Aruba Networks Calls on Sumtotal to Extend Training to Customers and Partners

SumTotal® Systems (Nasdaq: SUMT), the largest provider of talent and learning solutions, announced that Aruba Networks -- the Mobile Edge Company – will tap SumTotal’s TotalLMS to facilitate product and technology training for Aruba’s end-customers and partners. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Aruba provides products for building mobility solutions and wireless local area networks (WLANs) for enterprises.

Aruba plans to offer training to its thousands of end-customers and channel partners around the world by using SumTotal’s TotalLMS™ 7.2, which is enterprise software for delivering training and analyzing talent. With TotalLMS, Aruba’s end-customers and partners will be able to access online training on how to install, configure and manage the Sunnyvale-based company’s wares. TotalLMS can also be used to deliver product training prior to the launch of new releases. In addition, Aruba’s channel partners will be able to receive sales training.

“We believe TotalLMS will give our customers a way to purchase training ‘on the fly,’ so they can learn at any time how our products address issues like mobility, security and convergence,” said Chris Mullendore, knowledge manager for Aruba Networks. “With TotalLMS, we feel our end-customers and partners will be able to self-register, administer, manage and monitor their Aruba training. We feel they will also be able to gain access at anytime to information and tools that will help them learn more about Aruba’s products, as well as wireless technology in general.”

According to Mullendore, TotalLMS also offers Aruba a way to see when a customer has taken training and what products customers have learned about. As Aruba introduces new products and associated training offerings, the learning platform will identify relevant topics on which the customer has already been trained and purge duplicative training.

Aruba will also use SumTotal’s authoring tool, ToolBook™ to re-design much of its curriculum and move the Sunnyvale-based company to an e-learning environment. Aruba says it chose ToolBook because of “the product’s reputation as an industry leader for e-learning creation, as well as its tight integration with TotalLMS.”

“ToolBook and TotalLMS have a more advanced integration than other similar products,” opined Mullendore. “With content created in ToolBook and run on TotalLMS, an LMS administrator can provide an easier-to-use, yet more helpful interface than what people often find in a standard online course.”

“For example, when people use our LMS to launch online courses created with ToolBook, they can embed an ask-the-expert feature that automatically pops up to give the user help if she or he isn’t doing well in a course,” said Brad Crain, SumTotal’s vice president of ToolBook. “Aruba is the latest in a string of thousands of corporations that have seen the power of ToolBook for creating web-based training, simulations and interactive e-learning content.”