We’ve struggled with similar issues. What we’ve started doing on some courses is to put them in a catalog to set visibility on them, but then also add them to a channel - then we use a channel widget to display them on a page. The benefit you get from a channel widget, as opposed to a catalog widget, is that it will show the completion status of the courses directly on the course thumbnails, so it’s easy to get a quick visual of which ones you have completed, started, or not started. Both channel widgets and catalog widgets have their pros and cons and I really wish there was a way to combine some of the features so you can get the best of both, but so far we’ve found that having the completion status display directly on the course thumbnails has made it worth the effort to create channels for courses when we want to display them on a page.
@dorahealey Hi, Dora … Have you looked at the Task widget? You can display the incomplete items, essentially filtering out the completed courses.
We’ve struggled with similar issues. What we’ve started doing on some courses is to put them in a catalog to set visibility on them, but then also add them to a channel - then we use a channel widget to display them on a page. The benefit you get from a channel widget, as opposed to a catalog widget, is that it will show the completion status of the courses directly on the course thumbnails, so it’s easy to get a quick visual of which ones you have completed, started, or not started. Both channel widgets and catalog widgets have their pros and cons and I really wish there was a way to combine some of the features so you can get the best of both, but so far we’ve found that having the completion status display directly on the course thumbnails has made it worth the effort to create channels for courses when we want to display them on a page.
This sounds like a good workaround! Thank you I will try that .
@dorahealey Hi, Dora … Have you looked at the Task widget? You can display the incomplete items, essentially filtering out the completed courses.
yes I have, thank you! However wanted a more visual indication, if possible.
We’ve struggled with similar issues. What we’ve started doing on some courses is to put them in a catalog to set visibility on them, but then also add them to a channel - then we use a channel widget to display them on a page. The benefit you get from a channel widget, as opposed to a catalog widget, is that it will show the completion status of the courses directly on the course thumbnails, so it’s easy to get a quick visual of which ones you have completed, started, or not started. Both channel widgets and catalog widgets have their pros and cons and I really wish there was a way to combine some of the features so you can get the best of both, but so far we’ve found that having the completion status display directly on the course thumbnails has made it worth the effort to create channels for courses when we want to display them on a page.
Hi @sjennings78 … just to confirm that I understand your approach, and get your thoughts on the approach for my audience.
You use catalogs to set permissions, but use channels for “customer experience”, right? Does using channels help with situations where you might need a user to have a ‘blend’ of courses in multiple catalogs? For example, I support surgeons, and they come to my site to learn about new “equipment” and procedures for their surgeries. The manufacturer of the equipment can only have visibility to THEIR equipment, but surgeons need visibility into ALL equipment (for their specialty and/or sub-set of their specialty). I could use a catalog to collect courses by manufacturer (and use the catalog on their dashboards), and assign the specialty/sub-specialty group of surgeons (to grant them visibility as well), but use channels to collect all manufacturers and display on the surgeon’s dashboards. I could use a 2nd channel if the specialty had a sub-specialty to focus the learner even more.
… and get the benefits of the status on the course cards as well, AND the horizontal display of the widget on the dashboard. I’ve used the Task widget in the past, and I think that it’s vertical presentation would make a mess of the dashboards in this case.
@KMallette - correct. We use the catalogs to set visibility permissions and then use channels to provide more tailored listings of courses. Our catalogs are set up based on Audiences, so courses typically are only added to one catalog - but we may add them to multiple channels based on how we want them to be displayed on pages (using catalog widgets) and/or to allow for browsing through smaller groups of courses.
For example, we may have a catalog called “Software Platform ABC” and then we may have channels like:
- Getting Started with ABC
- ABC for Admins
- ABC for Support Reps
- Required Annual Training for ABC
You can also add courses from different catalogs to the same channel and if the user meets the visibility requirements for one catalog but not the other, they will only see the courses from the catalog that they can “see” and the other courses will not show up in the channel for them.
