Case Study 04: EduPath Learning Solutions — Scenario Paper
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Practice Information
Difficulty: Intermediate Domain weights: D1 System Arch: HEAVY | D2 Security: MEDIUM | D3 Data: MEDIUM | D4 Solution: HEAVY | D5 Integration: HEAVY | D6 Dev Lifecycle: LIGHT | D7 Communication: MEDIUM Designed for 180-minute prep window
Before You Start
Print this scenario. Read it twice using the Two-Pass Reading Method — once for understanding, once to extract implicit requirements. Build all 9 artifacts within the 180-minute window.
Project Overview
EduPath Learning Solutions is a mid-size online education company headquartered in Austin, TX, offering professional certification courses in technology, project management, data analytics, and cybersecurity. Founded in 2015, EduPath has grown from a small course marketplace into a platform serving both individual learners and corporate training departments.
Company profile:
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Industry | Education / EdTech |
| Headquarters | Austin, TX |
| Employees | 800 |
| Active learners | 250,000 (individual + corporate) |
| Corporate accounts (B2B) | 15,000 |
| Content creators / instructors | 45 |
| Regional presence | US, UK, Australia |
| Annual revenue | $120M (growing 20% YoY) |
| Certification programs | 85 active courses across 12 certification tracks |
The CEO has authorized an $8 million, 18-month program to replace fragmented systems with a unified Salesforce platform covering B2B sales, learner support, corporate administration, and content creator management.
Stakeholder Quotes
CEO (Diana Reyes): “We are losing corporate deals because our sales team cannot show prospects how their employees are progressing. Our competitors have real-time dashboards. We have spreadsheets emailed weekly.”
CRO (Marcus Webb): “Corporate renewals are 68% — industry average is 82%. Clients churn because they cannot see value. If a training manager can see completion rates and certification pass rates in real-time, they renew.”
VP Engineering (Priya Sharma): “Our LMS is custom-built on AWS and handles course delivery, video streaming, assessments, and grading. It is not being replaced. But data must flow seamlessly between the LMS and whatever CRM you build.”
VP Customer Success (James Okonkwo): “Our learner support team handles 3,500 tickets per week across email, chat, and phone. Right now they toggle between Zendesk and the LMS admin panel to see enrollment status. They need everything on one screen.”
Head of Content (Laura Chen): “Instructors care about three things: how many learners are in their courses, what their course ratings are, and when their revenue share payments hit. Today they email me and I pull reports manually.”
Legal Counsel (Robert Kim): “We have K-12 school district partnerships launching next quarter. That means FERPA compliance. Our UK learners fall under GDPR. Australia has the Privacy Act. Each jurisdiction has different rules about learner data, parental consent, and data retention.”
Current State
Custom LMS (AWS)
EduPath’s core learning platform runs on AWS (ECS containers, RDS PostgreSQL, S3 for video assets, CloudFront CDN).
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| Users | 250,000 active learners, 45 instructors, 20 internal admins |
| Courses | 85 active courses, 12 certification tracks, 4,200 video lessons |
| Data | 1.8M course enrollments, 42M progress events, 8.5M assessment results |
| API | REST API (documented), webhook support for enrollment and completion events |
| Auth | Auth0 (OIDC) for learner authentication |
| Uptime | 99.9% over past 12 months |
The LMS is the system of record for course content, video delivery, assessments, and grading. It will not be replaced.
Other Current Systems
| System | Purpose | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Marketing + early-stage pipeline | 450K contacts, 15K company records, marketing automation |
| Zendesk | Learner support | 180K historical tickets, email + chat channels |
| Stripe | Individual payments | Subscriptions + one-time purchases, 85K active subscriptions |
| DocuSign | Corporate contracts | MSAs, order forms, SOWs |
| Zoom | Live instructor sessions | 200 scheduled sessions/month, attendance tracking |
| Custom analytics dashboard | Internal reporting | Built on Metabase, queries LMS PostgreSQL directly |
| Google Workspace | Email, docs, internal collaboration | SSO via Google for all employees |
Pain Points
- No unified learner view: Support agents toggle between Zendesk, LMS admin, and Stripe to handle a single ticket
- Corporate sales blind spot: Sales cannot see learner progress, completion rates, or engagement metrics during renewal conversations
- Manual corporate reporting: Account managers export CSV from LMS, build Excel reports, and email them to corporate training managers weekly
- Instructor isolation: Content creators have no self-service access to course performance data
- Compliance gaps: No centralized consent management, no FERPA readiness, UK GDPR compliance is ad-hoc
- Disconnected billing: Corporate invoicing is manual; individual Stripe data does not flow back into any CRM
- Learner support is slow: Average first response time 14 hours; resolution requires 3+ system lookups
Business Requirements
B2B Sales (Req 1-5)
- Manage the full corporate sales cycle: lead through closed-won, contract execution, onboarding, renewal
- Sales team must see aggregated learner progress and engagement metrics per corporate account during renewal conversations
- Automated renewal pipeline: flag accounts 90 days before expiration with health score based on utilization and completion rates
- Territory management across US, UK, and Australia with region-specific pricing
- Quoting and contract management for multi-year, multi-seat corporate licenses
