Trainual Reviews

Pros

There are many things that I like the most about this software that have to do with features, but I think the features would not be useful if the platform wasn't designed with a foundation of a solid understanding of how small businesses function and scale. So, to start with, I love the philosophy and approach of Trainual as a company and the team as humans. Trickling down from there, the platform is designed that way - it is clear it is flexibly designed, but kept intuitive, and thoughtfully updated with feature requests that have the greatest impact across their users. The organization of the content makes it easy to jump right in to get something created along with the template gallery helping to streamline it all.

Cons

I have two suggestions that are specific to how we use the platform, and I have submitted these are requests so I know they are in the hopper: 1) make the directory accessible through the mobile app. Often times when we hire new people, that is what we want them to be able to access and they are doing everything from their phones before they are in our workplace. 2) update the time stamping to track each time a subject/topic/step is completed for each employee. More Specifically, when you have to provide documentation to the department of labor for unemployment claims they may request evidence of the days/times that you asked someone to complete and then review a policy. In trainual, only the reviewed date is saved so you lose the evidence of the initial completion date. We have been in this pickle twice, and I would like to not to have to track all completions and reassignments outside of Trainual for compliance reasons.

Pros

Onboarding Time is saved and efficiency is increased as our staff receives continuous training and development thanks to our efforts. Simple interface! The addition of Loom is fantastic. Loom also offers excellent onboarding training materials.

Cons

One potential drawback is that training doesn't make extensive use of gaming techniques, which appear to be crucial in retaining today's workforce.

Pros

This software is a great idea and has several successful functions. It allows businesses to save time by having a program that is able to store several videos and passages that explain how to complete certain tasks or use different applications. It allows businesses to update information as new things arise or update, which is extremely effective for a business as times change frequently.

Cons

Formatting is difficult to use. For example, users are not able to edit their own typefaces or sizes of text, which is necessary when trying to organize things effectively. Also, when copy and pasting text, the format totally changes and does not resemble what was copied. This adds several minutes onto accomplishing a task, as you have to go back in and change the formatting several times in order to get it to look the way that you want.

Functions are difficult to use. For example, we have been using the embedding feature through Vimeo. This took several hours to try to get all of the videos embedded because the page kept crashing and would not load the videos. The videos were about 30 seconds to 2 minutes long, so not long at all. I had to log out and in several times to get some of the videos to load properly. This took several hours of time which was extremely frustrating and inconvenient. This is an essential feature for our business as we are teaching employees how to complete different tasks or use certain applications.

The customer service chat function is difficult to use. I appreciative the quick response from agents I have spoken to from Trainual, but it is often times difficult to type out issues in a chat. I think it would be much more effective to have a Customer Service number in which users can call and be able to talk and explain their issues.

Alternatives Considered

Lessonly, Waybook and Totango

Reasons for Switching to Trainual

Trainual seemed to have better formatting and functions at the time than other competitions we had looked into. It also seemed to be efficient and effective for sharing and teaching others how to use it's functions.

Pros

We like the fact that we can keep all of our training, handbooks, and processes in one place for the whole team to train on and then references later. We can also update in real-time.

Cons

There are some pieces that aren’t customizable that I would love to change. We have teams that have more robust training that need their steps broken down a bit more and it can get cumbersome with the current layout.

Alternatives Considered

Basecamp

Reasons for Choosing Trainual

We needed one place to put everything

Switched From

Google Drive

Reasons for Switching to Trainual

Price, ease of use and what we needed to do.

Pros

I like the ability to segment training modules/lessons and dictate the order at which the user goes through them.

Cons

I would like the user permissions to be a little more flexible. I have some team leads that need to be able to monitor new users as they go through the training, but I do not want to give them access to edit content.I would also like a better way to add an mp4. Maybe I'm just not doing it the right way, but currently, I am putting in text like "Training Video 1" and attaching a URL to the video. It would be nice to imbed the mp4 just like a YouTube video.

