Cornerstone OnDemand HR Platform Administration Training Course

Course overview

Cornerstone OnDemand administrators are expected to keep learning, performance, compliance, and employee data processes reliable while responding quickly to changing business requirements. Misconfigured permissions, poorly structured organisational units, inconsistent assignments, and untested learning objects can create inaccurate completion records, weak audit evidence, and a frustrating employee experience. This course addresses the practical administration work behind a well-governed Cornerstone environment: configuring the platform, managing data, controlling access, and producing information leaders can trust.

Participants work through the administration of Cornerstone Learning and related platform functions, including organisational unit structures, user records, security roles, learning assignments, training equivalencies, approval workflows, catalogues, and reporting. They learn how to build rule-based assignments, manage recurring compliance training, import and validate employee data, configure reporting fields, and troubleshoot common learner and manager issues. The course also examines the controls needed to protect sensitive HR data and maintain consistent processes across business units.

Delivery combines instructor demonstrations with guided configuration labs in a Cornerstone-style training environment. Participants use realistic HR scenarios to set up a learning programme, create permissions for administrators and managers, process a data import, configure a compliance assignment, and analyse report results. Each participant leaves with a completed Cornerstone administration workbook containing configuration decisions, security-role design, assignment rules, data-validation checks, reporting requirements, and a 90-day platform improvement plan.

The course is designed for HR systems professionals who already work with an LMS or HR platform and need practical responsibility for Cornerstone OnDemand administration. It is particularly valuable where the organisation must demonstrate mandatory-training compliance, standardise learning operations across locations, or reduce reliance on external implementation support.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Configure organisational units, user attributes, and reporting relationships for accurate Cornerstone population management
• Build role-based security permissions using Cornerstone security roles and constraints
• Create learning objects, curricula, catalogues, and version-controlled training structures
• Design dynamic assignments and recurring compliance rules using user criteria and assignment logic
• Import, validate, and reconcile user data through structured data-load procedures
• Configure approval workflows, training equivalencies, and assignment exceptions for governed learning processes
• Produce operational and compliance reports using Cornerstone reporting fields, filters, and scheduled outputs
• Document a Cornerstone administration operating model with ownership, controls, and troubleshooting procedures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HRIS Administrators — who maintain employee data and need to configure secure, dependable Cornerstone processes
• Learning Management System Administrators — who manage learning assignments, catalogues, completions, and learner support
• Learning and Development Operations Managers — who need consistent programme deployment and reliable compliance evidence
• HR Technology Analysts — who translate HR process requirements into platform configuration and reports
• Talent Management Specialists — who administer development, performance, or succession processes supported by Cornerstone
• Compliance Training Coordinators — who must assign, monitor, and evidence mandatory training across employee populations

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience of HR, learning, talent, or compliance administration and understand common concepts such as employee records, organisational hierarchies, manager relationships, security permissions, mandatory training, and reporting filters. Familiarity with the organisation’s current Cornerstone tenant is useful, particularly its learning catalogue and user-data sources. Participants should be comfortable working with spreadsheets, including sorting, filtering, and reviewing CSV data. Prior Cornerstone configuration experience is not required, and no programming, database administration, or integration-development knowledge is assumed. This is not a general introduction to HR systems or instructional design.

Training methodology

The course is delivered through instructor-led platform walkthroughs, configuration demonstrations, and guided labs based on a multi-site organisation with compliance and development requirements. Participants configure settings individually, then compare design decisions in small groups: who should see which data, which users should receive training, and how exceptions should be controlled. Case exercises use faulty imports, missing completions, and access problems to practise diagnosis. On day five, participants consolidate their work into a Cornerstone administration workbook and prioritised 90-day application plan for their own environment.

Course outline

Day 1: Platform foundations, navigation and governance

• Cornerstone tenant architecture and administrator navigation
• Core entities: users, organisational units, positions, and relationships
• User record fields and custom-field governance
• Organisational unit hierarchy design for reporting and assignments
• Administrative roles, responsibilities, and change-control ownership
• Data privacy principles for employee and learning records
• Configuration documentation and sandbox-to-production release practices

Workshop: Participants map a sample organisation's user attributes and organisational unit hierarchy, then produce a platform governance and ownership matrix.

Day 2: Security, user access and data administration

• Cornerstone security roles, permissions, and constraints
• Role inheritance and delegated administration models
• Manager, learner, instructor, and administrator access scenarios
• User record creation, maintenance, and deactivation controls
• CSV data-load structures and field-mapping principles
• Data-import validation, error review, and reconciliation checks
• Audit trails and access-review procedures

Workshop: Participants configure a least-privilege security-role model and complete a controlled user-data import with an error-reconciliation log.

Day 3: Learning configuration and assignment management

• Learning objects, sessions, materials, and version management
• Curricula, certifications, programmes, and training equivalencies
• Catalogue structure, categories, availability, and search visibility
• SCORM package settings and online-course completion tracking
• Dynamic assignment rules using organisational and user criteria
• Recurring assignments, due dates, and retraining logic
• Approval workflows, exemptions, substitutions, and assignment exceptions

Workshop: Participants build a compliance curriculum with a SCORM course, dynamic population assignment, renewal rule, approval path, and documented exception process.

Day 4: Reporting, compliance evidence and operational support

• Cornerstone reporting architecture and report-builder concepts
• Data fields, filters, joins, prompts, and calculated report logic
• Compliance completion, overdue-training, and exception reporting
• Scheduled report distribution and audience-controlled outputs
• Dashboard measures for learning operations and manager action
• Diagnosing missing assignments, access issues, and completion discrepancies
• Service-request triage and administrator troubleshooting playbooks

Workshop: Participants investigate a simulated overdue-training escalation, identify the configuration or data cause, and produce a compliance report and support-resolution note.

Day 5: Operational design and workplace application

• End-to-end administration operating model design
• Configuration request intake and impact-assessment methods
• Testing scripts for security, assignments, catalogue, and reporting changes
• Release management, rollback planning, and stakeholder sign-off
• Platform health checks and recurring data-quality controls
• Metrics for adoption, completion, support demand, and administration performance
• Ninety-day Cornerstone improvement roadmap development

Workshop: Participants present a completed Cornerstone administration workbook and produce a prioritised 90-day plan for improving governance, assignments, data quality, and reporting.

Tools & standards covered

Cornerstone OnDemand, Cornerstone Learning, Cornerstone Performance, SCORM 1.2

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions