TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 1 Overview
• 2 Recommended Prerequisites
• 3 Initial Configuration
  • 3.1 Enabling Course Catalogue Functionality
• 4 External Course Catalogue Configuration
  • 4.1 Configuration Options
    • 4.1.2 Access Settings
    • 4.1.3 Account Creation Settings
    • 4.1.4 Profile Assignment Configuration
    • 4.1.5 Legal and Compliance Settings
• 5 Internal Course Catalogue Configuration
  • 5.1 Registration Type Configuration
• 6 User Permissions and Rights
  • 6.1 Profile-Based Permissions
    • 6.1.2 Selected Course Catalogue Access Permissions
  • 6.2 Optional: Policy-Based Permissions
• 7 Subject Management
  • 7.1 Accessing Subject Configuration
    • 7.1.2 Subject Management Actions
• 8 Notification Configuration
  • 8.1 Daily Notification Types
    • 8.1.2 Notification Timing Configuration
• 9 Managing courses and external users
  • 9.1  Managing courses
  • 9.2 Managing external users
• 10 Troubleshooting

1 Overview

The course catalogue functionality enables users to discover and enrol in courses within your itslearning environment. Two distinct catalogue types can operate simultaneously:

Internal Course Catalogue: Restricts course visibility to authenticated users within your organization. Users must possess valid itslearning accounts to access and enrol in courses.

External Course Catalogue: Provides anonymous access to course listings. External users can browse available courses and create accounts during the enrolment process.

System Requirements

• Administrative access to Edit global settings
• Understanding of organizational user structure and permissions
• Defined user roles and profile configurations

Implementation Impact

• Course visibility changes across the organization
• New user registration workflows for external users
• Additional notification requirements for course teachers
• Subject taxonomy management requirements

2 Recommended Prerequisites

Before configuring the course catalogue, ensure the following requirements are met:

Administrative Access

• System administrator profile with global settings modification rights
• Access to user profile and policy management
• Permission to configure organizational features

Organizational Setup

• Defined user profiles for different roles (students, teachers, administrators)
• Established school/organization structure within itslearning
• Clear understanding of course access requirements per user type

Content Preparation

• Subject categories defined for course classification
• Terms and conditions document prepared (for external catalogue)
• Organizational policies established for external user management

3 Initial Configuration

3.1 Enabling Course Catalogue Functionality

1. Navigate to Administration > Edit global settings > Features and security
2. Locate the course catalogue sections
3. Enable the catalogue types as needed:
   • Enable external course catalogue: For anonymous users with account creation
   • Enable internal course catalogue: For authenticated users only

Important: After enabling either setting, you must also enable the corresponding permission "Allow adding courses to the [external/internal] course catalogue" for profiles that need to add courses to the catalogue. You should also check the different permissions on other profiles on your site.

4 External Course Catalogue Configuration

4.1 Configuration Options

Navigate to the external course catalogue settings section to configure access methods:

Note! This is an example screenshot where both internal and external catalogues are enabled. 

4.1.2 Access Settings

Note: If the external course catalogue is not available on the login page, it can only be accessed via the direct link.

4.1.3 Account Creation Settings

Email-Based Account Creation

Setting: Allow the creation of a new account using an email address

When enabled:

• Anonymous users can create accounts using email addresses
• Login credentials are sent via email after registration
• Users must verify email addresses before account activation

Cross-Site Account Creation

Setting: Allow the creation of an account using an itslearning account from another site

When enabled:

• Users with existing itslearning accounts from collaborating organizations can create accounts
• Role verification occurs through the external itslearning site
• Enables staff-only course access for external organizational users

4.1.4 Profile Assignment Configuration

External User Profile Settings

Setting: Assign external accounts to the following profile

Configuration requirements:

• Select any existing non-administrator profile from dropdown
• Chosen profile determines default course role for external users
• Profile must have "Use this profile for default membership" enabled under Profiles - Courses
• Profile must also have "Allowed to use standard itslearning login" enabled under Profiles - Functionality 

Recommendation: Consider creating a dedicated profile specifically for external users to control their access and functionality. This allows you to configure appropriate restrictions, such as limiting messaging capabilities to course participants only, or restricting access to certain site features that should remain internal to your organization.

