Configuring the public catalog – Docebo Help & Support

Introduction

When visitors reach your platform’s home page, instead of presenting them with just a login screen, you can configure a view that provides additional information and showcases what your platform has to offer.

To do this, you need to first of all enable and configure the public catalog feature, defining what courses and learning plans will be visible to non-authenticated visitors on the platform home page.

Visitors will be able to click on the content cards to preview what the courses or learning plans are about.
However when they attempt to enroll in or purchase an item they will be prompted to either log in or create an account.

In addition to the public catalog, you can optionally configure one or more public pages containing any html content of your choice. If you configure these, each page will appear as a tab on the platform home page, with the public catalog occupying the first tab.

Tip: If your platform includes subscription plans, the ones eligible for public view will be automatically displayed in a separate Subscriptions catalog tab.

Enable the public catalog

The first step is to enable the public catalog feature in Advanced settings.

Select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon) > Platform setup and tools > Advanced Settings, then select Course catalog.
In the Public catalog section, select the check box Show the catalog to non authenticated users.
→ This enables the feature.
Now you have two options. In either case, the pre-login page can only show the content that is set as “externally visible” at the level of the individual course or learning plan.
- Display all available public courses and learning plans: Select this option to include all the courses and learning plans set as “externally visible”. In this case the content cards will all appear together on the public page, not subdivided into catalogs.
- Select catalogs to display: Select this option if you want to display only the “externally visible” content from certain catalogs. In this case the public page will show the catalog carousels, with only the eligible content visible within each catalog.

Tip: If you want to show all externally visible content, but organized into catalogs, you can choose the option “select catalogs to display” and then select all the catalogs.

Please note: the rules for showing content in the public catalog are not the same as those for showing content to logged-in users. For example, a visitor may be able to browse a public catalog in the sign-in page because it has been selected to display there, and contains externally visible content. However, once they sign in to the platform, they will only be able to see that same catalog if it has been assigned to them.
To maintain a consistent experience, make sure the catalogs you display on the sign-in page are assigned to all users (all branches). For more information about how catalogs are assigned to users see the article Activating and managing catalogs > The built-in catalog page.

Sorting order:

If the public page is showing catalog carousels, the Sorting order defines the default order of the catalogs (but not of the content inside the catalogs). If the public page is showing content cards directly, then the Sorting order defines the default order of the content itself.

→ Note that this setting will also affect the default order shown to signed-in users in the Course Catalog page.

Set courses and learning plans as externally visible

To make a course or learning plan eligible to appear in the public catalog, you need to set it as externally visible. For a course you also need to set self-enrollments as available:

For a course:

Select Navigation menu > Content and delivery (folder icon) > Courses and click the <Course name> to open its page.
In the Properties tab select Advanced settings > Catalog options
Under Course visibility in catalogs select the option Show the course in internal and external catalogs.
Under Course self-enrollment select either Self-enrollments are available or Self-enrollments are available during a specific time period.
→ The course will only be visible in the catalog when self-enrollments are available. For more information see the article Activating and managing catalogs > Course enrollment settings.
Click Save changes.

Note: When a course is archived, it is automatically removed from any catalogs where it was assigned and is no longer available for selection.

For a learning plan:

Select Navigation menu > Content and delivery (folder icon) > Learning plans and click the <learning plan name> to open its page.
In the Properties tab select Catalogs and e-commerce.
Under Learning plan visibility in catalogs select Show the learning plan in internal and external catalogs and click Save changes.

Remember that the content you set as externally visible may or may not actually appear in the public catalog, depending on what you configured in advanced settings. See the chapter Enable the public catalog.

Subscriptions catalog tab

When you enable the public catalog, if your platform includes subscriptions that meet the following criteria, then a separate Subscriptions catalog tab will be automatically created to display them publicly as well.

To be publicly visible a subscription must have:

Bundle type = licenses
Bundle visibility=all users (root branch + descendants)
Bundle status = published
Bundle plan with number of licenses = 1

To check this, select Navigation menu > Configuration (spanner icon) > E-commerce > Subscription bundles and plans, and on the row of the bundle look at the Bundle type and Publish columns. Click the Visibility column to check the assigned users.

