How.io

What How.io is

How.io is a training and certification platform for organizations that need to educate people outside their own walls: the customers who use their products and the channel partners who sell, install and service them. Its home page puts the purpose as "Education for growth," and the promise is to make life easier for the people a company relies on outside its own organization. The platform is described as a way to "Verify, educate, license and certify with a simple and practical training platform," and the site's title calls it a customer training and certification platform built to "Power up your partnerships."

The company behind it is Showhow Ltd, named in the site's footer. How.io pitches three kinds of buyer: manufacturers that need "Product training for customers and partners," associations that "Collaborate with industry to raise the game," and vendors that want to "Rollout and onboard with confidence." The product menu splits the platform into four areas, Educate, Simulate, Engage and Record, and the site also lists services alongside the software.

What the platform includes

The home page names eight building blocks: modules, assessments, scenarios, simulations, campaigns, certification, verifications and integrations. They fit together in four steps that the "How it works" section describes.

Create visual and interactive training. Authors use "simple authoring tools to create training modules, practice simulations and interactive learning experiences." The site's emphasis is on visual, interactive material rather than long text courses, summed up as "Visual, interactive learning that makes working with you a pleasure." This is where the course authoring side of How.io sits: an organization builds its own modules, short assessments and scenario exercises inside the platform rather than importing them from a separate authoring tool. The company's channel training article adds that simulations can use 3D models to simulate problems and solutions, so a learner can practice using a product in a range of situations.

Reach your audience. According to the home page, "How.io delivers the right training, to the right people, at the right time with automated training workflows." Campaigns are the mechanism: the site has articles on learning campaigns and on marketing strategies for training, and argues that to engage external audiences "you need a different approach. Steal from marketing and use workflows to implement your strategy."

Verify, license and certify. "How.io workflows track engagement, record learning and collect documents for certification and automated compliance." The home page lists product certification, licensing and CPD programs among the uses, and verification and onboarding run through automated workflows ("Verify, onboard and engage with automated workflows"). For a manufacturer that only lets certified installers fit its products, or a body that licenses practitioners, this is the part that keeps the records.

Plug in your platforms. The integration step, in the home page's words, is to "Integrate with your systems and connect opportunities": receive payments, store records and connect the training experience to an organization's website and other platforms. Training can therefore be paid for, and it can sit inside an organization's own website rather than on a separate portal.

The case study

The one case study on the site is the Plumbers, Gas Fitters and Drainlayers Board. The home page says How.io helped this industry regulator automate its CPD program with an interactive training portal integrated with the regulator's website and CRM. It is a clear example of the certification and compliance use: a regulator running continuing professional development for licensed tradespeople, with the training connected to its own website and customer records.

How the company thinks about partner training

How.io's article on channel partner training explains the approach the product is built around, and it is useful for understanding how the platform is meant to be used.

The article defines channel partners as the organizations or individuals a company relies on "to help sell, configure, install and maintain your products for the end customer," and says partners need to know how products should be used and maintained, who they should be sold to, and stay current with changes, new risks and new opportunities. It argues that partners engage with training because deeper product knowledge makes them a more reliable supplier, and because installers, operators and practitioners want to be seen as professional industry operators.

It then names three problems. Getting attention: partners are likely to use their own learning platforms, and asking them to create an account and remember to log into another "can be a challenge." Accessing the people on the ground: a company may deal with a partner's procurement or marketing team but struggle to reach the sales staff, installers, operators and practitioners who meet customers. Staying engaged: in the article's words, "Many an LMS has been stood up for an external audience, who turns up once, has a look at a course and never comes back." The article's view is that traditional learning platforms, which assume a learner will sign in and work through assigned courses, struggle to motivate someone who does not have to do them.

The solutions it proposes map onto the product. Make training available: "Use short modules placed in more places to solve problems just-in-time," because people look for information in their own LMS, on the vendor's website, in search and on social media. Scenarios and simulations: the article says research shows installers, operators and practitioners "are more likely to respond to a challenge" than to passive content, so short practical scenarios let them show their capability and decision-making. Short and relevant: get to the learning objectives quickly, focus on the need-to-knows with menus for those who want more, and avoid anything that is not practical "in a short mobile learning session."

Trial and pricing

The site has a Free Trial button on every page next to Book a Demo, and its menu links to a pricing page; the home page itself shows no prices.

Who it suits

How.io fits a manufacturer or vendor that depends on dealers, installers and resellers and needs them to know the product, and an association or regulator that runs certification, licensing or CPD for practitioners. Its design choices, short visual modules, scenarios, simulations and marketing-style campaigns that push training to people rather than waiting for them to log in, are aimed at learners who are busy, practical and under no obligation to train. Organizations that want to embed training in their own website and take payments for it will find those connections listed among the core features.

The trade-off is depth of public detail. The site is compact, with one case study, and a buyer will learn most about integrations, limits and plan options from the trial and a demo.