Search and filter on the course catalog page

Introduction

In this article, we go through the search and filtering options available to users on the course catalog page to help them find the relevant training or the exact session in a card, list, and calendar view of the course catalog.

 

Search and filter options

To easily find relevant courses and training plans on the course catalog page, users can use the search field and apply the following filters: Categories, Training Type, Course Session Dates, Course Session Type, Course Session Instructors, Session locations, Skills, and Includes external content. Additionally, courses and training plans that a user has marked as a favorite are identified via the favorites (heart) icon on the course or training plan card.

By default, only published courses and training plans are available for users in a course catalog.

 

 

 

Search via the search field

Users can search for courses and training plans using the Search Course Catalog field.

The search feature looks for words that contain the search terms and not just words that start with them. The following course and training plan information can be used in a search:

• Title
• Training type
• Short or long description
• Categories
• Tags
• Course admin name
• Instructor name
• Session location
• Skills

Users can enter more than one word in the search, with each word separated by a space, to search for courses and training plans that contain all the words entered. A space acts as an AND command when a user enters search terms in this way.

 

 

 

Search via filters

If catalog admin enabled the Show Filters option in the web parts of the course catalog, users can filter courses, training plans, and sessions depending on the view applied to the course catalog.

• When in the Card and List View of the course catalog, users can filter courses and training plans by category, training type, course session dates, course session types, course session instructors, session location, and skills. The number of courses and training plans that match the filters set is displayed in brackets next to the relevant filter name. Filtering in the Card and List View of instructor-led training returns the list of courses with and without sessions.
• When in the Calendar view, the filters will return only the sessions of instructor-led training that match the set filters. Instructor-led training without sessions isn't displayed in this view, but it is displayed in the Card and List View.

In the Course Session Instructors filter, the number in brackets reflects the number of the instructor-led training where the selected user is a session instructor in one or more sessions.

 

Categories

In the Card and List view, the Categories filter in the left-side menu enables users to filter courses and training plans in the catalog by category, subcategory, or No Category by selecting the relevant checkboxes. The No Category option is displayed only if there's at least one course or training plan in the catalog without an assigned category. The Calendar View will return only sessions of instructor-led training that match the set categories filter. To find all instructor-led training with and without sessions, users should change to the Card and List view.

If a user selects a parent category, its subcategories will also be automatically selected. This rule also applies to filters set using with the Browse by Category buttons (if the Category Options (Browse Buttons) is enabled in web part settings). User can clear the checkboxes of subcategories to show only the relevant training.

Additionally, users can select the categories filter icon to modify the category filtering logic. This is done by selecting the relevant Category filtering logic radio button:

Match any. The filtered results will display courses and training plans that match any of the selected categories.

Match all. The filtered results will display courses and training plans that match all of the selected categories. In this case, if one of the selected categories is No Category, the filtered results won't display any courses or training plans. 

This setting will be applied to the left-side categories and when filtering using the Browse by Category buttons (if the Category Options (Browse Buttons) is enabled in web part settings).

To see a full list of available categories in the catalog, users select Show more + at the bottom of the Categories list.

 

 

Catalog admins can choose which filters users can apply on the catalog page. For more information, see this article.

 

Training Type

In the Card and List view, the Training Type filter in the left-side menu enables users to filter courses and training plans by training type. For details about how this filter works in the Calendar View, see this article.

Catalog admins can configure which training types are available as filters by modifying the course catalog web part settings. For more detailed information on configuration of the web part settings, see this article.

 

 

Course Session Dates

The Course Session Dates filter in the left-side menu enables users to filter instructor-led training courses by course session dates that fall within a date range. To set a date range, the user will select the Course Session Dates field, select a Start Date and End Date from the relevant panels, then select the X icon to close the date selector.

If a course has no active sessions, this filter is hidden. Instructor-led training courses are filtered by course session start and end dates. The courses without sessions aren't filtered. To clear the filter, select Reset above the Course Session Dates field.

In the Card and List view, filtering returns instructor-led training courses by course session dates that fall within a date range. In the Calendar view, users will see the exact sessions that fall within a date range.

 

 

Course Session Type

Using the Course Session Type filter, users can filter session-based courses by the type of active course sessions:

• Onsite. Requires a location for a physical classroom.
  
  
• Virtual. For virtual meetings only.

Instructor-led training courses may have a combination of Onsite and Virtual sessions so it's possible to select both filter parameters at once.

 

 

Course Session Instructors

Catalog admins should enable the Course Session Instructors filter from the catalog web part settings to allow users to apply this filter.

When the course catalog is in Calendar View, this filter will return all sessions of courses where this instructor is a session instructor for one or more sessions. 

When in Card or List View of the course catalog, this filter will return all instructor-led training where a selected user is a session instructor for one or more sessions.

Using the Course Session Instructors filter, users can filter instructor-led training where at least one session was held or planned by the selected instructors. For this, a user will select the checkboxes of the relevant instructors to filter the courses accordingly. The Course Session Instructors filter lists all the session instructors for active or past sessions.

 

 

Session locations

Catalog admins should enable the Session locations filter from the catalog web part settings to allow users to apply this filter.

When in Card or List View of the course catalog, this filter will return all instructor-led training where a selected location is set for one or more sessions.

When the course catalog is in Calendar View, the filtered results will show the exact sessions with the location set in the filter. For more information about the Calendar View, see this article.

Using the Session locations filter, users can filter instructor-led training where at least one session in a course has the location set in the filter. For this, a user will select the checkboxes of the relevant locations to filter the courses accordingly. The Session locations filter shows all the session locations for active or past sessions. 

To see all available locations, the user should select Show more +. To clear the filter, the user should select Reset in the Session locations filter.

 

 

Skills

In a Card and List view of the course catalog, using the Skills filter, users can select to view only the courses and training plans that grant the associated skills. Instructor-led training will include both courses with and without sessions.

In the Calendar View, this filter will return all sessions of the courses that are associated with the set skills.

To see all available skills, the user will select Show more +. To clear the filter, the user will select Reset in the Skills section.

 

 

 

Includes external content

If Go1 and/or LinkedIn Learning integration with Learn365 is set up, catalog admins should enable the Includes external content filter from the catalog web part settings 

In the Card and List view, this filter enables users to filter:

• Courses that were imported from Go1 and/or LinkedIn Learning.
• Training plans that contain courses that were imported from Go1 and/or LinkedIn Learning.