Advanced Courseware Configuration

This article will cover advanced topics in Courseware Management.

1. Category Linking – placing a Category inside another Category
2. PlaceHolder Courses for Category Linking
3. Placing a Course in more than one Category
4. Course Type: Linked Course (Banner)
5. The Course Settings Section

1. Category Linking: Placing a Category Inside Another Category

To link an existing Category to another Category, edit the Root Category that you want to link from and then select the “Assigned Content” section on the left. You should see a screen that looks something like this:

Click on the yellow icon to “Select Category” and then choose which Category to link to.

If you assign a Category to another Category like this, it will be “aliased” and appear as another Category to access under the original Category. The
Category ID will remain identical, so if the Courses are in your Content Role, you will see it appear in both places.

Here is an example – Here we have two Categories with 2 Courses in them each, and I want to place Category 2 (Eggs) into Category 1 (Breakfast)
This is what it currently looks like in the Training Center:

Next I click the edit “Pencil” so I can edit the Category:

Next select the “Assigned Content” section on the left, you should see a screen that looks like this:

Next select the “Select Category” yellow icon and then select the Category you’d like to link to – in our case it’s “Category 2 – Eggs” – and then click “Assign”:

It will now show up on our list of content assigned to this Category:

Note: Be sure to hit SAVE!

And now you can see our “Category 2 – Eggs” shows up under “Category 1 – Breakfast” in the Training Center:

I can also move that to the beginning of the list under the same “Assigned Content” section by changing the Rank:

Finally, now that you’ve linked “Cateogry 2 – Eggs” to your Breakfast Category, you can hide “Category 2” by editing it, and under the “Show Category in Training Center Root” setting, change that to “No” and hit Save.

And now that Category will no longer show up in the “Root” of the Training Center, but users can still access it because it is linked from Category 1.

2. Placeholder Courses for Category Linking

Let’s pretend that “Category 1 – Breakfast” has no Courses in it – I am going to deactivate those now – but if I deactivate the Courses, the Category is going to disappear completely from the Training Center.

This means I need to create a “Placeholder” Course in order for it to show up.

This Placeholder Course will remain hidden from your end Users, but it is required in order to make the Category show up.

To create a Placeholder Course – Edit your root Category (In our example, “Category 1 – Breakfast”) and add a new Course with the title “LSVTPlaceHolder” – all one word and it is case sensitive.

Next, we suggest hiding this Course from Reports, so it does not show up anywhere on Content reports:

Next, add a Placeholder Chapter – it just needs very basic settings, and the video path can be gibberish like “xx”

Next, under the Assign + Publish section, add this Placeholder Course to the content roles for whom you’d like the content to appear for.

Now, under the Category Edit screen again I can see my other Courses are inactive, but my Placeholder Course is active:

And now it will show up in the Training Center showing no Courses:

Then I can go back and link to my Eggs Category again

And now I can link to as many Categories or Courses as I’d like.

3. Placing a Course in more than one Category

To continue this example, let’s show how to add a Course to Multiple Categories

Let’s say I’d like “Course C – Scrambled” and “Course D – Over Easy” to appear under both “Category 2 – Eggs” and “Category 1 – Breakfast”.

I can do this by editing “Category 1 – Breakfast” and going to the Assigned Content section, and simply selecting these two Courses:

Select your Courses, then select “Assign” and then “Save” and then back in the Training Center you can see they are now “Aliased” to “Category 1 – Breakfast”

Note: Even though these Courses are now appearing under 2 different Categories, their Course IDs remain the same – so any user that completes one of the Courses will automatically receive credit for completing the “Aliased” version as well.
If you’d like to separate the Courses so that each one needs to be completed for Credit, then you will need to “Duplicate” the Course instead of Aliasing it.

You can also place a Course in another Category by navigating to that Course and selecting the “Additional Categories” drop-down:

4. Course Type: Linked Course (Banner)

A Linked Course type is a Course that you can use to “Link” externally to another website, or a file, or anything you’d like.

To create a Linked Course, first click on “Show Advanced Options” and then change the Course Type to “Linked Course (Banner)”

This will enable several new options at the bottom of the screen:

So you can simply add in a URL (like https://leroys-cafe.com/breakfast/) give it a label (like “Open” or “Select” or “Download”, for example) and then give it a target (do you want it to open in the current window, or open a new window?)

Next you can assign this Course to content roles and Locations like you normally would, and it will act as a clickable link in your Training Center.

5. The Course Settings Section

When editing a Course, if you “Show Advanced Options” you’ll see a new section open on the left called “Settings”

By default when creating a new Course, we enable “Enable Notes” and “Allow Discussions” – here is an explanation on what each setting does.

Enable Notes

This will enable or disable a “Notes” tab next to the Chapter video:

And when opened it will allow users to take notes, which automatically save:

They can be accessed via the “My Notes” section and exported/printed:

Hide on Reports

This will enable or disable this Course from showing up on all Reports. This can be handy if the Course is something you are not concerned about your Users completing, or you do not want it to appear when reviewing your Usage reports.

Hide on Search

This will prevent the Course from being searchable. This can be useful if you’ve created a specific learning path for your users to follow and do not want to allow them to search for the Course to skip ahead.

Complete Chapters in Order

With this enabled, this will force users to complete each Chapter in your Course in order – they will not be able to skip ahead to the end. We make the Chapters “transparent” so they know they’re there, but they cannot access them yet:

Default to Fullscreen

With this enabled, we will start each Chapter in “Full screen” mode rather than the standard size.

Allow Discussions

With Discussions enabled, any User with access to the Course (across all of your Locations) will be able to participate in discussing the Course. They can create new questions or respond to other questions. Each time someone posts a question, an email will be sent to a moderator so they can review and respond to them.

Lock Content to System

This setting is for Admins who want to give access to their content to another Admin at another System for viewing only – and by “locking” the content to your System, it will prevent them from being able to modify the Category/Course/Chapters in any way. When it is locked, we display a padlock symbol to indicate they cannot edit it: