Course Management

This guide explains how to create, edit, and structure courses in EmbayLMS as an Admin or Owner. Instructors can edit the content of their assigned courses, but cannot create, publish, archive, or delete courses.

Prerequisites

• Role: Admin or Owner (course creation and lifecycle). Instructors can edit content of the courses they are assigned to.
• Tenant must be provisioned and active

Create a course

1. In the left sidebar, navigate to Courses.
2. Click New Course.
3. Fill in the fields (only the title is required):

4. Click Create Course. The course is created as a Draft (not visible to learners until it is published) and you are taken to the course editor.

Skills are attached after creation, from the course editor’s Settings tab (Skills mapping).

Tip: If you have a folder selected in the tree (left of the course list) when you click New Course, the new course is created in that folder.

Categories vs. folders — two different things

These are distinct and serve different purposes:

A course can have a category and sit in a folder — they’re independent.

Organize courses into folders

The Courses page has a unified folder tree on the left showing your folders and the courses filed in them. Folders can be nested as deeply as you like.

• All courses — clears the filter and shows every course.
• A folder — filters the list to courses filed in that folder and its subfolders.
• Unfiled — courses that are in no folder.

Each folder shows a course count. Use the ▸ chevrons to expand or collapse a branch.

Reorganize by drag-and-drop

Click Organize (top of the tree) to enter edit mode, then:

• Create a folder — click New folder (root level) or the + that appears when you hover a folder (sub-folder). Folders are named “New folder” — double-click to rename.
• Re-nest a folder — drag it onto another folder to make it a child, or drag it out to the root to make it top-level again. Re-parenting works in any direction. A folder can never be dropped into one of its own sub-folders.
• Move a course — drag a course onto a folder to file it there, or out to the root to unfile it. Every row also has a Move to… button that does the same without dragging. You can also set the folder from the course editor’s Details tab.
• Delete a folder — click the trash icon. Its sub-folders move up to the parent and its courses become Unfiled — nothing is lost.

Click Done to leave edit mode. Every change is saved immediately and audit-logged.

The course list table shows each course’s Category, read-only; the folder is not a column. File courses through the tree (or the Details tab), and set the category in the course editor.

Edit course details

The course editor is organized into tabs. Each person sees the tabs their role allows:

• Details: Title, descriptions, category, folder, thumbnail, duration and base language.
• Modules: Add, order, and configure the course’s content modules (see below).
• Enrollments: Who is enrolled, enrollment rules and the groups the course is assigned to.
• Pricing: The course price, when you sell courses (Owners and E-commerce Admins).
• Instructors: Assign the course’s teaching staff (see below).
• Versions: Every published version of the course; restore an older one as a new draft.
• Settings: Course info, the Skills mapping link, catalog visibility and schedule, enrollment, certificate, discussions, ratings, version changes, prerequisites, languages and the post-course survey.

On the Details tab, click Save changes after editing.

A published course opens read-only, so nobody changes the live course by accident. Click Start new version to create an editable draft; learners continue on the published version until you click Publish new version. Discard draft throws the draft away and returns to the published version.

Instructors tab (LMS-668)

The Instructors tab manages the course’s teaching staff — the assignments that give a user with the Instructor role access to this course. To add one, type at least two letters of their name or email in Add an instructor, pick them from the list (arrow keys and Enter work too), then click Add. To remove one, click Remove on their row. The list offers only people who already hold the Instructor role, and leaves out anyone already assigned to this course; if someone you expect is missing, give them the Instructor role first. Assigned instructors can edit the course’s content and attachments, schedule and run its ILT/VILT sessions, grade, and see analytics for it — but cannot publish, archive, or delete the course. The tab is visible to Admins and Owners (user:assign_role); every assignment change is audit-logged. See Roles and Permissions for the full Instructor permission set.