Then click in the Plans column to check the bundle’s plans. The Seats/Enrollm. column will show the number of licenses for each plan. If there is at least one single-license plan, then the bundle can appear on the public page, provided it also meets the other requirements.

The visitor experience:

On the sign-in page, the subscriptions catalog tab will show the publicly visible subscriptions.

On any bundle, visitors can click What’s included to browse the included content on the lower part of the page. Within each catalog of the bundle, users will only see the courses and learning plans eligible to be externally visible.
Once they are ready to subscribe, they can click Choose your plan to view the available pricing options. For example, a bundle could be offered with either a monthly or a yearly plan. In any case, only the single-license plans will be shown here.
Once they select a plan and click Add to cart, they can go on to complete their purchase from the shopping cart. Upon checkout, the user will be prompted to either sign in or create an account to continue.

Background for public catalog

Along the top of the public catalog, you can configure either a background image or a solid color. Note that you cannot configure a video in this area when the public catalog is enabled.

Select Navigation menu > Customization (shapes icon) > Branding and design.
In the Desktop tab, select Sign in page.
In the Sign-in page background area select either a background color or upload a full width background image.

The selected background will appear when viewing the public Courses and learning plans tab, as well as when viewing the public Subscriptions catalog tab.

Custom public pages

Alongside the public catalog, you can optionally display additional html pages that will likewise be shown to non-authenticated visitors, to provide them with further information. Each page that you create will appear on a separate tab, with the public catalog page on the first tab, and the public subscriptions catalog page (if present) on the second tab.

Configure a public page

Select Navigation menu > Customization (shapes icon) > Custom public pages.
→ You will see a list of all the existing custom public pages. Next to each page you can see a check mark indicating whether the page is published, an x icon for deleting the page, and an edit icon.
To create a new page click the New web page button at the top. Otherwise, to edit an existing page click the edit icon alongside it.
In the Add/Edit external page dialog box that opens, you can insert the content of the page in different languages:
- Please note that you must add a page in the platform's default language. Then you can optionally configure other languages as well.
Then, add the title of the tab that will appear on the sign-in page in the Title text box. In the HTML page text box, insert the content that you want to display on your page. Note that this is a WYSIWYG editor, so you can format and edit your text as desired using the toolbar at the top of the editor. You can also press the code button in the toolbar to insert any HTML code into the page.
Repeat this process for all languages in which you want to create the page, starting from the language dropdown menu.
At the bottom, select the Publish option to immediately activate and publish the tab on the sign-in page of your platform. Once finished, press Confirm.

Once you’ve created a page, it will appear in the main list of public catalog pages. In each page’s row, you can publish (green) and unpublish (gray) the page by pressing the checkmark item, edit the page by pressing the pen and paper icon or delete the page by pressing the red X icon. Additionally, you can sort the order of the tabs on the sign-in page by dragging and dropping the order of the pages in the list using the cross icon, but remember that the public catalog itself will always be the first tab on the sign-in page, and the public subscriptions catalog page (if present) on the second tab.

Please note: It is not possible to display custom widget pages to non-authenticated users.

View your public catalog custom pages

After you have created and published your public catalog pages, a navigation bar below the header will appear containing the titles of each of your custom pages. Users will be able to click the titles to see the pages you have set up.

The public catalog custom pages will be displayed on all extended enterprise clients in which the public catalog is enabled. For more information see the chapter Public catalog in extended enterprise.

Public catalog in extended enterprise

You can differentiate the public catalog settings for each extended enterprise client.

First of all, you can separately decide whether to show or hide the public catalog for each extended enterprise client: Select Enable custom settings for this client and then in the Public catalog section set the option Show the catalog to non-authenticated users. Note that you can enable the public catalog on an extended enterprise client even if it is not enabled on your main platform.
Second, for all the extended enterprise clients that display a public catalog, you can differentiate the content that is displayed using the Select catalogs to display option. However, if you choose the Display all available public courses and learning plans option, this will always show the same content.

Note, however, that any public catalog custom pages you configure will be the same for all extended enterprise clients.