Pros

What I like most about Trainual is that we are able to utilize it across a vast platform within our clinical trial. With decentralized trials, we rely on the ease of technology. This platform has given us a strong tool to keep up with study-specific and site-specific training in one place. This tool is easy to pull reports from if needed for FDA visits.

Cons

I have not come across a feature that I do not care for as of now. I will update if I do.

Alternatives Considered

monday.com

Reasons for Switching to Trainual

Ease of use and the personalized feel from the platform itself to training, and getting help from the Trainual team.

Pros

It's a place to keep all the lessons and procedures for a Company.

Cons

Sometimes the creating and transferring previous training paperwork into Trainual was tricky and time consuming.

Pros

I like that it is easily accessible and keeps track of your progress in comparison with other employees as well as the company as a whole.

Cons

What I liked lease about Trainual is that when I went to e-sign some documents from a cell phone that it would not accept the signature and I had to go back and complete from a laptop.

Pros

This is exactly what we have been looking for. It houses all of our SOP's in one place and allows management to track who has completed it.

Cons

The ongoing cost is not ideal but we find it is worth the expense.

Pros

The content features allowed us to successfully deploy a mobile onboarding experience.

Cons

Some of the features we have not used yet and I am not sure if we will need them.

Pros

Trainual's ease of searching and editing as an administrator is one of my favorite features. To be able to search for any subject, topic, test, etc. and find all associated trainings and topics with that field is amazing. This is a time saver when trying to help my team.Being able to edit an existing topic and training and have it instantly available to my team is another key feature when our processes change. This has helped with any outdated information that a team member could have had with hardcopies of training material.

Cons

In some instances, if a member does not have the proper access, they are unable to see all available topics when they search. It takes an administrator to search and assign the topic or show the team member the material.It can be time consuming to get everything in to Trainual, at first. Once everything is documented, though, it is easier to keep updated.

Pros

My favorite thing about Trainual is how easy they make the content creation process. The platform is super intuitive, so even without much background information/training on the platform, a new user can log in and generate a process or policy with ease (and make them look good too!) They are incorporating more AI integration as well so I expect the process could get even easier.If you do need help, the Trainual help & training center is really thorough and covers the platform itself, how to make awesome processes/policies and anything else you might need. The team is responsive by chat as well anytime I ever had a question or wanted to request a feature.

Cons

Just a couple features that I think could be helpful: A clear way to prioritize assigned content on the general user's "Desk"/homepage, as well as different options for the "look" of the homepage in general. If a user is assigned a lot of content, each subject assigned takes up a lot of space on the screen.

Pros

This software is well organized for learners, users and managers. Team members love that it can be used on their mobile phone for learning and to reference material when needed. I love the search function! I also appreciate that Trainual has stayed responsive to rolling out new improvements.

Cons

I wish there were more interactive activities available for the users. We use it heavily as a learning system, as well as a place to document SOP's, and we miss some of the interactive features that we had in other programs like Nearpod. The loss of this is still worth it to have the streamlined design and reporting features that Trainual offers.

Pros

Trainual has impacted us greatly in the time we spend with our new hires. In the past, we would physically be in the same room for 8 hours with the person before they could get to work! Sometimes 2 people which meant 16 hours of 2 people time to get 1 person, possibly to understand! Well, those days are gone. 45 minutes in person! Everything else is completed via Trainual. Retention from the new hires has also significantly increased!

Cons

It took longer than anticipated for implementation. We had all the documentation in another system so the information was available. There was a definite learning curve in getting the system set up for our company. But we stayed the course, and we would do it all over again!

Pros

I have to say I love Trainual. It is easy to use, was easy to learn being a new user. The help feature, How-to's, and pro tips is a great resource for knowledge. The Trainual support team is very responsive and helpful.

Cons

The card view! Card view vs outline view - Feel that all users should have the option for the outline view to help organize trainings and search for trainings easily.