Prerequisites (require other courses or paths first)

On the Settings tab, the Prerequisites card lists the courses and/or learning paths a learner must complete before enrolling in this course. It is a course-level setting, editable on a published course without a new version. See Prerequisites.

Course thumbnail

The thumbnail is the image shown as the background of the course card everywhere the course appears — the catalog, the learner Home, and search results. When no thumbnail is set, the card uses your brand gradient.

1. Open the course editor (Details tab).
2. In the Thumbnail field, click Upload (or Replace if one is already set).
3. Choose an image. Wide images (16:9) look best on the card.
4. Click Save changes to apply.

To revert to the brand gradient, click Remove, then Save changes.

Thumbnails are stored encrypted (SSE-KMS) and served via CloudFront. A replaced image gets a fresh URL, so learners always see the latest version immediately.

Manage modules

Modules are the content units inside a course (videos, documents, SCORM packages, quizzes, etc.).

Add a module

1. On the course editor, click the Modules tab.
2. Click Add Module.
3. Enter the module title and choose a module type:

4. For Web Page (iframe) and YouTube / Vimeo, enter the URL.
5. Click Add Module. The module appears in the list.
6. For file-based types, click Upload on the module’s row and select the file from your computer (maximum 500 MB). The file shows a malware-scan badge (Clean, Not scanned, Scanning… or Infected); a file flagged Infected is never served to learners.
7. To add a description or change the completion options below, click Edit on the row, then Save.

Add captions to a video (LMS-1160)

Captions let people follow a video without sound, and WCAG 2.2 AA requires them on prerecorded video. You add them as a WebVTT (.vtt) file, one per language.

1. Find the video module and click Captions under its file.
2. Choose the Language, select the .vtt file under Caption file, and click Upload captions.
3. Repeat for each language. A file for a language that already has captions replaces them.

Learners get a captions button (often shown as CC) in the video player. Captions start off; when a learner turns a language on or off, the choice is remembered for their next videos. If a language version of the course has its own video, add that video’s captions from the language’s tab, in the same way.

What is kept: the timing, position and text of each caption. Notes and styling inside the file are removed. You can add or replace captions on a published course without creating a new draft.

Office documents display inline

PDFs have always displayed directly in the player. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files are converted to a PDF preview automatically shortly after upload, so learners read them inside the course instead of having to download them.

• After you upload an Office file, its module shows a Preparing preview… badge. Conversion usually finishes within a minute or two; the badge changes to Inline preview when the module is ready to display inline.
• The preview is a faithful PDF snapshot of your file. Very complex slide effects (3D, animations, embedded video) do not carry into a PDF — check the preview after upload if your deck relies on them.
• Learners who download the module (when downloads are allowed — see the download control below) always receive your original file, not the preview.
• If a file cannot be converted, the badge reads Preview unavailable — download only and the module behaves exactly as before: learners download the file to read it. Nothing breaks — but consider re-saving and re-uploading the file if you expected an inline preview.

How modules complete (and what completes the course)

A course completes — and issues its certificate — only when the learner finishes every required module. Each module type completes its own way:

Clear a module’s Required to complete the course checkbox to make it optional — optional modules don’t gate completion. Course progress on the learner’s Home is the percentage of required modules completed.

Self-completion — for a passive module (video, audio, document, web page, YouTube / Vimeo, HTML lesson or archive) you can turn on Let learners mark complete so a learner can check it off manually. This is off by default.

Requiring a passing result (SCORM and AICC modules) — by default a package that reports completed ticks the module even when its own assessment reports failed, because SCORM treats completion (the learner went through it) and success (they passed) as separate signals. Tick Require a passing result to complete this module on a module whose result matters — a certification test, a compliance course — and only a passed result completes it: SCORM 1.2 lesson_status = passed, SCORM 2004 success_status = passed, AICC passed (a mastery score in the package is still honoured). A failed result, or a package that closes without reporting any status, leaves the module open and the learner can launch it again. Off by default, so existing courses keep their current behaviour until you opt in.

