Managing Course Catalog

Our Course Catalog allows your users to browse your Organization’s available courses. It is your decision whether you have a catalog or not. You must request a course catalog from customer support, a guide is available here to request the features you want. Our course catalog has been adapted several times and can be displayed in one of two ways:  Simple Course Catalog Version 1, and Simple Course Catalog Version 2. Adding a course catalog also adds a Courses link on the Navigation bar to open it, however, the name of the link can be changed based on your organization’s preference.

Users can still view your available courses in the standard search format by accessing the organization profile; to do this, from any page select on the organization name link, then select the Find Courses link from the organization’s quick links bar.

For more information, view our How to Use the Course Catalog? documentation.

Catalog Features

The article below describes standard and custom features that are available for you in your course catalog. Many features need to be customized through our customer support page, others are available for you to set up yourself.
Some components are available in all catalog versions, like access to the Course details page, beginning or resuming Self-Paced training on a course available to you through a subscription or from a Course Assignment, adding a custom catalog name, focusing attention on courses through icons, such as, New, Coming Soon or Featured. Saving searches, exporting searches, and filtering are available in all versions of the catalog, however, filtering does evolve through the versions. Catalogs display as tiles showing a course graphic if one is available, icons to depict activities in the courses, and the ability to mark favorites. Filter headings and filters are custom created to allow searches.

Version 2 of the course catalog tiles show the logo of the platform used in the labs, such as, Azure or AWS. This is automatically pulled from the lab Activities which are built into the labs.

Features enabled by customer support

There are features which you can select in either version to use to customize the catalog your organization.

These are features that can be enabled by our support team.

1. Anonymous access - Add the link to the course catalog to your login page, allowing users to view your courses before signing in. This must also be enabled on the course, see here

2. Show courses on catalog by default - Have any course created by your organization defaulted to show on the course catalog.

3. Add a catalog title - Choose a title for your catalog, it can be up to 50 characters. Or if you prefer, it can be left without a title.

4. Include course tags in export - Make course tags available to be exported with catalog search results. Course tags are used to create filters in your catalog, enabling this allows users who export a search to see all the tags/filters which apply to those courses.

Features Enabled by You

The majority of features are ones that you can control and maintain.

Show a course on the course catalog

Each course your organization owns can be individually set to show on the course catalog. Or you may request our support team to have this enabled on each course you create, after it is enabled, all courses will default to show on the catalog.

To set a course to show on your course catalog,

1. Search for and select the course

2. Select Edit

3. On the Basic Information tab scroll to the check boxes toward the bottom of the page and select the box for Show on course catalog to show the course in the catalog

4. Save

Anonymous access to course

You can allow users access to your course catalog before logging into your site, this entails two pieces: having customer support set up a course catalog navigation link on your login page and allowing access to the course details page without the user logging in.

To set a course to allow anonymous access to your course catalog,

1. Search for and select the course

2. Select Edit

3. On the Advanced tab scroll to the check boxes toward the bottom of the page and select the box for Allow Anonymous Access to Course Details Page

4. Save

Return to Features Enabled by Support Team

Add a custom image to your course

You can style your courses with custom images. Images show on the course catalog, subscription catalog, class browser and simple course assignments. You may want to have specific images based on platform or content to tie courses together. A custom image must be added to each course for any image to show for version 1 of the course catalog; if there is not an image the catalog tile for the course will be blank. However, in version 2 of the catalog, any course lacking a custom image is given a random triangulated image.

To add a custom image to a course,

1. Prepare your image and store it where it is accessible through a URL, for instance, in a blob

2. Search for and select the course

3. Select Edit

4. Paste the image URL into the Profile Image URL field

5. Save

Show icons for Featured, Coming Soon and New

You can add icons to course tiles to feature a course, create awareness by showing it as coming soon, and highlight your new courses.

Featured icon

Featured courses display a Featured icon for the time set on the course. Th icon displays in the top left corner of the tile and show first in the catalog and then are followed by the rest of the courses in alphabetical order.

