Portale

Portale is a white-label learner management system and ready-made course library for training providers, resellers and organizations that want to offer online training under their own name. Instead of writing content and building a platform, a Portale customer gets a branded portal, picks courses from Portale's catalog, sets its own prices and sells or assigns them to its own learners. The company's homepage describes "over 450 CPD Accredited eLearning, Video, eBook, and Distance Learning courses", and says it started creating courses in September 2014 before building the learner management system around that library. Around the core reseller offer sit a course conversion service, a remote invigilation tool called CEAT, a training administration tool called TAME and a turnkey package called Business in a Box.

The course library

The catalog leans heavily toward health, social care, hospitality and workplace compliance, which is where the content is deepest. The course list on the site runs from Age Verification, Allergen Awareness and Anaphylaxis through to Venepuncture, Verification of Death and Work at Heights. A full run of Care Certificate courses, one per standard (Understand Your Role, Duty of Care, Equality and Diversity, Privacy and Dignity, Safeguarding Adults, Safeguarding Children, Infection Prevention and Control and the rest), makes the library an obvious fit for care homes and domiciliary care employers. Alongside those sit clinical topics such as Catheterisation, Blood Transfusion, Drug Calculation, Medication Management, Pressure Ulcer Prevention and a series on tissue viability and wound care, plus several dementia courses and end of life care at Level 3.

Hospitality and retail are covered by food safety courses at Level 1 and Level 2 (in catering, manufacturing and retail versions), a Level 3 Award in Supervising Food Safety, HACCP, Allergen Awareness, AUASP (Award for Underage Sales Prevention) and SALPS (Scottish Award for Licensed Premises Staff). General workplace training includes Fire Safety, Fire Warden, COSHH, RIDDOR, Display Screen Equipment, Manual Handling of Objects, Lone Working Essentials, Data Protection GDPR, Bribery Act Awareness and Money Laundering Awareness. A smaller set of HR and management topics covers Managing People, Performance Management, Discipline and Grievance, Handling Redundancy, Staff Appraisal Skills, Time Management and Interview Skills.

Formats are named as eLearning, video, eBook and distance learning courses. The white-label page groups the catalog into e-learning, video and e-book courses and headlines "Over 400 Courses to white-label", while the homepage and the onboarding steps use the over 450 figure for the full CPD-accredited library. Learners receive certificates, and the homepage states "Over 1 Million course certificates downloaded".

How the white-label model works

Both the homepage and the white-label page lay out the same five steps, and say the process "can be completed within 24 hours or less". First, the customer chooses a package (the homepage notes monthly and annual options), creates an account and completes a Direct Debit authorization form. Portale's development team then builds an LMS portal with a bespoke URL, and a dedicated account manager gets in touch to talk through the training options. Third, the customer logs in and personalizes the portal with its logo, color scheme, pricing structure and preferred payment methods. Fourth, it tells the account manager which courses from the catalog it wants to offer. Fifth, the portal goes live and the customer starts selling.

According to the white-label page, every package includes:

• a branded login portal and customized certificates, with an option for learners not to receive certificates
• the ability to create additional managers and allocate them course credits
• a license to sell CPD-accredited courses
• configurable client credits and pricing
• automated email notifications with editing capabilities, and customer communication tools
• customer user limits for greater control
• credit/debit card and PayPal payments
• bulk credit package sales, with courses sold individually or in bulk
• integration with the WooCommerce shopping cart

The manager and credit structure is what makes the portal usable for a reseller with several client companies: credits can be handed to managers, and each customer can be capped to a set number of users. The same portal works for an employer that simply wants to assign compliance courses to its own staff, and the HR Director testimonial on the homepage speaks of "requiring a system to aid compliance and reporting".

Pricing

Portale is one of the few vendors in this category that prints a price on its homepage. There are two models, each shown with a starting price:

• Credit Option, pay per course, "From only £1 per course".
• Per User Option, access to the entire course library, "From only £1 per learner". This option is flagged as the popular one.

The homepage also lists "Course reselling from 0.62 pence" among its services. The white-label page adds three terms worth knowing: no annual fee, the reseller sets its own pricing, and credits do not expire. Both price boxes lead to an Enquire Now form rather than a checkout, so the actual rate a customer pays depends on the package and volume agreed with Portale. The site publishes no full price list beyond these starting points.

Course creation, CEAT, TAME and Business in a Box

Online course creation. For organizations with classroom courses that work well face to face, Portale offers to convert them into an online format delivered through its training platform.

CEAT. The Controlled Environment Assessment Tool is described as web-based, automated remote invigilation software that uses posture recognition technology, learner lockdown controls and plagiarism detection to provide a secure online environment for regulated exams and assessments.

TAME. Training Administration Made Easy handles back-office event management for tutor-led training. From one portal an administrator can manage, monitor and report on training delivery, and the site pitches it as a way to cut overheads and replace multiple systems.

Business in a Box. This is the most complete package: a fully operational, off-the-shelf online training business that licenses the buyer to sell over 450 courses, integrated into a templated website that Portale hosts. The package also includes social media marketing, which the site says brings "a steady flow of potential customers each month". It is aimed at someone who wants to run a training business without building the website or the content.

What customers say

The homepage carries two testimonials. A care home manager, Allen H, writes that "budgets for training have been stretched for some time", that he registered himself for a course after browsing the catalog, and that "Portale has proven to be a superb addition to our training needs and has helped us ensure higher levels of care." Juliana A, an HR Director, writes: "I would recommend Portale very highly to anyone looking to improve themselves and their skills in a simple but effective way, requiring a system to aid compliance and reporting".

Who Portale suits

Portale fits three kinds of buyer best. The first is a training consultant or small training company that wants a catalog to sell from day one, with its own branding, its own prices and card or PayPal checkout, and no content to write. The second is a care provider, healthcare employer or hospitality business that needs a broad set of compliance courses for staff at a low starting price per learner, with certificates for the training record. The third is someone starting a training business from scratch, for whom Business in a Box bundles the courses, a hosted website and marketing.

It suits less well an organization whose training is mostly specialist or proprietary. The catalog is broad in care, food safety and workplace compliance but thin in technical, software or leadership subjects, so such a buyer would be relying on the course creation service or a second provider. Buyers who want to compare costs before talking to anyone should expect to go through Enquire Now: the £1 figures are starting points, and the rate for a given volume is agreed with the account manager.