Overview of the course and class catalog

The course catalog lists all the courses that you wish to offer to learners. If you have e-commerce enabled, courses may be purchased directly from the catalog.

If you are in academia, you will access the class catalog. If you are in a business, you will access the course catalog. The terms are interchangeable in this article. 

To browse the catalog, click Courses/Catalog.

By default, courses are organized into a flat single-page listing by categories and subcategories.

Each course in the catalog has its own overview page where you can find separate tabs with a detailed description of the course, the module within the course, certificates it awards, and reviews.

You can customize the catalog sidebar via Admin/Portal/Themes by selecting "Yes" under "Checkout sidebar".

Here learners can purchase or enroll in the course.

When you create a course it isn't published by default in the catalog. To publish the course, visit the Admin area in the right bar of its landing page and click publish. 

You can edit how a course is displayed in the catalog from its Admin/Catalog area. 

Configuring the course catalog

To configure the course catalog go to Admin/Catalog from the left bar.

The configure area is split into 2 tabs: Catalogs and Settings.

Configuring categories

To configure the categories go to the Catalogs tab and click the Settings icon of your local course catalog.

All of the currently used categories are listed under the Categories area. If you have selected Custom category ordering, you can reorder the categories using drag and drop.

To add a category click Add category.

Enter its name and specify a parent category for it if you want to.

To change the name, the parent category, and the description of a category, click its Edit icon.

Make the changes and click Save.  

To change the picture associated with a category, click its Edit Picture icon.

You can also change the category's name, picture, and tile color directly from its tile by clicking the configure icon.

To change the tile color to its default click the reset icon.

After making the necessary changes click Save.

To delete categories select them and click Delete.

To set the metadata description and keywords for a category, click the icon under "Seo Metadata".

Add a meta description and/or keywords, then click Save.

To set the name of the Local catalog and add an introduction for visitors to see when they browse the catalog. Click on Edit under "Local catalog".

Enter the name and write the introduction then click Save.

Please note that if you enabled the Go1 integration, to Go1 catalog will be also listed under Catalogs. To learn more about how to enable and configure the Go1 integration, please visit the Go1 article.

In the Settings tab you have options for configuring the following:

Search

Here you can enable the search option for the Course Catalog by clicking the appropriate checkbox.

If enabled, users and visitors will see the search area in the catalog right bar. Here you can search for keywords and you can filter the catalog based on the category, style, and more.

Search results are the collection of items that match the search phrase. We currently index the name of the catalog item, its short description, and its long description. When using the search functionality, all the enabled catalog filters are still applied, so users will not see search results that they could not see if they simply browse the catalog.

If you select a category from the search filters area and no other search constraints are selected, it will simply jump to that category as if you had navigated there from the tiles.

To clear the search filters click the "reset" icon in the upper-right corner of the Search box.

Calendar

The calendar view of the catalog shows when each instructor-led and blended course is available. To enable this feature go to Admin/Catalogs/Settings and click the checkbox under Calendar. Please note that this feature is disabled by default.

When enabled, the "Calendar view" button appears in the upper-right of the catalog next to the search.

When you click the button, it shows the calendar view of the catalog. Here users can see their status in a course.

Here, you can change between the monthly and weekly view of the catalog.

To switch back to the tile view, click the "Tile view" button.

If you click on an entry in the catalog, the tile for that course pops up in the calendar. The tile shows the basic information of the course such as name, description, its schedule (if it has any), and more.

If you click on the tile, it takes you to the full page for that course in the catalog.

If a course has a start and end date but no schedule, then it shows up on its start date on the monthly view.

These courses show up as an all-day event in the weekly view.

If a course also has a schedule, then the times(s) on the schedule are used when displaying it in the weekly view. If you set a schedule that is recurring (for example, each weekday), then each recurrence in the schedule is shown in the weekly view.

To set up a schedule for the course, go to its Admin/Schedule area and click "Add course time".

Location filtering

You can enable location filtering for the calendar view of the Catalog. The filtering option is useful for organizations that have courses in various locations and they want users to see which courses are available in their area. You can enable this feature in the Admin/Catalog area. Please note that this feature is disabled by default.

If enabled, the calendar view in the course catalog color-codes courses based on their Location setting. Courses with no location set are color-coded with "None".

You can check/uncheck each location separately or disable/enable them all at once using the checkbox to the right of "Location". The location filter selection is saved until you change it again.

