There is no shortage of educators out there blogging about different learning management systems. There are quite a few lists related to "questions you should ask your potential vendor."   We've collected this list from several message boards and forums, and we are happy to provide answers. 

What other charges / costs will there be after we implement your product?
None.  TrainingForce's pricing model is simple and predictable. Your cost is fixed monthly or annually. If you have more students, more courses, use more bandwidth, or use more space on our server, your invoice remains the same. Our belief that the more you use the product, the more students you have, and the more education you deliver is simply an improved return on your investment.  We don't penalize good customers for being successful.

Do you employ your own programmers and support personnel?
Yes, we do. You can call our office and speak directly to one of the individuals that wrote the code generating the report that you want to change or update.

Do you use any 3rd party components, where support for our product will be contingent on another company?
Our developers use a variety of products to create the applications you see, but we support every aspect of the finished product internally.  When a product we use produces code that doesn't work right, we fix it or find another solution.  Your problem is our problem.

Why don't you publish a client list?  How many clients are using the previous release of these applications? 
Since we host the majority of data for our customers, we really don't talk about who they are, or how many we have. It's all about keeping our client's data secure. We believe in our product, too - so we don't need to use someone else's logo or brand name to sell it.  As for who uses TrainingForce - there are a lot.  We have clients all over the world using TrainingForce 5 and 5.5.  We started transitioning clients to TrainingForce 6 beginning November 1, 2011. 

We will be asking you to do some customization of the product for our organization.  What effect will this have on future upgrades?
None, if we can possibly help it.  One of the great things about having our development team in-house is the fact that they know what has been changed within the product, and for whom.  When they are writing code for the next version or upgrade, those changes are taken into consideration and accounted for.

Who provides your support? Describe what support is available to my organization.
Getting support is easy. Pick up the phone and call 1-434-263-6700 between the hours of 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. We won't ask you for a credit card number, and you won't get a bill for talking to us. You'll get a real person who can provide you real help. As for escalation, David Bryant is the President of Oak Tree Systems. He is Extension 16 on our internal phone system and he would be happy to talk with you, and work to resolve your problem.   We also maintain an online support portal where staff members can submit questions, feature requests, and bug reports.

Has the ownership or senior management of your firm changed in the past three years?  If so, how has this impacted your clients?
No. Oak Tree Systems has been privately owned since it was founded in 1994 and has never changed ownership, nor received external/venture capital funding. We would like to think that our stability has had a stronger impact on our clients than any change.

How does your licensing model support infrequent students?
We don't use a licensing model based on the number of students.  Since we don't use that licensing model - you can have as many students as you want - frequent or infrequent.  In fact, the more students you have, the greater your return on your investment.