Learner Support (Req 6-10)
- Unified agent console showing learner profile, enrollment status, progress, payment history, and ticket history on a single screen
- Support channels: email, chat, and phone with intelligent routing based on issue type and learner tier (individual vs. corporate)
- Self-service knowledge base reducing ticket volume by 30%
- Escalation path for technical issues requiring LMS engineering team involvement
- SLA tracking: 4-hour first response for corporate learners, 24-hour for individual
Corporate Portal (Req 11-15)
- Corporate training managers log in and see a dashboard of their company’s learner enrollments, progress, and completions
- Corporate admins can enroll/unenroll employees, assign courses, and manage seat licenses
- Bulk enrollment: upload CSV of 500+ employees to enroll in a course track
- Certification tracking: which employees hold which certifications, expiration dates, renewal eligibility
- Downloadable reports: completion rates, time-to-completion, assessment scores by department
Content Creator Portal (Req 16-18)
- Instructors view their course catalog with enrollment counts, average ratings, and completion rates
- Revenue share dashboard showing monthly earnings and payment history
- Student feedback aggregated by course with sentiment indicators
Learner Data Privacy (Req 19-23)
- FERPA compliance for K-12 partnerships: parental consent workflows, restricted data access, audit trails
- GDPR for UK learners: consent management, right to erasure, data processing records
- Australian Privacy Act: data breach notification readiness, cross-border transfer controls
- Age verification and parental consent gate for learners under 18
- Data retention policies: automated archival or deletion per jurisdiction after defined periods
Payments and Billing (Req 24-26)
- Individual learners: continue using existing payment processor for subscriptions and one-time purchases
- Corporate accounts: generate invoices, track payments, manage multi-year license agreements
- Revenue share calculations for instructors based on enrollment and completion data
Reporting (Req 27-29)
- Executive dashboard: revenue by segment (B2B vs. B2C), renewal rates, learner growth, course performance
- Sales dashboard: pipeline, ARR, account health scores, territory performance
- Operations: ticket volumes, resolution times, channel distribution, self-service deflection rates
Mobile (Req 30)
- Corporate training managers need mobile access to learner progress dashboards when presenting to leadership
Constraints
- The LMS stays on AWS — it is the system of record for course content, delivery, and grading
- Learner authentication remains on Auth0; corporate employee SSO must be supported
- K-12 FERPA compliance must be in place before school district partnerships launch (month 6)
- Stripe integration must not disrupt 85K active individual subscriptions
- HubSpot marketing automation continues for top-of-funnel; data must flow into the new system
- Budget: $8M total across 18 months
- Internal IT team: 12 people (3 Salesforce-experienced, 5 LMS engineers, 4 infrastructure)
Stakeholders
| Role | Name | Key Concern |
|---|---|---|
| CEO | Diana Reyes | Revenue growth, competitive positioning |
| CRO | Marcus Webb | Corporate renewal rates, sales productivity |
| VP Engineering | Priya Sharma | LMS integration reliability, no disruption to learner experience |
| VP Customer Success | James Okonkwo | Agent productivity, unified learner view |
| Head of Content | Laura Chen | Instructor self-service, revenue share transparency |
| Legal Counsel | Robert Kim | FERPA, GDPR, Privacy Act compliance |
| VP Finance | Angela Torres | Billing accuracy, revenue recognition |
| IT Director | Sam Patel | Implementation feasibility with 12-person team |
Budget and Timeline
| Item | Budget | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: Foundation + B2B sales + LMS integration + FERPA | $3.2M | Months 1-6 |
| Phase 2: Learner support + portals + billing | $3.0M | Months 4-12 |
| Phase 3: Analytics + optimization + mobile | $1.2M | Months 10-18 |
| Contingency | $0.6M | As needed |
| Total | $8.0M | 18 months |
IT staff: 12 internal. SI partner: mid-size consultancy with 15-person team.
Known Risks
- LMS integration complexity: Bidirectional sync of enrollment and progress data at scale (42M progress events)
- FERPA timeline pressure: K-12 compliance required by month 6 before full platform is built
- Portal adoption: Corporate training managers must adopt self-service to reduce manual reporting
- Data volume growth: 250K learners generating progress events continuously; 20% YoY learner growth compounds volume
- Auth complexity: Three auth patterns (employee, corporate SSO federation, individual learner) on one platform
- Small IT team: 12 people spanning LMS and Salesforce — capacity constraints
Deliverables
Present all 9 CTA solution artifacts in 30 minutes + 30-minute Q&A:
- System Landscape
- Data Model / ERD
- Role Hierarchy & Sharing Model
- Integration Architecture
- Identity & SSO
- Data Migration Strategy
- Governance Framework
- Environment Strategy
- Phased Delivery Roadmap
Board Strategy
This is an intermediate scenario. Cover all 9 artifacts with reasonable depth. Identify the 2-3 highest-risk decisions and allocate more time to those. Show trade-off reasoning, not just feature selection.
Key Implicit Requirements
The LMS integration pattern (bidirectional sync at scale with the LMS as system of record for content/grading), multi-portal architecture (corporate admin + content creator + learner self-service), multi-jurisdiction privacy (FERPA + GDPR + Privacy Act with a month-6 deadline for FERPA), and the authentication complexity (three distinct user populations with different IdPs) are the critical architectural drivers.