Seeking guidance on courses - moving from LearnDash to FC Courses and looking for best practices
FC Courses are definitely different than LearnDash courses in how they're architected. Currently in LearnDash we have Courses, Lessons, and Topics. Not much different than Courses, Sections, and Lessons, but enough difference that it's causing me a bit of confusion and I'm looking for some input on how you'd configure it.
Our environment is, for lack of a better description, multiple "learning domains". Each domain has courses, topics, and lessons under it. We're controlling the "Learning Domains" with BuddyBoss groups. On an Elementor Pro page you choose which learning domain you want and that is tied to a BuddyBoss Group and then LearnDash courses are associated with that group.
When I create a new Spaces Group in FC it asks me if this is a discussion group, a course group, or a link group. This is where my confusion is because within this group will be multiple distinct courses and I also want discussions attached to this learning domain (FC space group). If I choose Discussion I don't see a way to add courses. If I choose Course it directs me to add a course and I will need multiple courses under this group, not just one.
Is there a better way to architect this that I'm missing or is this a limitation of FC courses and groups I cannot get around?
Go to FC settings, click space group, create a new group as you can see below, give it a title, example "Web Dev"
Click the + icon and you'll see, create discussion space, course and links.
Now your space and course will live in that menu group.
Just like the image below, the image below only shows courses because that's how I want mine, but yours will show course, spaces and if you want links too in that menu.
WiLson Eberechi You, sir, are a rockstar. I appreciate it.
WiLson Eberechi Maybe I'm missing something or didn't explain myself correctly. I create a space group, add discussions, add courses, and then when I go to 'Spaces' from the top nav I end up in a discussion group only with no courses. It does list the courses in the left hand vertical nav, but it lists all of the courses for all groups there all the time, regardless of what page you're on. I need just the courses associated with this group to show up only when this group is selected, and just the courses associated with other groups to show up only when another group is selected (members will belong to multiple groups).
I was expecting the left hand nav to be something associated to the user like just their courses, their messages, their followers, etc. I don't see a way in the admin to configure that.
Erik Boles I don't understand what you wrote. Kindly rewrite so I can understand
WiLson Eberechi Sorry, lemme start from the top.
When a user lands on Portal they get their standard feed, which is the discussion forum. Because our courses are inside of different domains they won't have the standard "courses" link at the top of the page because that lists all courses regardless of learning domain, instead they'll have a link that takes them to a custom gutenberg page listing all of the learning domains they can choose from.
When they click on a specific domain they should go to a page with just the courses and discussion associated with that learning domain. I thought by creating spaces groups I could link to that group and it would show both the discussion for that domain and the associated courses, but it doesn't, it only shows the discussion. All of the groups and associated courses show up in the left hand "Feed" nav, that is persistent across the site, also not what we want.
Do I need to build another custom gutenberg page for each learning domain that lists only those courses and the discussion or is there a native way to accomplish this? I'm happy to do create custom pages, but am concerned about the mobile render for all of that and the Fluent Mobile App presentation.
Erik Boles let .e get this straight; your courses lives in different domain websites? Like course A - courseA.com, course B - courseB.com.
Is that what you mean?
WiLson Eberechi Sorry, no. Let me lay it out in hierarchy:
A "Learning Domain" isn't an actual TLD or subdomain, but a "knowledge domain", in which there are multiple courses. So let's say you could learn the following things: WebDev, DevOps, Cybersecurity. Those are the three "Learning Domains" within FluentCommunity. Each "learning domain" would have multiple courses under it. So...
-WebDev
--webDev Discussion
--Course A
---Lesson 1
---Lesson 2
---Lesson 3
--Course B
---Lesson 1
---Lesson 2
---Lesson 3
-DevOps
--DevOps Discussion
--Course A
---Lesson 1
---Lesson 2
---Lesson 3
--Course B
---Lesson 1
---Lesson 2
---Lesson 3
-CyberSecurity
--CyberSecurity Discussion
--Course A
---Lesson 1
---Lesson 2
---Lesson 3
--Course B
---Lesson 1
---Lesson 2
---Lesson 3
Each "Learning Domain" within FC should be compartmentalized. When someone goes to the 'WebDev' Learning/Knowledge domain they should only see the courses and discussions associated with that learning/knowledge domain. Same for the DevOps domain, same for the CyberSecurity Domain.
This isn't solved by Spaces Groups. Spaces Groups seems to have no impact on the front end other than grouping courses under that group and displaying all of them in the left-hand nav, which isn't what we want.
Erik Boles send me a sample of what you're talking about in my DM.
Erik Boles What do you imagine happening to the rest of the community when a user/member goes into the WebDev learning domain, as an example? What about members have access to multiple domains? In your ideal UI, if I'm a member of both WebDev and DevOps would I continue to see both in the left sidebar?
Erik Boles In essence, are you looking for an access solution or a visibility solution? Because they are difference setup paths in Fluent Community, if I'm following your plan correctly.
Charlotte Hi Charlotte. All members will be a member of all learning domains (you could consider those groups if you're using LearnDash terms). When they go into one learning domain they should only see the courses and discussion inside that domain. I think I've already solved this, however, and unfortunately. This simply isn't a capability of FC, I have to create separate custom landing pages within FC for every learning domain, and include just those courses there.
Erik Boles I'm learning here, too. Based on what I know now, I think that's the path. Hiding groups and spaces seems easy enough before a person is a member. But once granted access, that left sidebar access is pretty set.
To be fair, though, I think that might be beneficial for the members. For myself, what I have access to is the kind of thing I wouldn't devote long-term mental storage space for. So having the visual reminder in my dashboard reminds me to check in there.
But that's me. And certainly may be outside the scope of how you design your community - as you've clearly given it great thought.
Charlotte Unfortunately we have 16 knowledge domains, almost 100 courses, and 300+ lessons. Once you populate all of that the left sidebar is useless cluster.
Erik Boles Yup, I'm staring at my demo site rn pondering that exact scenario, albeit with much smaller numbers.
I'm also a member of FluentCommunityAddons - and I believe this issue has also been discussed there. My memory fails after that - I'll need to do some searches. If you're not already over there, it sounds like you have just the kind of setup that Ross knows well and is/can build for. I encourage you to join us there as well.
Charlotte Thank you, joining now.
Erik Boles sounds like you want conditional visibility of sidebar items. That seems like something Ross FCA might already offer in FC Add-Ons or something you could create as a snippet or plugin using Claude Code with a short 30-minute chat. Does that seem like a viable option?
Kaneisha G. great minds think alike, haha. The discussion is already underway over in the FCA community.