for signed records, leavers must lose access the same day, and data location is often set by law or contract |
| Licensed profession or membership body | Credit tracking (24), public verification (21), proctoring (11), e-commerce (57) | Members renew on credit cycles, third parties check credentials, and exams and courses are often paid for |
| Training company or customer academy | Multi-tenant portals (29), white-labelling (56), e-commerce (57), CRM integration (41) | Each client expects its own branded space, and enrolments start with a sale |
| University or college | Assignments with rubrics (9), LTI 1.3 (40), forums (45) | Teaching depends on graded work, external tools and discussion |
| Field, retail or site workforce | Offline access (18), multilingual interface (47) | Connectivity is patchy and teams read different languages |
| Global enterprise | SCIM (38), learning record store and BI access (36), sandbox (58), multilingual interface (47) | Scale makes manual user handling, isolated data and untested upgrades too risky |
| Small business under about 50 users | None | You can also relax single sign-on (37) and the API (39) if you have no identity provider or systems to connect |
If you end up with more than about 40 must-haves, go through them again. A requirement that no shortlisted vendor can fail is not helping you choose.
LMS features comparison: how to score vendors
A features comparison goes wrong when a vendor with 55 ticks beats a vendor with 50, even though one of the five missing ticks was a must-have. This method prevents that.
- Score what you saw working. Use 0 for not available, 1 for available only through a workaround or custom work, 2 for meets the requirement as standard and 3 for exceeds it in a way you would use. Roadmap promises score 0.
- Apply a knock-out rule. Any must-have scoring 0 removes the vendor, however high the total.
- Weight the rest. Multiply must-have scores by 3 and nice-to-have scores by 1, then add them up.
- Write down the evidence. Next to each score, note what you saw: a demo, a trial tenant, a document or only a verbal answer.
Here is how four rows of the sheet might look. The vendors and numbers are illustrative, not real products.
| Feature | Priority | Weight | Vendor A score | Vendor B score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCORM 1.2 and 2004 import (2) | Must-have | 3 | 2 | 2 | Our own package tested in both trials |
| Expiry and recertification (20) | Must-have | 3 | 3 | 1 | B needs a manual re-enrolment |
| Single sign-on (37) | Must-have | 3 | 2 | 0 | B offers it only on a higher plan than quoted |
| Gamification (44) | Nice-to-have | 1 | 1 | 3 | Seen in demo |
Vendor B is knocked out on single sign-on unless the quote changes, however good its gamification looks. A score of 1 is a prompt for a different question: what would it cost to close the gap? A plugin, an integration or a custom report often costs less than switching to a platform that fits less well elsewhere, but get that estimate before you sign, not after.
Mistakes to avoid when building an LMS features list
- Counting features and not testing them. Every vendor will say yes to "reporting". Only a test with your own data shows whether the report you need exists.
- Marking everything as a must-have. If every feature is essential, the list cannot separate two vendors.
- Judging only the learner view. Demos show the polished side. Ask to spend half the session in the administrator screens, where your team will work every day.
- Skipping your own content. Sample courses always work. Upload your largest SCORM package and your longest video during the trial.
- Buying the roadmap. A feature due next quarter is not a feature. Score what exists, and put any promised date in the contract if it matters.
- Forgetting the exit. Data export (59) feels irrelevant on signing day. It decides how painful your next migration will be.
How we can help
If your preferred platform misses one or two must-haves, that is often solvable. We build plugins and custom features through our LMS customization service, and we connect learning platforms to HR, identity and CRM systems through LMS integration. Send us your checklist and shortlist, and ask for a quote on closing the gaps before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
What are the most important features of an LMS?
The features that deliver, track and prove training: course building with SCORM import, assessments, enrolment rules, certificates with expiry, roles, standard reports, single sign-on, an API, reminders, audit logs, accessibility and mobile access.
What is the difference between must-have and nice-to-have LMS features?
A must-have is a feature you cannot launch without, or whose absence creates manual work every week. A nice-to-have saves time or improves the experience but has a workaround you could accept.
Does every LMS need SCORM support?
If you buy or build packaged e-learning, yes, because SCORM is still the common format for packaged courses. If all your content is video, documents and native quizzes you can manage without it, at the cost of portability.
Which LMS features matter most for compliance training?
Rule-based enrolment, expiry with automatic recertification, a compliance dashboard, scheduled reports and audit logs. Regulated sectors often add e-signatures and credit tracking.
How many features should be on an LMS requirements list?
Enough to cover every area you will use, with a short must-have list. In practice that is often 40 to 60 features in total, of which fewer than 40 are must-haves, so the list can still separate vendors.
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Sources & references
- SCORM - ADL Initiative
- IEEE 9274.1.1-2023: JSON data model format and RESTful web service for learner experience data tracking and access (xAPI) - IEEE Standards Association
- cmi5 specification - AICC cmi5 working group
- Learning Tools Interoperability Core Specification 1.3 - 1EdTech
- Open Badges Specification 3.0 - 1EdTech
- SAML V2.0 Technical Overview - OASIS
- OpenID Connect Core 1.0 - OpenID Foundation
- RFC 7644: System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Protocol - IETF
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 - W3C
- IT accessibility laws and policies - Section508.gov (GSA)
- Fact sheet: rule on the accessibility of web content and mobile apps (ADA Title II) - US Department of Justice
