How to set up and use the Catalogue in Nimble LMS

Introduction

The catalogue feature is available on Nimble LMS and is a great way to put the power back into your learners' hands. They can choose the courses that are relevant to them from a curated selection and self-enrol.

Speak to your Customer Success Manager if you are interested in enabling the Catalogue.

How-to video

We've put together a video that walks you through how to set up the Catalogue for your learners, which we'd highly recommend you watch before you begin using the feature:

In this article, we'll show you how to get set up with the Catalogue, and add Categories and Products to house your courses for learner self-selection and self-enrolment.

How courses are organised inside the Catalogue

When learners see the Catalogue, they are presented with a list of Categories (at the left of their screen; in this example, we have two Categories: Hot Topics: Microcourses, and Top Tips). Within these Categories, there are Products (shown on the right; in this example, the learner has selected the Top Tips Category, and there are two products within it):

Each Product can contain one or more courses. These are listed as bullet points underneath the Category description. The learner selects the 'Add' button to self-enrol on all the courses within the Product; they cannot pick and choose, but will automatically be enrolled on all the courses listed within the bullet points.

It's important to note that a course can only appear in one Product at a time, and a Product in one Category at a time, so you'll need to make sure you aren't creating Categories that may have overlapping content. We'd advise you to think of the Categories as top level themes.

Navigating to the Catalogue management area

Once you have the catalogue activated on your Nimble LMS account, you should notice a shop icon appear towards the top left of the screen. Select this icon to begin managing your Catalogue.

The icon is a shopping trolley because we also offer an e-commerce facility for customers to sell their courses from this area.

On the Catalogue management page, you may initially see any existing course folders (providing they contain at least one published course) ready to be converted into Categories for your Catalogue:

These folders won't appear as Categories for your learners to select until you add Products inside them.

From this page, you can also add a new Category using the 'Add a Category' button. However, in this tutorial we will be using an existing course folder as a basis for our first Category. If you'd like more information about adding a Category, take a look at this support article: How to add a category to your ecommerce site

Adding a Product

If you are planning to use an existing course folder as a Category, you can begin by adding a Product.

1. Select the 'Add a Product' button.

2. On the Product page, select the existing folder from the dropdown; this will assign the Product to that folder as a Category.

3. Give your Product a name. Remember, this is like the packaging into which you can place one or more courses for your learner to select. In this example, our Category is Top Tips, so the Product within it will be titled Top Tips: Using Zoom (and could be accompanied by other Products related to different software tips).

4. Add a description; this will be displayed under the Product title in the Catalogue for your learners.

5. Scroll down and select the 'Save' button.

6. Once your Product has been saved, an option will appear to upload an image. Select 'Choose file' to browse for an image on your computer, then save the Product again.

Adding courses to your Product

Each Product can contain one or more courses from your library. Make sure you are on the Product page (you can select the cog icon next to the Product in the Catalogue management area in order to return to the Product page). 

7. Scroll to the bottom of the Product page and look for the Courses section. Select the 'Add a course' button.
8. Then select the folder that contains your course from the 'Course folder' dropdown (you can also select from a full list of all your courses if required).

9. Now select the relevant course from the Course dropdown.

10. Finally, give the course a weight if you would like to specify the order in which multiple courses should be displayed inside the Product list; a smaller number will make the course appear higher in the list.

11. Select the 'Save' button and you will be taken back to the relevant Product page, where your course should now appear in the Courses section.

Repeat the process to add any additional courses to this Product.

Adding learner instructions to your Catalogue

You may wish to edit the default text that appears in the Catalogue area when a learner views it, to make it clear how the function works and what content is available for self-enrolment.

12. From the main Catalogue management page (accessed via the shop icon at the left of the screen), select the 'Shop settings' button.

13. Disregard many of the elements on this page (they are designed for use by accounts with an eCommerce facility enabled). Scroll down to find the 'Learner catalogue instructions' field and add your text here, then scroll down and select the Save button.

How the Catalogue appears to your learners

As soon as you have added Products to your Catalogue, it will be live for learners to access. When they log in, they will see their course list as usual, but be able to navigate to a tab marked CATALOGUE.

Here they will see any Categories on the left, with Products displayed on the right, and the course/s listed within those Products.

The learner selects the 'Add' button and, after confirming their selection, can choose to be taken back to their course list. They will now see any new enrolments onto courses within the Product they added.