CTMS User Training for Long Term Success
You’ve finished the heavy lifting: your migration is complete, your team’s in the system, and the new Clinical Trial Management System is officially live. So what’s next? If you’re thinking the hard part’s over, you’re partly right: you’ve gone through all the steps for a successful transition. But the work isn’t finished. A new CTMS is only as effective as the people who use it.
A 2021 CISQ study reported a loss of $2.08 trillion due to software issues and user error—problems that can and should be managed before they start. Keeping everyone trained (and refreshed) is what turns a launch into a lasting solution.
Luckily, user training doesn’t have to be a nightmare: it’s a steady process from day one. Let’s talk about how to train your teams to get the most out of your CTMS and adjust your approach to incorporate feedback and best practices.
Find the Real CTMS Use Cases that Matter
The first round of training often focuses on the “click-by-click” run throughs. That’s a start, but it’s not enough.
Instead of running through features top to bottom, consider building your sessions around actual tasks. These might include creating a new trial, planning a site monitoring visit, or reviewing a study overview report before a team meeting. These are the kinds of actions users will repeat every week. When they feel confident with them, the system becomes second nature.
Your teams need a real reason to invest in learning the system. If a study coordinator understands how logging visit dates directly affects payment timelines, they’re more likely to get it right every time. When a project manager sees that clean document categorization makes inspections easier, they’ll take that extra second to double-check.
Keep the first round of training short and focused. Break it into manageable parts, and let teams practice as they go. Don’t aim for perfection, aim for comfort: a confident user will explore more, ask better questions, and flag problems early.
Choose Your Trainers
Good training doesn’t have to come from outside experts: the best trainers are a combination of internal team members and vendor representatives. Your internal trainers will know what your team actually needs to know about the system. The CTMS vendor training team can create a personalized curriculum to meet those needs.
This collaboration also helps your internal trainers become experts on the system, creating a built-in go-to resource for questions and refreshers. People are more likely to speak up and ask for help when they’re talking to someone they know.
Once you’ve picked your trainers—or had your teams nominate them—keep them in the loop. Include them in meetings about system updates or workflow changes. Check in often to gather feedback: they’re your frontline and will be the first to know of any concerns.
And don’t forget: your trainers need support, too! Offer regular check-ins with system admins and vendors to keep your internal trainers up to date and at the top of their game.
Remember: Training Isn’t “One-and-Done”
CTMS use changes over time. New staff come in, old habits creep back, and teams start bending the rules for the sake of speed. To make sure that you’re achieving consistent results and staying up to code, training has to be an ongoing process.
Schedule regular refresher sessions—once per quarter works well for most teams. Keep them short and rotate the topics so your users stay engaged and interested. Choose the topic based on user feedback or areas on which you’d like to focus. One session might focus on how to fix visit discrepancies, another on uploading documents in the correct format.
Offer the sessions live, or record them so your team can watch when it suits their schedule.
One of the most common pitfalls is thinking you have to cover everything every time. The goal is to keep skills sharp and highlight small fixes before they become big problems. New study? New vendor? That’s a good time to run a training touchpoint, even if it’s only twenty minutes or so. These short, targeted sessions reduce confusion and keep processes aligned across different teams.
Always Document Everything
Even the best training won’t stick without reference material. Every team should have quick guides or in-system tips to help reinforce how things should be done. Nothing should be taught that isn’t documented.
Make sure your documentation is:
- Written in plain language
- Screenshotted and annotated wherever possible
- Updated after every system change
- Easy to find
If someone needs to enter a new site or upload a protocol amendment, they should be able to do it themselves. There shouldn’t be a need to reach out to a colleague or hunt through an inbox for old slides.
And don’t forget to ask your team what’s missing! If users consistently trip up on the same task, your training materials probably need a refresh.
Watch Out for Process Drift
Even with good documentation and regular training, sometimes users go off-script. Maybe someone names sites differently than their colleagues. Maybe a coordinator uploads documents in the wrong category. At first, these things seem harmless—but over time they snowball. Your data becomes harder to work with and harder to defend during an inspection.
The best way to prevent this is to build habits early. Give users the written guides that show them how to enter and name things the right way. Make your validation rules and required fields do some of the work, but don’t rely on them alone.
Run monthly checks to look for inconsistencies. If you see patterns, don’t wait—go back to training and fix them. Show users what went wrong and what should have happened instead. Make it a team conversation, never a scolding. You can even ask your system vendor to run regular audits to make sure the system is being used effectively.
Over time, you’ll develop your own internal style: how sites are named, how amendments are tracked, how to log protocol deviations. Standardizing these practices is just as important as building them in the first place. And the longer your team uses the CTMS, the more it will shape their work—and the more their work will shape the system.
Looking for the smoothest migration on the market? Switch to BSI CTMS.
BSI CTMS is top of the line and we have the track record to prove it. Our modern CTMS solutions cover all aspects of your clinical trials and we want you to test them for your team!
BSI’s CTMS is the most innovative, function-complete, and easy-to-use clinical trial management software on the market. It provides CTMS, eTMF, Study Startup and Trial Supply Management in one integrated, unified platform.
Standard interfaces (API) assure complete data oversight and easy integration with the external systems (e.g. EDC and eTMF) of your choice. The BSI CTMS is the central hub for all aspects of your clinical trials. It’s available as SaaS for ease of use, continuous improvement, and simplified infrastructure.
We’re modern, sleek, and designed with the user in mind for intuitive end-to-end clinical trial management. And the best part? We offer updates, upgrades, and scalability in-house with a full client support team for your legacy system migration and beyond.
There’s never been a better time to embrace a better CTMS. Book a call today!
