How to Report Completion and Success Statuses to an LMS

Below you'll find an overview of these statuses, along with guidance on choosing the right reporting option and LMS standard when exporting your Compozer courses.

What are completion and success statuses?

The completion status indicates whether a learner has finished a course. It is reported as either Complete or Incomplete.

The success status reflects how a learner performed. Did they meet the course requirements? That is, did they meet the criteria by viewing a required percentage of lessons, passing a quiz, or finishing a knowledge check? This status is typically Passed or Failed, and may appear as Unknown until the learner finishes the course.

Compozer sends these status updates to your LMS automatically. The values displayed in your LMS depend on the reporting option and LMS standard you select during export, as well as how your LMS interprets them.

Which reporting option should I choose?

Compozer offers four reporting options when exporting a course:

• Passed/Incomplete
• Passed/Failed
• Completed/Incomplete
• Completed/Failed

For the most reliable tracking of both statuses, we recommend Passed/Incomplete or Passed/Failed. These options give your LMS the clearest signals for recording completion and success separately. Until a learner finishes the course, the success status may show as Unknown before updating to Passed or Failed.

Keep in mind that each LMS may handle statuses slightly differently, particularly with SCORM 1.2 courses. We recommend testing your course in your LMS before rolling it out to learners.

We use SCORM Cloud as a reference when validating LMS output. If your LMS reports unexpected statuses, try uploading your course to SCORM Cloud to compare results. You can sign up for a free account. The screenshot below shows an example of how statuses appear after exiting a course.

Does it matter which LMS standard I choose?

Compozer supports AICC, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, xAPI, and cmi5. All of these standards can track completion and success, but they differ in how consistently LMSs interpret the data.

AICC is the oldest standard in the eLearning industry. It supports completion and success tracking, but newer standards offer better consistency across LMSs.

SCORM 1.2 sends a single status value to the LMS, which means the LMS has to infer both completion and success from that one value. This can lead to inconsistent results across different LMSs. A newer standard is recommended where possible.

SCORM 2004 sends separate completion and success values, giving LMSs a much clearer picture. Compozer supports the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions. The 4th edition tends to produce the most predictable results, as it typically reports a success status of Unknown until the learner completes the course, then updates to Passed or Failed.

xAPI is a modern, flexible standard that goes beyond traditional SCORM tracking. cmi5 builds on xAPI by adding a defined set of rules, making it easier to implement while retaining xAPI's flexibility. If your LMS supports either of these, they are the recommended choice.

Summary

The table below shows the recommended combinations of LMS standards and reporting options for tracking both completion and success.

Since every LMS handles statuses a little differently, your LMS provider is the best resource if you're not seeing the expected results. Check with your LMS admin whether a specific reporting option or standard is required to record both statuses.

We're happy to help too! Reach out to our support team and we can assist. We may ask you to enable debug mode in your course so we can review the communication between your course and your LMS.