SuccessFactors LMS Reporting Tools

Learning Management Systems are data warehouses used to generate reports.  The learning functionality facilitates the gathering of training data that can then be reported on.  These reports simplify the lives of learners, managers, and administrators allowing them to perform their duties more efficiently.

This is where Plateau Report Designer (PRD) comes into play.  Most SuccessFactors Learning clients will create custom reports at some point. SucessFactors LMS comes with a deep library of “out-of-the-box” reports that will provide most organizations with a great start. But ultimately it is impossible to provide a report library that satisfies every business need.

Plateau Report Designer

Plateau Report Designer is the tool that allows the customization of delivered reports and creation of brand new reports within the SuccessFactors LMS.  This is the same tool SAP used to develop the reports provided with the application.

PRD is built on BIRT, an open source reporting tool.  This is a vast and complicated piece of software that requires knowledge of the following areas:

• Oracle SQL
• SuccessFactors Learning Administration
• HTML/JavaScript

For most of us, the PRD interface will have a learning curve of itself, but once mastered can be a powerful asset.

SQL Workbench

One of issues with LMS reporting is the complexity of the data model.  Sometimes it is necessary to simply query the database to chase down the data without a need to build and publish a report.  For simple SQL queries PRD can be quite cumbersome.

After reading a post on someone successfully using SQL Workbench to connect to the LMS, I decided to try to figure it out.  The fruits of that labor are in the video below.

Useful Commands

select TEXT from ALL_VIEWS where view_name = ‘PV_STUD_COURSE’