--- title: "Understanding Course Lab Access, Expiration, and Launch Limits?" slug: "understanding-course-lab-access-expiration-and-launch-limits" updated: 2024-12-10T23:26:11Z published: 2024-12-10T23:26:11Z canonical: "docs.skillable.com/understanding-course-lab-access-expiration-and-launch-limits" --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.skillable.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Understanding Course Lab Access, Expiration, and Launch Limits? This article will provide the user with information on how to use Glossary. Courselabs on Skillable TMS and perform actions such as lab access, lab expiration, and lab launch limits. ## Best Practices for Understanding Lab Launch Limits - To extend your lab, it's recommended to open it before it expires and save the lab with a new date and time. If you have unlimited lab access, you can start a new lab anytime, as long as your expiration date is valid. - It's essential to know that your launch count is not affected by canceling, saving or reopening labs. Only new labs use up launches. ## Training Expiration Training expiration is when access to the Class or Course Assignment has expired. Students with an expired class or course assignment will no longer be able to launch or resume any labs associated to those assignments. Students will need to reach out to their training Organization to inquire about any extensions. ## Lab Access Lab access is how long you have access to **launch** a new instance of a lab. Access to class labs begins at the start date and time of your class and may extend after a class is over based on the post class lab access that is set up. Access to labs for Self-Paced training through course assignments begins as soon as the assignment is created and ends 180 days after the creation date, regardless of if or when work on the assignment started. Limits can be set on the number of times a lab can be launched, see Lab launch limits below. The class instructors and operations managers have access to their class labs at any time, course labs are sometimes restricted from instructor access. ## Post-Class Lab Access Many classes continue to allow access to labs after a class is over, this is referred to as post-class lab access. Normally, the access is set to 180 days after the end date of the class, but it can vary between no access at all to any number of days after a class is finished. When you have post-class lab access, the date your access expires is listed on your Class Enrollment page. *The*Activities*section on your enrollment displays when your access to launch the course's labs ends.* ## Lab Expiration Lab expiration is when a lab you have saved expires. When you have launched a lab and then saved it, you are shown a date and time when it will be automatically cancelled from the system. If your lab is cancelled, you lose all the work you have done in the lab, but you may have the option to launch a fresh instance of the lab depending on your post-class lab access and any lab launch limits. To avoid losing your lab, you need to open it again before it expires and save it with a new expiration date and time. This will extend the Duration of your lab. If you can launch labs without any limit, you can start a new lab anytime, even if your saved lab has expired. The only condition is that you are within the period of your class or post-class lab access. ## Lab Launch Limits There are different ways that a Course can limit how many times you can launch a lab. Some courses have unlimited lab launches, which means you can start a new lab whenever you want during the class and post-class lab access. Some courses have individual lab launch limits, which means each lab activity has a fixed number of times you can launch it. For example, you might be able to launch Lab activity 1 three times, Lab activity 2 five times, and Lab activity 3 as many times as you want. Some courses have a single limit for all labs, which means you have a total number of lab launches for the whole course. For example, if the course limit is six, you can launch any lab six times or mix and match the labs to add up to six launches. The lab launch count only starts after you select the Launch button and wait for 60 seconds. If you cancel the lab before that, it won’t affect your launch count. If you save a lab and open it again, it won’t affect your launch count either. Only starting a new lab will use up one of your launches. You can see how many launches you have left for each lab below the Launch button. If there is no limit, it will say Unlimited launch attempts. If there is a limit, it will say X of X launch attempts remaining. When the maximum lab launches are met for either a lab activity or all lab activities in the course, the Launch button disappears and a message of **Attempt Limit Reached** displays in the affected lab activity. When the limit is reached, if the Launch button remains and is clicked a message of **You have reached the maximum allowed attempts for this activity** displays. Launches that are unused during the class may be used during any post-class lab access set for the class. ## Disabled and Assigned Labs Some courses let instructors choose which students can do which labs. Only those students will see the labs they can do in their activities. Instructors can also turn off labs, so you can’t do them. You will still see the lab activity, but it will be gray and there will be no launch button. *On some courses, instructor's have the ability to disable lab access, when a lab is disabled by an instructor the activity still displays, but is grayed out and has a message****Disabled by instructor****.* ## Reference Materials [Managing Labs in TMS](/v1/docs/managing-labs-in-tms): explains how to use Skillable TMS labs and their features. A glossary is a collection of words pertaining to a specific topic. In your articles or dissertation, it’s a list of all terms you used that may not immediately be obvious to your reader. Your glossary only needs to include terms that your reader may not be familiar with, and it’s intended to enhance their understanding of your work. Glossaries are not mandatory, but if you use a lot of technical or field-specific terms, it may improve readability to add one. Bundles together content to then be set up for training through classes, subscriptions, and course assignments. Courses can include labs, videos, SCORM, LTI, external links, assessments, and documents. Courses must be assigned to a Content Provider and a Publishing Group to be available to set up for training. Skillable's Training Management System. A learning management system designed to streamline the delivery, tracking, and reporting of your training programs. A class is a scheduled instructor-led event with a start and end time/date. Typically, these include lectures and hands on activities such as labs. A course assignment delivers self-paced access to a course. A course is assigned to a student giving immediate access to the student. It can be accessed at any time for the duration of the assignment. The assignment duration begins and is billed when it is created. An organization is assigned to each entity in the TMS, such as, users, classes, subscriptions, and courses. The organization is a basis to determine access given based on roles within the organization and management over the organization. Self-Paced or On-demand training is associated with course assignments or subscriptions. Users are assigned training which can be accessed at any time by the learner at their leisure. Outside guidance or mentorship is often not provided with this type of training. An enrollment is the student registration for a class. Enrollments have multiple statuses, but only the Enrollment Status of Enrolled gives a student access to class. Within the enrollment the student will access the labs and activities and if set up digital courseware and virtual classroom for their class. Activities are configured in the instructions editor and represented in the lab instructions by a replacement token. Activities fall into two broad categories: Questions and Automated. - Questions are multiple choice or short answer questions. - Automated Activities interact with the lab environment (Virtual Machine/Container/Cloud Platform). The expected amount of time it will take a user to complete the lab. After setting the duration, the maximum duration of the lab will be set to 150% of the duration. Materials are physical or digital content needed for a teach a course, most often but not limited to a course manual. Materials needed for upcoming classes can be tracked and reported for ordering.