Pros

Some things that I love about Trainual are the features where I can add media like videos and gifs.

Cons

There are a lot of ideas I have that would make Trainual more effective. For example, being able to play the videos right in Trainual without having to click a link and open a new tab. COLOR CUSTOMIZATION! I hate the light gray color for all of the buttons (save, next, etc) I wish it was literally any other color. But if it was customizable that would be even better. Also when creating a test there NEEDS to be an option to select how many questions/possible answers for a given test. Clicking “new question” every time and then clicking “new answer” 4 times for each question is just way too time consuming and outright annoying. There could also be different types of quiz questions! What about definition matching or something else more interactive than multiple choice. And I wish you could turn off the feature where it shows the User what they got wrong. And the “essay” exams are NOT FUNCTIONAL because there is no way for the Administrator to review and approve the submissions. It just says 100% no matter what they write. For the Quiz portion of Trainual I rate it a 2/5. There is so much more development that needs to be happening here. Otherwise it’s a good platform.

Pros

As a training coordinator it gives me flexibility. It does not replace face to face training. But is an addition to the training program. It allows members to complete training on their time and gives us the ability to easily update said training.

Cons

The initial roll out was a little confusing for members who aren't computer literate. But it didn't take much training to get them up to speed.

Pros

Trainual has been great for getting us organized and having all our policies in one location. Assigning subjects and ease of use for employees has been really helpful.

Cons

I would like a signature page option for the agreements and handbook acknowledgement receipts.

Pros

The fact that we had to suddenly hire and train people in a short manner of time because of an unexpected surge of workload, the ease of transitioning to Trainual really helped. We were using a different software/platform before and it was a bit of a pain and we found Trainual a few months back before hiring, thankfully. Trainual is also perfect for our current needs. It's really easy to learn how to navigate around Trainual and learn how to use it from an Admin perspective. We didn't experience any technical issues along the way even from the user's side. I also liked the feature where you can see their progress in a detailed manner, like when did a specific user start on a course and when did they finish it.

Cons

There really aren't that many things I didn't like about it. I guess I would just push on considering adding more test styles/quiz styles. Additionally, I think we can add more details on the Reports, like the computed duration of how much time a user spent on a specific subject & course. Also, it'd be nice too if there was a feature where the courses & subjects are locked or set up to be taken in a specific order. These are the things on top of my head right now.

Pros

I would recommend it Trainual to everyone. It’s easy to use and with it being able to be used on the phone is a big plus. As I can use it anywhere I’m at.

Cons

I don’t have any cons with Trainual.

Pros

The process of building out training in Trainual is very easy and organized well. Also, the process of adding new users, onboard, tracking and assign trainings is straight forward.

Cons

I don't love the users interface. It isn't as organized and it can be a little hard for teammates to find information if they don't know exactly what they are looking for.

Pros

I like the Learning paths and the ease of use of the system overall.

Cons

None that come to mind that I like least.

Pros

We didn't have written processes previous to using Trainual. This software has helped us get everything out of our heads and onto "paper" so that there is clear understanding across the board for what is expected from our employees and what they should expect from us as a company. It's easy to set up, easy to modify/customize, and easy to use. We are an HVAC contractor and not all of our employees are tech savvy. We've had no issues whatsoever in any of our employees using the software. And living in the new normal of social distancing this software has allowed us to hire, onboard, and train people virtually. We're better at these three items now than we ever were before and it's due to our use of Trainual.

Cons

I can't think of any issues we've had with the software.

Pros

This product is super easy to use. Our team was able to get up to speed quickly and start building content right away.

Cons

I would like to continue to see more reports.

Alternatives Considered

Coassemble

Reasons for Choosing Trainual

Easier to author content.

Switched From

Coassemble

Reasons for Switching to Trainual

Easier to use.

Pros

The ability to store and manage all training formats in one place.

Cons

It would be nice to have the ability to communicate to employees through Trainual.