Disclaimer: Some content in this article outlines how to use functionalities that may not be available on all plans. Get in touch with your account manager (if your plan includes this option) or reach out to Docebo using your platform's Help center if you wish to upgrade your plan.
Introduction
Your platform allows you to manage the layout and the content of a course from within the courses area, where you can upload training material and activate widgets on the course player page or in the course overview page, depending on the course settings.
Learn more on DoceboU
Want to learn more about course widgets? Have a look at the dedicated course, Course design with widgets (opens in a new tab) on Docebo U!
Adding training material
In order to add training material to a course, access the Navigation menu > Content and delivery (folder icon) > Courses to access the main courses page and list all the courses available on the platform.
Find the course in the list of courses on this page, click on its description and, once in the course Properties page, move to the Training material tab and click on the Add training material button. A dropdown menu will appear, displaying all the available training material types. Some of these can be uploaded, and others can be directly created or embedded in the platform. Further information on the available training material.
Adding course widgets
In addition to training materials, you can display additional information about the course using one or more widgets that will be displayed on the course player page for e-learning courses, or on the session page for ILT courses. To do so, while in the Training material tab, click on the Add course widgets button and select one of the available widgets listed in the dropdown menu.
The information displayed in widgets refers to courses for e-learning courses, and to sessions for Instructor-Led Training (ILT) courses.
Let's go through the purpose of each widget.
Course details widget
The widget can show the following details, if they are configured in the course Properties tab: course ID, e-signature verification, average completion time, expiration information or time to complete, certificate and download link (only for completed courses), credits (CEUs). It also indicates if the course comes from the Content marketplace.
Course description widget
This widget is used to display the course description to learners. As an option, this widget can also show the course additional fields and the skills assigned to the course, if configured. In order to show them, once the widget is activated, press the gear icon in the widget area, then press Settings from the dropdown menu. Now, under the option to show the course description, enable the option to show the skills assigned to the course (if any) and type the additional fields that you want to show in the widget into the corresponding text box. When you’re finished, press Save changes.
Forum widget
This widget allows you to activate a Forum area collecting one or multiple threads of discussion where learners can get in touch with the course instructors. Use the editing buttons plus, cross, and gear icons to create a new discussion in the widget, move existing discussions, edit and delete them. When creating a new forum, set its title and description, and identify whether the discussion is locked. A locked discussion is only accessible to the course instructors and tutors.
Access the widget settings area by clicking on the gear icon in the widget area and selecting Settings. From here, you can set a word limit for questions and replies, enable ratings (and select the display mode of the rating system), enable the helpful option and set whether users are allowed to upload files in the forum.
To access a discussion, click on the forum's title in the list of forums in the widget. Once in the discussion, you will be able to view discussions and replies. Access permissions differ depending on the user level:
- Administrators and Instructors have full permission to create, modify, or delete existing discussions as well as entire forums.
- Learners can create new discussions or participate in existing ones.
Use the arrow, edit, or delete buttons in the discussion's row to reply, edit, or delete the existing discussion. To create a new discussion, select the Start a new discussion button in the action bar at the top of the forum page. To block the answers in a discussion select Lock forum. You can re-open the forum at any time by clicking Re-open forum. By selecting each discussion, you can access and display the replies as well as the control panel.
Comments widget
By activating this widget, learners will be able to post, comment, or ask questions on the course dashboard. This area can be used by the instructor to welcome learners, assign tasks, or give general feedback on the progress of course activities, as well as for showing the questions and answers posted in the forum widget.
Please note the text editor embedded in this widget is Froala, refer to the Froala knowledge base (opens in a new tab) for further information on its usage. Also remind that the rendering of the output of WYSIWYG editors may be slightly different from the input, depending on the CSS rules applied.
File repository area widget
This widget allows you to activate a dedicated section in the course where you and other users can drop materials and make them available for download in order to create an independent section of material.
Supported file types are ZIP, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, JPG, GIF, PNG, TXT, PDF, LV, ODS, ODT, ODP, and CSV. Learn more about the file repository area widget.
Instructors widget
This widget allows users to view the course's instructors and contact them via email.
Iframe widget
This widget displays content from an external URL. Insert the widget into the course page, then click on the gear icon and select Settings. Paste the link of the website that you want to show in the widget in the Iframe URL field (do not use an URL of an internal platform page), set the widget height in pixels and select an OAuth client in the dropdown list. Press Save changes to confirm the widget configuration.
The OAuth 2.0 authorization code for the current user is issued based on the selected OAuth 2.0 client and is sent to the embedded page in the parameter auth_code. This can then be traded with an OAuth 2.0 access token valid to invoke Docebo APIs with the access level granted to the user currently logged in. Please note that the authorization code is only valid for 30 seconds from issuance, so it must be exchanged quickly with an access token.
The embedded page can recalculate the same hash by concatenating the comma-separated parameters course_id, course_code, user_id, username, auth_code, access_token (this parameter is optional, it depends on widget configuration), the known value specified as Salt secret (in this order) and then hashing it with the SHA-256 algorithm. If the calculated hash matches the one sent in the parameter hash, then the embedded page has confirmed the identity of the caller page.
Please note that once you set the salt secret, you will not be able to view its value again. You will only be allowed to update it with a new value.
Questions and answers widget
For those using Discover, Coach & Share, the Questions and answers widget is available for e-learning courses (not for ILT courses).
When users want to ask a question in this widget, they have to select a training material from the dropdown menu, ask the question in the text box and click on New question. Depending on whether the Enable all users to answer questions option is selected in the Discover, Coach & Share Settings menu, Answer settings section, any user or only experts and Superadmins will be allowed to answer the question. Learn more about questions and answers.
Please note the text editor embedded in this widget is Froala, refer to the Froala knowledge base (opens in a new tab) for further information on its usage. Also remind that the rendering of the output of WYSIWYG editors may be slightly different from the input, depending on the CSS rules applied.
All questions from this widget (in any course in which it is activated) will also appear in the main Questions and answers page in your platform. Please note that questions and answers coming from courses in which you are not enrolled will not appear on the Questions and answers page.
There, experts and learners are able to treat it as a normal question by providing evaluations for answers. Questions and answers from this widget can be deleted by the owner of the question as well as Superadmins, just like other questions. On the main Questions and answers page, press the Filters button to show only questions that are related to an asset or a course.
In order to enhance the social experience for your users we suggest:
- Activating this widget if the course is available in a channel
- Activating the New question to expert and New answer for a question notifications, otherwise the user or expert needs to login to the course to check the updates
Best practices
- If you want to use the same course widgets across courses, duplicate a course with the same widgets. During the process, the platform will ask if you want to copy over the course widgets.