Create and manage course catalogs

Introduction

A course catalog is a comprehensive collection of courses and training plans. As the main component of Learn365, the course catalog is where your courses and training plans are created, featured, and managed.

You can have several course catalogs in your Learn365 solution, where each one offers courses and training plans on a different theme and perhaps to a different audience. For example, one catalog might be targeted to an internal audience and another to an external audience.

To get started with Learn365, you need to create at least one course catalog.

This article describes how to create and manage course catalogs, how to add and delete catalog admins, and how to view the settings of a course catalog in Learn365. Read the article or watch the video (more details are included in the article). In the video, you can use the Chapters feature to navigate to the relevant part.

 

 

Create course catalogs

Required role: Microsoft 365 global admin or SharePoint admin.

Course catalogs can be created only in the desktop browser.

To create a course catalog:

1. In the Learn365 Admin Center, select Global Settings. The Course catalog management page opens.

2. On the Course catalog management page, select Create course catalog. The Create course catalog panel opens.

 

Create course catalog

 

  • Course catalog title. The title specified for the course catalog is displayed in the list of course catalogs of the tenant on the Course catalog management page and on the catalog home page.

  • Site URL. The Site URL field is automatically generated when you complete the Course catalog title field but it can be manually changed. When the URL is generated or changed, all invalid characters, such as " # % & * : < > ? \ / { | } ~ [ ] ` ' ^ and space, are automatically excluded.

     

    NOTE   

    Consecutive period characters aren't allowed, and you can't start or end a site address with a period.

     

    You can specify a new site URL or use an existing one. To use an existing one, toggle Choose an existing Site URL or specify a new one to On. To be able to create a course catalog in an existing site, you need to be the Site Collection Administrator of that site.

     

  • Site Language. Select the default language of the course catalog.

     

    NOTE   

    The language of the course catalog, My Training Dashboard, and Learn365 web parts is the same as the language of the SharePoint site.

    If the preferred language of your browser is specified as an alternative language in SharePoint, you will see the Learn365 Admin Center in the preferred language of your browser.

    If the browser language isn't in the list of enabled alternative languages in SharePoint, the default language of the SharePoint site is used.

     

  • Site Template. Select Communication Site or Team Site. By default, a course catalog is created as a SharePoint communication site. Consult Microsoft's documentation to understand the difference between creating a communication site and a team site.

  • Catalog admins. Add catalog admins, if required. By default, the user who creates the course catalog becomes an administrator of it.

  • Choose an existing Site URL or specify a new one. Enable this option to be able to create a catalog by specifying a new site URL or using the URL of an existing site. To be able to create a catalog in an existing site, you need to be the Site Collection Administrator of that site. When this option is enabled, the Course catalog title and Site Language fields are automatically hidden.

 

3. Save to create the course catalog.

As soon as the catalog is created, free sample courses are automatically added to the catalog. In the Notifications center, you'll be informed of the course import progress and when it is complete.

Sample courses are on the topic of Learn365 and the Microsoft 365 suite and can help people in your organization get the most out of these services. The courses may be useful when learning how to use Learn365 and can act as inspiration by showing how training can be built.

The selection of sample courses is updated continually. This means that as more ready-to-go courses are made available, more, and perhaps different selections of courses, are included in new catalogs.

Sample courses that have been made available as learning content of the catalog are displayed in the Training Management panel.

These courses are unpublished by default. You can publish and delete them in the same way you would any other course in Learn365.

 

NOTE   

Content of the sample courses can't be edited or deleted. When selecting a learning item in sample course content, the Edit and Delete actions are unavailable on the Actions panel.

 

After everything has been processed, a course catalog is created and a site collection for this course catalog is generated with three pages:

NOTE   

  • Regional settings of a course catalog can't be configured while a course catalog is being created. You can configure the regional settings once the course catalog is created.

  • If you select to use an existing site that is a classic team site when creating a course catalog, the Learn365 course catalog and Learn365 Dashboard web parts will be created on modern pages.

  • A course catalog can't be created on a site where a Learn365 course catalog is already installed.

  • If your course catalog is already installed on a classic site collection, we recommend you migrate your course catalog to the modern look and feel for a better experience.

 

Manage course catalogs from the Course catalog management page

Required role: LMS admin, Microsoft 365 global admin, or SharePoint admin.

Course catalogs can be managed only in the desktop browser.

To manage a course catalog from the Course catalog management page:

1. On the Course catalog management page, select the relevant course catalog. The Course catalog administration panel opens.

2. On the Course catalog administration panel, select the relevant action.

  • Course catalog settings. View the course catalog title, site URL, site language, site template, and add/delete catalog admins.

  • View Course Catalog. Redirects you to the catalog home page, which is the default page of the SharePoint site for this course catalog.

  • Manage Course Catalog. Redirects you to the Learn365 Admin Center, where you can manage catalog settings, create courses and training plans, manage users, etc.

  • Delete Course Catalog. Deletes the course catalog. This action can't be undone and has an additional security step that requires confirmation.

 

NOTE   

For information about how you can change the title of an existing course catalog and its URL, see this article.

 

Manage catalog admins

Required role: LMS admin, Microsoft 365 global admin, or SharePoint admin.

By default, the user who creates the course catalog becomes an administrator of it.

Catalog admins can be managed only in the desktop browser.

To manage admins of a course catalog:

1. On the Course catalog management page, select the relevant course catalog. The Course catalog administration panel opens.

2. On the Course catalog administration panel, select Course catalog settings. The Course catalog settings panel opens.

3. On the Course catalog settings panel, use the Catalog admins field to manage catalog admins:

  • Add catalog admins: enter the names or email addresses of existing Microsoft 365 users, or enter email addresses for external users. Read this article if you encounter issues while adding catalog admins.

  • Delete catalog admins: remove users from the Catalog admins field by selecting the X icon next to their name to remove the catalog admin role from them.

4. Save to apply the changes.

 

IMPORTANT regarding external users   

For information about how to configure external sharing in SharePoint Online for external users to have access to a course catalog, see this article.

To add an external user as a catalog admin on SharePoint communication sites, you should manually activate the external sharing feature via SharePoint Online Management Shell because the external sharing feature is disabled by default for SharePoint communication sites.

To do this, open SharePoint Online Management Shell and run the following commands:

  • Connect-SPOService -Url https://TENANT-admin.sharepoint.com
  • Set-SPOsite https://TENANT.sharepoint.com/sites/SITE -SharingCapability ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

For more information about external sharing of SharePoint sites, see the Microsoft documentation:

If the Users can consent to apps accessing company data on their behalf option isn't selected in Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory), the Microsoft 365 global admin must consent to this before users can use the Learn365 app.

 

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