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Course Status and Visibility

TL;DR; Every course has a status: Draft (in progress, invisible to learners), Published (live and takeable), or Archived (frozen and read-only). You edit in Draft, flip to Published when you're ready, and archive when the course is no longer current.

Course status is how Lupo manages the difference between "I'm still building this" and "learners can take it now." It's also the answer to "how do I take a course offline without losing the data?"

The three statuses

Draft is the starting state. When you create a course, it's a Draft. Draft courses:

  • Are invisible to learners by default. A person enrolled in a Draft course won't see it in their My Courses list.
  • Can be edited freely — add sections, rename things, reorder activities, delete anything.
  • Don't appear in reports or learner-facing searches.
  • Are visible to anyone with edit rights on the course so they can work on it.

Published is the live state. A Published course:

  • Is visible to enrolled learners. They'll see it in My Courses and can start taking it.
  • Can still be edited, but you should be careful — editing a Published course that learners are working through can affect their progress.
  • Appears in reports. Once learners start progressing, their activity feeds into the course's analytics.
  • Is the state most courses should be in most of the time.

Archived is the "this course is done" state. An Archived course:

  • Is read-only. Existing enrollments remain intact for the historical record, but no new enrollments can be added.
  • Is hidden from learners by default (though their progress is preserved in reports).
  • Cannot be edited. If you need to change anything, un-archive it first.
  • Is how you retire outdated content without losing the training record.

Changing the status

Status is changed by an administrator. On the Settings tab of a course, click Edit Course to open the edit form. You'll see the Status and Visibility fields, but they are read-only for Instructors — the form shows "Contact an administrator to change the course status." Only platform administrators can actually update these values.

If you're an Instructor and need to publish or archive a course, reach out to your administrator.

Before you publish, it's worth pausing on a few things:

  • Make sure every section has at least one activity.
  • Make sure the activities actually play/load. Click through them from a learner-view perspective.
  • Make sure the course description and cover image are filled in — these are the first things a learner sees.

Course details page showing the status selector

The Draft → Published workflow

The cleanest workflow is:

  1. Create the course in Draft. Add sections, activities, and all your content.
  2. Preview it yourself. Click through every activity as if you were the learner.
  3. Enroll a test person (yourself or a trusted colleague on your team). Ask them to walk through the course and report what's confusing.
  4. Iterate until the feedback is minor.
  5. Publish when you're confident.

Don't skip step 3. Your eyes are too close to the material. A fresh person catches things you won't.

Editing a Published course

You can edit a Published course. That's intentional — typos and small fixes shouldn't require un-publishing. But there are some edits that can cause weird effects on learners mid-course:

  • Deleting an activity a learner already completed. Their completion record for that activity disappears. Avoid.
  • Renaming activities they're partway through. The new name replaces the old one everywhere, including in reports. Usually fine, but it can look confusing in a historical audit.
  • Reordering sections. Most learners won't notice, but if someone was on "Section 3" and you move things around, they may find themselves in a different spot next time they open the course.

For significant structural changes, the safer path is: make a new copy, edit the copy, publish the copy, and archive the old one.

Archiving a course

Archive a course when:

  • It covers content that's been superseded by a newer version.
  • It was a one-time course (a specific event, a specific launch) that's over.
  • A client engagement ended and the course no longer applies.

Archiving is reversible. You can un-archive any time.

Where to go next