ILT series attendance rule — an ILT / VILT series module has a Completes when setting:

The rule applies however attendance is recorded — the roster, the QR check-in, or the Zoom join/leave automation. Once a module has completed it stays completed; changing a learner to absent afterwards does not take the credit back.

Control whether learners can download a file (LMS-194)

Video, audio and document modules carry a Let learners download this file checkbox in the module editor. It is on by default, so nothing changes for existing courses.

Turn it off on a module whose file should be read in the platform but not taken away — a licensed handbook, a document under an NDA, an exam paper.

Viewing is never affected. Turning download off does not hide the module, does not stop it playing, and does not change how it completes. It withholds the file, not the lesson.

The control appears only on video, audio and document modules. An iFrame or YouTube module points at a file on someone else’s server, and a SCORM package is an extracted runtime rather than a document — in neither case is there a file we could withhold, so offering the checkbox would promise a restriction we do not enforce. A Downloadable Archive module doesn’t offer the checkbox either, for the opposite reason: downloading is the module’s entire purpose, so the setting is permanently on and the editor says so in place of the checkbox.

How it is enforced. The Download button is only an affordance. The server mints a short-lived (15-minute) signed link on each click and refuses outright when the module’s download is off, when the caller is not enrolled in the course, or when the file was flagged by the malware scan (once malware scanning is switched on for your platform, also until the file has been scanned). There is no long-lived URL sitting in the page for someone to copy.

This is a policy control, not DRM. A learner who can view a document can still screenshot it, print it, or pull it out of the browser’s developer tools. Use this to set an expectation and to keep files out of casual circulation — not as a technical guarantee for material that would genuinely harm you if it leaked.

Reorder modules

Use the ▲ / ▼ arrows beside each module row to change the order. The order is saved immediately.

Edit or delete a module

• Click Edit on the row to change the title, description, type, URL or completion options, then click Save.
• Click Delete and confirm to remove the module and its files from the version you are editing. Learners’ completion records are not touched: they belong to the published version, which keeps its own copy of every module until you publish the new one.

Publish a course

1. Open the course editor.
2. Verify that all modules are in the correct order and all required fields are filled.
3. Click Publish in the top-right corner.
4. The course status changes to Published and becomes visible in the learner catalog.

Note: A published course cannot be edited in place. Click Start new version to create a Draft version, make your changes, then click Publish new version when ready. The Versions tab lists every published version.

Free plan course limit: the Free plan includes 3 active (published) courses. Publishing a 4th is blocked with an upgrade prompt — archive a published course to free a slot (an archived course cannot be re-published from the admin console today), or upgrade to any paid plan for unlimited courses. Courses that are already published are never affected retroactively.

Preview a course as a learner (LMS-942)

Preview opens the real player against the real content, with no enrolment and no record. Use it to check what learners will actually meet before you publish a change, or to answer “what does this look like for them?” without joining your own course.

Two ways in:

1. On the Courses list, the Preview action on any course row. This previews the course’s base language.
2. In the course editor’s Modules tab, Preview at the end of the language tab strip. This previews the language whose tab is selected, which is how you check a translation.

What preview does not do — this is the whole point:

• No progress, module completion, quiz attempt, SCORM attempt or CMI data is written. Neither is a cmi5 or AICC session, an xAPI statement, or a survey response.
• No completion means no certificate, no auto-enrolment rule firing, no learning path advancing, no notification email and no webhook.
• Nothing changes for you either, even if you are enrolled in the course yourself. Preview never reads your enrolment, so it cannot write to it.

Because nothing is written, previewing never appears in any report. Click Exit preview to return.

Availability:

• You need course edit permission. Read access is not enough — every learner has that.
• Instructors assigned to specific courses can preview those courses only.
• On the course editor, Preview is offered on a published course with no draft version open. While a draft exists, the editor is not showing what learners are being served, so previewing it would mislead.