4.1.5 Legal and Compliance Settings

Terms and Conditions

Setting: Link to terms and conditions

Requirements:

• External users must agree to terms during account creation
• Enter complete URL to accessible terms and conditions document
• Required for data protection compliance when storing external user progress data

User Data Management

Setting: Number of days before inactive users are deleted

Configuration options:

• Enter number of days: Field is initially empty - Sysadmin must define period of time.
• Example shown: 100 days
• Inactive external users are automatically deleted after specified period

5 Internal Course Catalogue Configuration

5.1 Registration Type Configuration

Configure available registration methods for internal course catalogue:

5.1.1 Available Registration Types

Note: Multiple registration types can be selected for a site. System administrator controls which types are available organization-wide.  Teachers will choose the appropriate type when adding courses to the catalogue.

6 User Permissions and Rights

6.1 Profile-Based Permissions

After enabling course catalogue functionality, configure user access through profiles or policies. The course catalogue permissions appear in the Courses section of profile management.

6.1.2 Selected Course Catalogue Access Permissions

User Right: Local course catalogue

• Function: Determines which profiles can view internal course catalogue and enrol in courses
• Configuration: Enable for profiles that should have course discovery access

User Right: Allow adding courses to the internal course catalogue

• Scope Options:
  • Site: User can make courses available to all users on the itslearning site
  • School: User can make course available to all users in their school
• Function: Enables course teachers to add their courses to internal catalogue

User Right: Allow adding courses to the external course catalogue

• Available to: System Administrator, Administrator, Staff profiles only
• Function: Enables course teachers to add their courses to external catalogue
• Note: No scope restrictions apply to external catalogue

6.2 Optional: Policy-Based Permissions

Alternative to profile-based permissions:

1. Create specific policies for course catalogue access
2. Assign policies to individual users as needed
3. Provides granular control over catalogue functionality

7 Subject Management

7.1 Accessing Subject Configuration

Navigate to Edit global settings > Course catalogue subjects to manage available subjects.

7.1.2 Subject Management Actions

Adding New Subjects

1. Click Add subject
2. Enter subject name
3. Save to make available for course tagging

Managing Existing Subjects

Teacher-Added Subjects

• Teachers can create subjects when adding courses to catalogue
• Teacher-created subjects appear in administration subject list
• System administrators can manage teacher-created subjects using standard actions

Subject Usage Information

The "Courses using subject" column shows the number of courses currently tagged with each subject. This information helps identify:

• Subjects with low usage that may be candidates for removal or replacement
• Popular subjects that are actively used across multiple courses

8 Notification Configuration

8.1 Daily Notification Types

Course teachers receive aggregated daily notifications for:

1. New enrolment applications requiring approval
2. New enrolments for courses with registration key or open enrolment

8.1.2 Notification Timing Configuration

Navigate to Edit global settings > Regional settings to configure notification timing. The Daily notifications section appears at the bottom of the Regional settings page. Changing the notification time only affects notifications that are send from that moment onwards.

Configuration Options

Weekend Notification Handling

• Default: No notifications sent Saturday/Sunday
• Weekend activity notifications sent on Monday
• Can be disabled to send notifications all seven days

9 Managing courses and external users

9.1  Managing courses

Commonly teachers can add courses to the course catalogue, but it is also possible for the (system) administrator to - in addition to managing courses in general - manage the courses that have been added to the course catalogue. For this they can use the page "Course administration". 

The filter "Added to the course catalogue" makes it possible to only find courses that are added to the internal and/or external course catalogue. 

The options are:

All - shows all courses, regardless if they are added to the course catalogue or not.

Not added - shows only courses that are not added to the course catalogue

Internal - only shows courses that are added to the internal course catalogue (courses that are also added to the external course catalogue will show as well).

External - only shows courses that are added to the external course catalogue (courses that are also added to the internal course catalogue will show as well).

Internal & External - only shows courses that are added to both the internal as well as the external course catalogue

This filter is not available if both the internal as well as the external course catalogue are disabled.

Additional filters

There are also three additional filter checkboxes available:

• Courses with no teachers or admins: when checked, only shows courses that have no teachers or admins enrolled. 
• Shared as template: when checked, only shows courses that are shared as a template. 
• