LinkedIn Learning and SumTotal Deep Integration Guide

  • Article

SumTotal Deep Integration Functionality

Authentication: SAML SSO Identity Provider

Reporting: xAPI

Content Discovery: Automated Catalog Sync (All languages)

Requirements:

The LinkedIn Learning and SumTotal deep integration configuration involves the following requirements:

  • An active SumTotal LMS instance

  • An active LinkedIn Learning account

  • Admin access to LinkedIn Learning

  • Admin privileges to your SumTotal LMS instance

Integration Overview

Check out our overview of SumTotal’s integration benefits and capabilities.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

During the initial configuration, you can configure LinkedIn Learning and SumTotal to establish a secure SAML single sign-on (SSO) connection to ensure seamless access to content. SSO authentication reduces friction for users and administrators by eliminating the need for manual user registration. SSO ensures learners spend more of their time watching content and less of their time trying to remember usernames and passwords.

Enabling SAML SSO

We recommend SAML SSO for all enterprise learning platform integrations. You can configure SSO authentication in your LinkedIn Learning Admin settings. Most organizations have a centrally-managed identity management solution like Azure AD, Okta, or ADFS which can be configured to authenticate users into enterprise applications like LinkedIn Learning.

To configure SAML SSO with your identity management solution, share the LinkedIn Learning SSO Implementation Guide with your organization’s IT team.

Automated Content Catalog Sync

The LinkedIn Learning library contains thousands of courses. LinkedIn Learning adds courses at a rate of 20-30 per week at no extra cost. The SumTotal administrator manually uploads new content at regular intervals.

The SumTotal deep integration with LinkedIn Learning uses LinkedIn Learning APIs to refresh the content library daily. This feature ensures LinkedIn Learning makes new content available within 24 hours of release. LinkedIn Learning aggregates and indexes all content titles and descriptions to accommodate keyword searches and support efficient discoverability. SumTotal supports automatic syncing of All languages content libraries.

Reporting

LinkedIn Learning captures all content viewed on its platform in robust usage reports accessible from the LinkedIn Learning administrative interface. In addition to generating reports, LinkedIn Learning uses xAPI to communicate a learner’s course completions back to SumTotal when the learner launches content from the LMS or views content directly on LinkedIn Learning.

Provision API Keys for Content Catalog Sync

For SumTotal to sync LinkedIn Learning catalog metadata, you must provision API keys in LinkedIn Learning admin settings.

  1. After you log in, if you are not already in the Admin screen, select Go to Admin, then click Me > Integrate.

    Integrate menu

  2. From the side navigation menu, select Access content and reports via API and expand Generate LinkedIn Learning REST API Application.

  3. Click Add application.

    Add API application

  4. In the Add LinkedIn Learning API application screen, enter "SumTotal" in the Application Name field.

  5. In the Application description field, enter a short description of the integration use case. For example, "SumTotal deep integration".

  6. Under Choose keys, there are two checkboxes – Content and Report. Select Content.

    SumTotal API application

  7. Click Next and accept the "Terms and Conditions".

  8. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret values and paste them into the corresponding SumTotal fields.

    Copy Client ID and Client Secret

SumTotal Configuration

To complete the configuration with SumTotal, you need the following information from the previous section:

  • Client ID

  • Client Secret

SumTotal integration details and configuration instructions.

For online and telephone support for integration issues, contact SumTotal’s customer service.

Enable xAPI Learner Activity Tracking in LinkedIn Learning

Using the information you acquired from SumTotal, follow the instructions below to configure LinkedIn Learning xAPI reporting:

  1. After you log in, if you are not already in the Admin screen, select Go to Admin, then click Me > Integrate.

    Return to Integration menu

  2. From the side navigation menu, select Configure reporting integrations.

  3. Expand the Configure xAPI section.

  4. Click Add integration.

    Add xAPI integration

  5. In the Integration name field, enter "SumTotal Reporting".

  6. In the User Type drop down, select ID. The unique user identifier in LinkedIn Learning must match the PersonNumber value in SumTotal. Please reach out to SumTotal support if you need help identifying this value.

  7. Copy and paste the Client Secret, Client ID, Tenant Server URL and OAuth Server URL provided by SumTotal into LinkedIn Learning.

  8. Click Enable.

    xAPI integration settings

    You have enabled the SumTotal xAPI keys in LinkedIn Learning.

    xAPI is enabled

Test the Integration

After the configuration is complete and LinkedIn Learning courses are available in SumTotal, it is important to test the integration to make sure course completions are tracking in the LMS. SumTotal sends false-positive responses to LinkedIn when completions do not record correctly, which makes it impossible to accurately troubleshoot from the LinkedIn side.

To confirm the integration is working as expected:

  1. Locate a short course either in SumTotal or in LinkedIn Learning. If launching the course from LinkedIn Learning, first verify the course does exist in SumTotal.

  2. View and complete the course.

  3. Confirm in SumTotal that the course has been marked as complete.

If the course completion does not track as expected, verify the following:

  1. The course exists and is available in SumTotal.

  2. You completed a LinkedIn Learning course and not a video, learning path, etc. Only course completions are sent to SumTotal as part of the integration.

  3. Your unique identifier (Employee ID) in LinkedIn Learning is the same value as your PersonNumber value in SumTotal.

  4. Steps have been completed successfully under Enable xAPI Learner Activity Tracking in LinkedIn Learning.

Congratulations! Your learners now can access LinkedIn Learning content and reporting via their SumTotal instance.

Questions

For LinkedIn Learning configuration questions, reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager.

Back to Top