DISCLAIMER: Webinars are now managed through ILT courses. Find out more.

Introduction

Webinars can be used as standalone courses, or in addition to E-Learning courses in the platform. This article will guide you on how to create a webinar course, set up and manage sessions, record webinar sessions, and set up webinar courses in course catalogs and learning plans.

To learn more about some of our third-party integrations with webinar hosting software, you can refer to the corresponding manuals in Docebo's Knowledge Base: Zoom, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, Webex, Adobe Connect, Teleskill.

For any information about webinar sessions on mobile devices, please refer to this guide.

Creating a Webinar Course

To create a new webinar course, access the Admin Menu, press the Course Management item from the E-Learning area. Press the plus button in the top right corner of the main courses page and select New Course then flag Webinar as the Course Type.

Type the course name and the course description, then press Create & Edit to create your course in the platform and to start configuring and managing it straight away. Refer to this article for further information on how to configure a course.

Creating Webinar Sessions

A webinar can be composed of one or more sessions. As an example, you may have the same session repeated over time, on different dates, or several different sessions composing the course. In order to create a new session, move to the Sessions and Enrollment tab and press the New Session button in the action bar at the top. In the pop-up box, you will see three tabs on the left side: Details, Session date(s), and Completion. The Additional Fields tab is available only if additional fields for webinars have been created on the platform. 

In the first tab (Details), fill out all of the necessary information about the session: name, code, description, and the maximum number of enrollments. When you’re finished, press the Set Up Dates button to move on to the next tab. In the Session date(s) tab, press the Add button to add a session time.

Then, add the name of the session as well as the description, start time, duration, Join button options for learners and instructors (when configuring this option, remember that tutors are considered as learners) and webinar tools. Refer to this section of the Knowledge Base for further information on the supported webinar tools. Depending on the selected webinar tool, you may be required to set a password for every session you create. If you are not using a supported webinar tool, you can select Custom Tool and enter the webinar URL. This URL is the web page that opens when learners click Join Now to access the webinar. Also note that if you are using a custom tool, you are able to launch the webinar as an xAPI/TinCan object. This requires development on your side, outside of the platform.

When finished, press Create Session Date. Then, you will see the options to make a copy of the session, edit, or delete it. On the left side of the box, you can select another date on the calendar to create another day and repeat the session date creation process.  This option is useful when you have training on a recurrent basis within a certain period (eg. product update training, induction plan, compliance training…).

Finally, move to the Completion tab to flag how you want to mark a user’s completion of a webinar session. This is what you can achieve with the following options:

• Mark as completed when the user joins the webinar: The course will be marked as Completed by the user once the user joins a session. You will be able to specify how many session dates are required to obtain completion and whether watching a recording counts as attendance or not.
• Manual: The Superadmin or a Power User will need to manually mark attendance. Refer to this article to learn more.
• Automatic completion based on test: The course will be completed as soon as the user passes a test training material that must be included among the training material of the course. Remember that users will not be able to complete the course if there is no test linked to the course as training material.

When you’re finished, press Save Changes. All the webinar sessions will be listed in the Sessions and Enrollments tab.  Select Learner View to see how the session will be shown to learners.

Adding Training Material to Webinar Courses

You can include training material, including tests and surveys within a Webinar course. All of the added learning objects will be shared between all of the course sessions. In order to include training materials to your webinar, move the Training Material tab and click on Add Training Material.

Choose the type of learning object you want to create. As the Superadmin, you can create videos, files, assignments, presentations, HTML page objects, surveys, or tests for this course. Refer to this section of the documentation for more information about training material.

Including a Webinar Course in a Catalog

You can also include webinar courses in catalogs and learning plans. In both cases, as per the webinar course's policy, users can choose the session they want to attend, so they will need to view the list of all of the available sessions and enroll themselves as needed. If you want to include a webinar course in a catalog, please remember to set up the enrollment policy accordingly. Refer to the linked article regarding catalogs to learn more about this configuration.

Including a Webinar Course in a Learning Plan

When you add a webinar course to a learning plan, you will also need to decide which sessions the learners will attend. Begin by creating a learning plan, then add your webinar course into the learning plan. Once you have created your learning plan, included the webinar course into the learning plan, and enrolled users to the learning plan, you then need to decide which sessions they subscribed users must attend. To do so, follow the steps in this manual regarding Docebo's waitlist feature.

Setting Up Webinar Enrollment Notifications

You can also trigger notifications for when users are enrolled or unenrolled from a Webinar session. In the Admin Menu, find the Notifications section, then click on the Manage subitem. At the top of the Notifications page, press the New Notification button. In the New Notification pop up box, you will see webinar events in the Courses section of the dropdown menu. You can then set up the webinar notifications based on your needs. Refer to the linked article in this paragraph for more information about notifications.

Enrolling Users in Webinar Sessions

To learn how to enroll users into webinar courses, refer to this article. To enroll users into specific sessions for a webinar course, access the main Courses Management page, then find the webinar in the list, click on its description and move to the Sessions and Enrollments tab.

Find the session for which you wish to enroll users in the list, then press the item in the session’s Enrolled column. On the session’s Enrollments page, press the Enroll Users item.

