Decisions

Pre-work platform recommendation

Partner Portal v1 as the LMS surface. LMS triggers defined.

Pre-Work and Training Delivery Platform — Recommendation

Prepared by: Will Frank Date: 2026-05-19 Status: Educated recommendation, pending Jim Frank sign-off. Resolves the open question logged in 01_Outline.md §“What this outline does NOT decide” item 5.

This document recommends how the Franchisee Training Program’s pre-work, knowledge checks, application-demonstration records, training log, and FDD-required “successful completion” certification are hosted and delivered.

1. The question

The rebuilt curriculum has three delivery modalities:

Classroom (~38 hours, in person in Kansas City or virtual at Franchisor’s discretion)
Pre-work (~14 hours, self-paced before each classroom session)
OJT (~8.5 hours, on-site at a HiON EV Facility)

Pre-work and the training records that flow from all three modalities need a hosting platform. Three architectural options:

Option	What it means
A. Partner Portal as the integrated platform.	One platform owns pre-work delivery, knowledge-check submission, application-demonstration scoring records, training log, and “successful completion” certification. No third-party LMS.
B. Dedicated LMS, integrated to Partner Portal via SSO and records sync.	A best-in-class learning platform (LearnUpon, LatitudeLearning, Schoox, Bridge, SAP Litmos) owns delivery and assessment. Partner Portal mirrors the training records.
C. Hybrid.	LMS owns pre-work and knowledge checks; Partner Portal owns the operational training log of record. SSO bridges them.

2. Recommendation: Option A for v1, with a defined trigger to revisit

For v1 of the Franchisee Training Program (and through the franchise system’s first ~25 active HiON EV Franchises), host all training in the Partner Portal directly.

Reasons:

Manual §8.4 already names the Partner Portal as the training-records system of record. Putting delivery in the same place keeps the record authoritative — no synchronization risk, no “which system has the latest completion status” question during a field audit. The Manual’s field-audit protocol (§3.3.2, §8.4) begins with a Partner Portal log review. Splitting the source of truth across two systems is an audit liability we do not have to take on.
The pre-work content is markdown. The rebuilt curriculum is markdown end-to-end. A modest Portal feature set — markdown rendering, embedded knowledge-check form, completion tracking, admin export for audits — covers the v1 pre-work need without a dedicated LMS. Course authoring tools and SCORM packaging do not pencil for a curriculum that already exists in clean markdown.
HiON is at low franchise count. Industry research on franchise LMS adoption (LatitudeLearning, Schoox, Bridge, SAP Litmos) shows these platforms make sense at scale — typically once you have dozens to hundreds of franchisees, multiple cohorts running concurrently, and complex role-based pathing across both initial and continuing training. None of those conditions hold yet. Standing up an LMS now is buying capacity ahead of demand; the migration is easier to do once we know the demand shape.
The web app the team wants to build today is the natural home for this. A focused build that turns the Partner Portal into the training surface — for cohort 1 — is more buildable than “build a Partner Portal + integrate an LMS.” The fewer the integrations, the faster the team gets feedback in front of trainees.
Continuing Training Program v1 cadence is light. The framework in Continuing-Training-Framework.md calls for annual recertification + event-triggered updates. A heavyweight LMS’s continuous-delivery features are not the binding constraint at this volume.

Revisit trigger. Migrate to Option B (dedicated LMS) when any of these become true:

More than 25 active HiON EV Franchises operating, OR
More than 4 concurrent cohorts in flight at any point in a calendar quarter, OR
More than 30 Continuing Training modules published in a 12-month period, OR
Role-based pathing (Owner / DBM / Site Ops / Marketing / Finance leads) exceeds the Portal’s per-role content tagging capacity, OR
A material audit finding that the Portal’s training-record export does not satisfy a state’s franchise-compliance requirement.

What we are NOT doing. Option C (LMS for delivery + Portal for records) sounds attractive but introduces the dual-source-of-truth risk for the Manual §8.4 audit log. Reject Option C unless we hit the Option B trigger AND the LMS we evaluate cannot also host the audit log directly (in which case the LMS becomes the source of truth and the Portal mirrors).

3. What the Partner Portal must support for v1

These are the minimum capabilities the Portal needs to host the Franchisee Training Program. Maps directly to web app build scope.

3.1 Pre-work delivery

Render module pre-work as readable web pages from the markdown sources in modules/M[NN]-...md Section 1
Track which trainee has opened which pre-work module
Track which pre-work modules each trainee has marked complete
Display each module’s “Bring to session” list and reading requirement before the corresponding classroom session

3.2 Pre-session knowledge check (layer A)

Render the 5–10 question pre-session check from the module Section 1
Accept submissions; auto-grade against the answer key
Block classroom-session access to trainees scoring below 70% (per Assessment-Format.md §2)
Allow the facilitator to override the block in exceptional cases (with logged justification)

3.3 Module knowledge check (layer B)

Render the 8–12 question knowledge check from each module Section 7
Time-bound submission window (open after the classroom session ends, closes 5 Business Days later)
Auto-grade against the answer key
Record score, retake status, and pass/fail
Trigger FBC review workflow on second failure (per Assessment-Format.md §4)

3.4 Application demonstration scoring (layer C)

Facilitator-facing scoring form rendering the universal four-criterion rubric (per Assessment-Format.md §3)
One scoring form per trainee per module
Free-text facilitator comments per criterion
Aggregate cell scoring (Pass / Conditional Pass / Fail) and overall result calculation
Capstone scenario uses the 16-cell scorecard variant

3.5 Training log

One record per trainee, per module, capturing layers A / B / C results, date, retake status, facilitator name
Annual recertification status per trainee (after Continuing Training launch)
New-hire role certifications
Export to CSV for FA §3.3 field audits and for FDD Item 11 Training Staff disclosure verification

3.6 “Successful completion” certification

Calculated state: all gates passed = “Franchisee Training Program complete” certification
Date-stamped, immutable once set
This certification is the documentary basis for Manual §8.3 opening-approval workflow

3.7 Operational essentials

SSO from the existing Partner Portal authentication
Per-trainee privacy: a trainee sees their own record; HiON staff and the Franchisee’s authorized administrator see the franchise’s records
Audit-mode export: full per-franchise training history exportable in CSV and PDF
Backup/retention aligned with Manual §15 records retention (training records: 3-year retention minimum)

4. What is explicitly out of scope for the v1 Portal build

These features are common in dedicated LMS platforms but are NOT needed in the v1 build. Defer until the LMS trigger fires.

SCORM / xAPI content packaging
Video-streaming infrastructure (use existing CDN or embedded YouTube/Vimeo at private settings)
Course authoring UI (curriculum is markdown; edits happen in the source repo)
Gamification, badges, leaderboards
Public discussion forums or social-learning features
Multi-tenant white-labeling for sub-franchisees (out of scope per 01_Outline.md Train-the-Trainer cascade decision)
Mobile-app native builds (responsive web is sufficient)

5. FDD Item 11 disclosure implications

The Item 11 disclosure language (Item-11-Input-for-Counsel.md) references “the Partner Portal (HiON’s online instructional materials platform)” as the pre-work platform. That language stands under Option A. If Jim approves Option A, no Item 11 revision needed beyond what counsel will already draft.

If Option B or C is selected later (post-trigger), Item 11 disclosure will need to be amended to name the LMS. That amendment is a normal lifecycle event for a franchise system that scales past the LMS trigger and should be expected, not avoided.

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