When do you choose a catalog vs a channel?

ktbadham
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We are relatively new docebo customers are my organization and we have so far set up lots of catalogs. We are beginning a rollout process for the discover, coach, & share features, and we keep coming across a question that we can’t seem to solve.

How do you choose when you should use a catalog vs a channel?

Channels seem to be just like catalogs except with additional features. Are channels always better? The thought process you would go through to decide is unclear to me, so I’m coming to you. How do you decide if a topic or group of trainings is a catalog or a channel?

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lrodman
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They are slightly different. 
 

In fact it is usually useful to use both. For example, you might have a leadership catalog and a non-leadership catalog feed into an IT or HR channel, thus determining who can see what. 
 

Also, if you want to display learning plans to users for self enrollment, you can ONLY do that with a catalog, which is quite annoying. 

lrnlab
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Another gap in channels is that you cannot add courses that are for sale or require approval to enrol...also annoying…

Catalogues are the better receptacle in my view since users need to be granted access to a course in order to view it on a channel so you need to place the courses in a catalogue they have access to; unless you add all courses to 1 catalogue behind the scenes that everyone has access and only use Channels to display your courses...you should definitely test a few combinations.

Agree that using both is the best solution.

lrodman
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Another gap in channels is that you cannot add courses that are for sale or require approval to enrol...also annoying…

Catalogues are the better receptacle in my view since users need to be granted access to a course in order to view it on a channel so you need to place the courses in a catalogue they have access to; unless you add all courses to 1 catalogue behind the scenes that everyone has access and only use Channels to display your courses...you should definitely test a few combinations.

Agree that using both is the best solution.

You can put courses for sale in a channel. At least I do. The system doesn’t show any sort of price though on channels widgets which is dumb and results in lots of questions. 

lrnlab
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@lrodman agree...needs more work for sure. Ours require approval so those don't work...

 

https://help.docebo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020124219-Creating-and-Managing-Channels#subtitle-6

S
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We don’t use Discover, Coach & Share, or sell courses, so I’m not sure if this is helpful. But we basically:

  • Use catalogues to display content users can self-enroll into
  • Use channels as a way to “tag” content into topics

For us, catalogues = a way to discover content. Only a handful of our courses get added to a catalogue. Once a user is given permission to view the catalogue, they can view all courses inside it and pick content to self-enroll themselves into.

Channels = a way to view assigned training by topic [like, “Health and Safety”, or “Procedure Reviews”]. Most of our courses get added to one or more channels. When a user views a channel, they’ll only see courses they’re already enrolled into. (So if my channel has 50 courses in it, and a user who is viewing that channel is only enrolled into 5 of those courses, they’ll only see those 5.)

 

lrodman
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We don’t use Discover, Coach & Share, or sell courses, so I’m not sure if this is helpful. But we basically:

  • Use catalogues to display content users can self-enroll into
  • Use channels as a way to “tag” content into topics

For us, catalogues = a way to discover content. Only a handful of our courses get added to a catalogue. Once a user is given permission to view the catalogue, they can view all courses inside it and pick content to self-enroll themselves into.

Channels = a way to view assigned training by topic [like, “Health and Safety”, or “Procedure Reviews”]. Most of our courses get added to one or more channels. When a user views a channel, they’ll only see courses they’re already enrolled into. (So if my channel has 50 courses in it, and a user who is viewing that channel is only enrolled into 5 of those courses, they’ll only see those 5.)

 

When do you use multiple channels per course? This is rare for us. 
 

We also use the option to show courses in channels that a user can self enroll in. 

S
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When do you use multiple channels per course? This is rare for us. 

Rarely, to keep things simple. But because we use broad channel names, some courses can fit into multiple channels.

As an example, say you have content called ‘Beginner’s Guide to Coding: CSS’. You could decide to add it into two different channels: “Beginner Coding Guides”, and “CSS”.

Lots of ways to organize content!

I
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When we first started using Docebo, courses were not visible in channels unless a user was manually enrolled in the course. That’s no longer the case. Still, courses are not visible in channels unless they are also in a catalog AND a user has visibility into that catalog. This can get cumbersome.

 

We took this approach to keep things simple:

  • Catalogs = formal content (e.g., courses created in the course management area)
  • Channels = informal content (e.g., links to external sites/resources)


Want formal excel training? Want to have graded assessments? Want to report on those assessments? Create a course and put it in a catalog.

Want to share a quick excel tip on youtube? Don’t care about assessments or reporting? Share it in a channel.

As others have suggested, there’s many different approaches to take and sometimes it’s difficult to know which is right. Well, there are many “right” approaches. Try to find the right approach for your team and stick to it. Be consistent. 

A

When we first started using Docebo, courses were not visible in channels unless a user was manually enrolled in the course. That’s no longer the case. Still, courses are not visible in channels unless they are also in a catalog AND a user has visibility into that catalog. This can get cumbersome.

 

We took this approach to keep things simple:

  • Catalogs = formal content (e.g., courses created in the course management area)
  • Channels = informal content (e.g., links to external sites/resources)


Want formal excel training? Want to have graded assessments? Want to report on those assessments? Create a course and put it in a catalog.

Want to share a quick excel tip on youtube? Don’t care about assessments or reporting? Share it in a channel.

As others have suggested, there’s many different approaches to take and sometimes it’s difficult to know which is right. Well, there are many “right” approaches. Try to find the right approach for your team and stick to it. Be consistent. 

@IanMonk Thank you, this tip makes it much easier to organize.

R
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Channels

Catalogs

e-commerce

No

Yes

Public (without login)

No

Yes

New interface

Yes

No

Formal Learning

Yes

Yes

Informal Learning

Yes

No

Experts

Yes

No

AI

Yes

No
Jihane
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@beguem FYI! 

Ji.

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