In the pop-up box, select the users that you want to enroll in courses. Flag the checkbox in the user’s row to select the user. You can also flag entire groups or branches using the corresponding tabs in the pop-up box. Then, select which level the users will have in the course: Learners, Tutors, or Instructors. Most of your users should be learners. When finished, press Confirm.

You can also import users from another session of the course by pressing the corresponding button at the top of the session’s Enrollments page. In the pop-up box, type the name of the session into the Session search field, then select the session as it appears below the text box. Using the dropdown menu, define which level the users will have in the course: Learners, Tutors, or Instructors. When finished, press Confirm.

To enroll users into specific sessions for a webinar course via CSV, you can enroll them from the main Course Management page or from the webinar course itself. If you decide to enroll users from the Course Management page, click the Manage Enrollments via CSV button on the top right corner of the page. The CSV file should include: Username, Level (Learner, Tutor or Instructor), Course Code and Session Code. If you decide to enroll users from the webinar course itself, find the webinar in the list, click on its description and move to the Sessions and Enrollments tab. Then click the Manage Enrollments via CSV button on the top right corner of the page. The CSV file should include: Username, Level (Learner, Tutor or Instructor) and Session Code.

Once users are enrolled in the session, you can manage them using the list from the Sessions and Enrollments tab. Press the pen and paper icon in a user’s item to edit the user’s level or status in the session. Please note that when you as a Superadmin manually change the user’s enrollment status for a session from In Progress to Subscribed, the status of the webinar course will still be In Progress for that user, since the user can also be attending other sessions of the same course.

By flagging one or multiple users, you can change their enrollment status for the session, unenroll users from the session or send them an email in one bulk action via the action dropdown menu below the search bar.

The On Selected dropdown menu may also show a link to an external website; when selecting this option, the website will open in a pop-up window, and you will be able to operate on the external website, for example, to mark in a third party system that the user has completed the course. Links to external websites must be created as enrollment IFRAME additional fields. Refer to the Adding Enrollment Additional Field chapter of this article for further information on how to create and manage enrollment additional fields.

To unenroll an individual user from the session, press the X icon in the user’s item. Please note that you cannot delete a user from the session if the webinar course is part of a learning plan.

Recorded Webinar Sessions

As a Superadmin, Power User with the appropriate permissions, or Instructor, you can add recordings of webinars into webinar sessions. There are three options to do so: add the recording via API, upload a video file, or share a link to a video. To add a webinar recording, find the webinar course in the list of courses on the main Course Management page. Click on the course description and move to the Sessions and Enrollments tab and click on Learner View in the top right corner. On the Sessions' main page, find the session for which you’re wanting to upload a recording from the list, then press the arrow at the end of the session date’s row to show more details. Here, you will find the Add Recording button.

Press this button to proceed. In the slideout panel, flag whether you want to add the recording via API, by uploading a video file, or by linking to a video URL. Please note that you can only add the video via API for the following videoconferencing tools: GoToTraining, WebEx, BlueJeans and Adobe Connect. When you’ve selected the recording and method for adding the recording in the platform, you will then see a progress bar under the option you flagged.

When the video is finished uploading, press the Confirm button. Please note that from here, the time it takes to import and convert the video for the platform depends on the size of the video. When the video is ready, you will see a message informing you that it was successfully converted. Learners can then press the View Recording button to view the recorded session. To delete the recording, press the red X next to this button. Please note: You can only upload one recording per webinar session.

Days of Validity Functionality

The Days of Validity feature for webinars allows learners to access the webinar course for only a specific number of days after accessing the course training material for the first time. Please Note: This feature is active by default, with the default number of days being 0, meaning there is no set validity period unless configured by the Superadmin.

Once the days of validity have expired, the course will be locked (therefore inaccessible) to the user. This includes training materials and certificates. To configure this option, access the main Course Management page, find the course in the list of courses, click on its description and move to the Advanced Properties tab.

Move now to the Time Options tab. In the Days of Validity section, insert the number of days for which users will have access to the course after accessing the course training material for the first time. You cannot add negative or partial numbers in this field (-4.5, 7.5, 10.3).

When you’re finished, press Save Changes. A user is able to access the course, including certificates and training materials, during the validity period. Once the validity period has expired, the user will see that the course is locked, therefore inaccessible.

Deleting a Webinar Session

In order to delete a webinar session, click on the menu item at the end of the session row, and select Delete. When a webinar session is deleted, the following data is deleted from the platform: the session date, the session recordings (if available), and the session training material not also available in the Central Repository.

When a webinar session is deleted, the users in the session waiting list and those enrolled only in that session of the webinar are unenrolled from the session and moved to the webinar waiting list, independently from their status in the session when it was deleted. The users previously enrolled in the deleted session and also enrolled in any other session of the same webinar will not be moved in the webinar waiting list, and will keep their enrollments in the other sessions.

Remember that once you have associated a webinar tool and a webinar account to a webinar session date, it is not possible to change them. In order to schedule the same webinar session date with another webinar tool or another webinar account within the same tool, you need to delete the session date first and then create a new one from scratch with the new webinar tool or the new webinar tool account. If you are removing the integration with a webinar tool associated with scheduled webinar sessions, remember to delete the sessions associated with that webinar tool before removing the integration, or you will not be able to delete it afterward.

Please Note: When deleting webinar sessions, be sure to delete them directly in the platform, rather than in the external webinar tool.