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Marking an eLearning course unavailable vs unpublished

jckemv
Helper I
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I’m keen for an eLearning course to remain visible in its catalogues, but the enrol button to be greyed out so learners can find the course for the time I have the setting applied it is unavailable. Ideally I would like a custom message to be displayed.

So the only option I can find that keeps the course visible (not locked and can be opened), but the enrol button is greyed out, is to set the Maximum Course Enrolments to 1, enrol myself, and now it is greyed out but visible. Only problem, is a message in a red box above says “Not available for enrolment, the course is fully booked”.

I assume there is no other way to achieve what I am seeking? Would be nice to have an option to make a course unavailable to enrol, but not lock it, not unpublish it, not allow enrolments, ideally a little custom message would be nice too.

 

 

    3 replies

    Ian
    Helper III
    • Ian
    • Helper III
    • October 27, 2026

    You can use Localization and CSS* to improve your current workaround. For example, with Localization you can change the text of the red message from “The course is fully booked” to your own message. You can then use CSS to adjust the display of the message and the button below (via e.g. a next-sibling selector).

    Of course, with this approach, if a course is actually fully booked, learners would see your custom message instead of the real status.

    To avoid this, another option is to use the “Pending administrator approval” setting instead. This works only if you do not need moderated self-enrollment for other courses.

    • Enable “Pending administrator approval”. The course thumbnail then shows a “Moderated” tag, and an alert appears above the enroll button.
    • Use Localization to change the text of the tag and the alert. For example, change “Moderated” to “Unavailable”.
    • Use CSS to hide the enroll button when the alert is showing. If a next-sibling selector doesn’t work, the :has() pseudo-class might help.

    * CSS does not work in the mobile app. I’m not sure if that matters for you or not.

      Helper II
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      A question: Is it that you don’t want it available until a specific date? If that’s the case, you can use the Course Validity Period and put in a future date. If there isn’t a specific date that they need to see, you can also have settings under Catalog Options to “Self Enrollments are available during a specific time period”.

      To add onto Ian’s response (which is great)…

      We have used the localization to modify the language around our enrollment requests because we do require manager approval. This is what ours looks like.
       

       

      And once they request:

       

      And if they ARE a manager, the 2nd step gets skipped and the button to start the course appears.

      I hope some of this helps!

        Novice III
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        • VRathje
        • Novice III
        • October 27, 2026

        Is this for an ILT course? We use a course shell in our learning catalogues that is always visible, but don’t add any sessions/events until we are ready to accept enrollments. We do have a message included in the course description advising of when the next available sessions are expected to be (specific dates). You can also send a customized notification upon course enrollment. Once we add a session to the course, there is a customized notification that goes out to all enrolled users, which gives them an opportunity to enroll in the specific session. You could include a link in this notification for people to click and automatically enroll in the session, so they don’t have to log into the LMS.  We have also sometimes used automatic waitlisting for enrolled users who need to be approved for enrollment by an instructor for a specific session.

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