To set a course to show as Featured on your course catalog,

1. Search for and select the course

2. Select Edit

3. On the Basic Information tab scroll to the check boxes toward the bottom of the page and select the box for Featured, this displays an expiration date field

4. A default date is automatically entered calculated to two weeks from the current date, revise this as needed

5. Ensure the Show on course catalog box is selected

6. Save

New icon

The new icon is a setting to default all newly published courses from your organization to display the New icon for a set amount of time. The icon displays in the top right corner of a course tile.

To set your courses to show as New on your course catalog,

1. Open your organization profile from My Organizations

2. Select Edit

3. On the Preferences tab scroll to the Course Settings section to find the Show “New” icon (# of days) field

4. Input the number of days you want your courses to display the New icon

5. Save

Coming soon icon

Coming soon can be used to create anticipation for a course that will be published in the near future. Since the course is not yet published, we remove the availability to use it as a course assignment or in a class, while showing it on the course catalog. This icon displays in the top right corner of a course tile.

To set a course to show as Coming Soon on your course catalog,

1. Search for and select the course

2. Select Edit

3. On the Basic Information tab scroll to the uncheck boxes toward the bottom of the page called Available Instructor-led and Available Self-Paced

4. Ensure the Show on course catalog box is selected

5. Save

Course feedback and ratings

Ratings are pulled from Simple Course Feedback. You can default course feedback to be enabled on all courses you create and set or remove it on individual courses. Ratings have a couple of controls for you to control which courses will show them.

Course feedback enabled by default

Once enabled, all newly created courses will default to having Simple course feedback enabled.

To have Simple course feedback enabled by default when creating courses,

1. Open your organization profile from My Organizations

2. Select Edit

3. On the Preferences tab scroll to the Course Settings section and check the Enable simple course feedback box

4. Save

Course feedback enabled on a single course

Simple course feedback can be enabled or disabled on each individual course.

To set a course to enable Simple course feedback,

1. Search for and select the course

2. Select Edit

3. On the Basic Information tab scroll to the uncheck boxes toward the bottom of the page called Enable simple course feedback

4. Save

Show ratings in course catalog

Ratings are based on course feedback given by users. When you turn on ratings there are controls allowing you to set a minimum number of feedback ratings before the rating is displayed. You can also define at what percentage ratings can show; for instance, you can set the rating to 60% and only courses with a positive rating of 60% or higher will show a rating.

To have ratings enabled,

1. Open your organization profile from My Organizations

2. Select Edit

3. On the Preferences tab scroll to the Course Settings section and check the Display course ratings box to turn on ratings

4. Then input 1 or more for how many ratings must be submitted in the Total ratings required before displaying

5. If you wish, check the box for Specify minimum course rating and enter a number in the Percentage* field for a rating percentage that must be met before the rating will show on the catalog

6. Save

Create custom filter headings and filters

Course Tag Groups and Course Tags are used to create filters in catalogs. Course tag groups create the filter headings which are added to the organization profile to automatically add the tag group and tags to all courses created by your organization and set the filters for the Course catalog. If you are using filters in an On-Demand Subscription catalog, Course tag groups are added to the Subscription Profile. Select here for instructions on creating filters and filter headers.

Catalog Request Guide

Send a request to customer support, and include the following information.
Selecting a version applies not only to the course catalog but applies the version style to the course catalog, subscription catalog, Learning Paths catalog and class browser.

• Course Catalogs Interface Version 1

• Course Catalogs Interface Version 2

Our top navigation bar displays a Courses link when the course catalog is enabled. If you wish, you may have a custom name for your catalog link.
Other features our support team can enable for you include:

• Anonymous access - Add the link to the course catalog to your login page, allowing users to view your courses before signing in.

• Show courses on catalog by default - Have any course created by your organization defaulted to show on the course catalog.

• Add a catalog title - Choose a title for your catalog, it can be up to 50 characters. Or if you prefer, it can be left without a title.

• Include course tags in export - Make course tags available to be exported with catalog search results. Course tags are used to create filters in your catalog, enabling this allows users who export a search to see all the tags/filters which apply to those courses.