You can set the location of the courses via its Admin/Basics/Settings area.

Layout

Format

Choose between Flat, Hierarchical, or Graphic.

Category ordering

Choose between Alphabetical or Custom. If you choose Custom, you can reorder the categories using drag and drop.

Course ordering

Choose between Alphabetical or Custom. If you choose Custom, you can reorder the courses using drag and drop.

Items

Display short description on item tiles

If enabled, the short description of items will be displayed on the item tiles in the Course catalog.

Display short description on category tiles.

If enabled, the short description of categories will be displayed on the category tiles in the Course catalog.

To enter a short description for a category, click its edit icon.

Show sections in each module

If enabled, the sections of each module will be displayed in the Course catalog for visitors.

Show time zone

If enabled, include the course time zone in the listings.

Only show pricing  on catalog page, not on tiles or listings

If enabled, only show pricing on the catalog page, not on tiles or listings.

Visibility

Display courses for default organization in all catalogs

If enabled, courses associated with the default organization will be visible in the Course Catalog for all organizations in the network.

Display courses for all organizations in default organization catalog

If enabled, courses associated with the organizations from the network will be visible in the Course Catalog of the default organization.

Only display courses from default organization in visitor catalog

If enabled, only the courses from the default organization will be displayed in the Course catalog for visitors.

Only show open enrollment courses and paths in visitor catalog

If enabled, only the courses and paths with open enrollment will be displayed in the Course catalog for visitors.

Hide old courses

If enabled, hide courses that have started over a week ago.

Right column

Here you can enable additional information in the right column of the Course Catalog.

Show list of featured items

If enabled, the featured items will be displayed in the right column of the Course Catalog.

To configure an item as being featured, visit its Admin/Catalog area and click the "Featured item?" checkbox.

Show boxes

If enabled, the boxes added and enabled in the Boxes area will be displayed in the right column of the Course Catalog.

Boxes

In the Boxes area, you can add the boxes that can be featured in the right column of the Course Catalog. To add a new box click Add.

Use the built-in editor to add the title and the content of the box then click Save. Boxes can contain text, images, videos, and more.

After the box is added, you can enable and edit it. Note that only the enabled boxes can be displayed in the right column of the Course Catalog.

To delete boxes, select them and click the Delete button.

Catalog filtering

Catalog filtering allows you to control who can see a particular course based on any combination of user account attributes. To set up catalog filtering go to Admin/Catalog and click Add under Visibility.

You can chain together conditions based on any combination of account fields. You can also filter based on account type. After creating the filter click Save.

The created filter will be displayed in the Visibility area in the Catalog tab. To change the filter click on Edit.

Browsing the catalog from your portal

To allow visitors to your portal to browse the catalog, visit the Portal pages section in the Visitor view under Admin/Portal and enable the Catalog box. The course catalog will appear on your portal and visitors can click to see the catalog.

E-commerce

If you have e-commerce enabled, you can set prices for courses price via the Admin/E-commerce area. Users can then purchase the course from the course catalog. Learn more in the E-commerce help article.

Display options for courses in the catalog

You have a few more catalog settings for courses under Admin/Basics. The Basics area allows you to edit the description that shows up on the overview page of the course in the catalog.

In the Catalog tab, you can set up if you want the course to be published in the catalog if you want to display the "Contact us" option if you want to include the short and long description and more.

*Please note that if there is only a course in a catalog category, then the category will have the same catalog image of the course. 

Including child courses on the parent course catalog page

You can include the published child courses within the catalog page of their parent course and then allow the user to select which one to purchase/enroll in. You can use this feature to offer multiple sessions of a course, often in different locations, and allow the user to select which particular session to enroll in. Please note that you can also configure templates as parent courses by adding child courses to them.

To enable this for a parent course or a template, visit its Admin/Catalog area and then check "Include child courses?" Please note that this option is only available if the course has a child course.

Once enabled, the catalog tile for the parent course will include the text "Multiple dates are available" and the child courses will no longer show up separately in the catalog.

If you visit the course's catalog page, it lists the available sessions on the right.

Please note that to group courses by location first, you have to specify the location of each course under Admin/Basics.

If a course does not have a location, it will be displayed as "Other".

Each entry includes its start/end date and any schedule information entered via Admin/Schedule.

When you click Purchase/Enroll, the selected course is used. If e-commerce is enabled and the courses don't all have the same price, we include the price of each course in the right-hand listing.