Language previews honour the same fallback learners get: a module with no content in the selected language shows the base language’s content. A language that is incomplete, paused, or not yet offered can still be previewed — that is what you preview it for.

Downloads work normally in preview, including for archive modules, but the download does not mark the module complete the way it does for a learner.

Schedule publish / unpublish (LMS-200)

Instead of publishing by hand, you can schedule it:

1. In the course editor, open the Settings tab. In the Catalog Settings card, under Scheduled Publish, set Publish at and/or Unpublish at.
2. Click Save Schedule.

The schedule fields appear while the course is editable: a draft course, or a published course after Start new version.

A background job checks hourly and acts automatically:

• At the publish at time, a draft course is published (its latest draft version is published and active enrollments migrate to it — exactly like a manual Publish), and the schedule is cleared.
• At the unpublish at time, a published course is archived (removed from the catalog; completions preserved), and the schedule is cleared.

Because the sweep runs hourly, a course goes live within an hour of its scheduled time. An Archived course is never auto-published. Each automatic change is recorded in the audit log (actor: system).

Archive a course

• Archive (on a published course): hides the course from the catalog. Existing completions are preserved.

Note: an archived course cannot be re-published from the admin console today. It shows a Re-publish button, but publishing from the console refuses an archived course and the console has no restore action, so the course stays archived. Archive only a course you are finished with. (An integration with an admin-scope API key can still re-publish it with PATCH /api/v1/courses/{id} and status: published; see the Courses API reference.)

There is no separate “unpublish to draft” action: to take a published course out of the catalog, archive it. The app has no delete action for courses.

Moderate course discussions (LMS-473)

Every course has a discussion area (the Course discussions card on the course page) where enrolled learners can start threads and reply (one level of nesting). Instructors and Admins/Owners moderate it — Instructors on their assigned courses only.

Moderation actions (require the course-edit permission, course:update):

Notes:

• Learners can always edit/delete their own posts (unless the thread is locked); moderators can delete any post or thread.
• All moderation actions (lock, unlock, delete) are written to the tenant audit log with the acting user, so moderation is traceable.
• Learners must hold an active or completed enrollment in the course to post; anyone who can see the course can read.
• Deletions are soft: content is hidden, not destroyed, and remains available for audit/compliance purposes.

Learner-facing instructions: see the KB article Course Discussions.

Turn discussions on or off for a course (LMS-758)

Discussions are on by default for every course — existing courses and every new course. If a course should not have a forum (a compliance module, a silent-completion course, a course you moderate elsewhere), turn them off for that course only.

Steps:

1. Go to Courses and open the course.
2. Open the Settings tab. The Discussions card is shown while the course is editable — on a published course, click Start new version first.
3. In the Discussions card, switch Enable discussions for this course off.
4. The change saves immediately and is recorded in the audit log. It applies to the course itself, not to the draft version, so learners are affected right away.

Switch it back on the same way.

Configuration reference:

What happens to existing discussions

Nothing is deleted. Turning discussions off is a visibility and participation gate only:

• Every existing thread and reply is kept exactly as it is — no soft-delete, no edit, no change of any kind to the discussion data.
• Turning discussions back on restores the forum verbatim, including locked threads and their lock state.

Who can still see discussions while they are off

This is deliberate: it lets an instructor clean up or archive a forum after turning it off, without leaving learners a way in. Enforcement is server-side, so hiding the button is not what stops a learner — the API refuses the request.

Permission required: course:update (Instructors are limited to their assigned courses). Every flip is written to the audit log with the before/after value.

Learner ratings (LMS-874)

Learners can rate a course 1–5 stars with an optional comment. The Ratings card in the Settings tab turns ratings on or off for the course (on by default), shows every rating with its comment, and lets you remove an abusive one. Full guide: Course Ratings.

Troubleshooting

Need help? Contact your EmbayLMS onboarding team or open a support ticket.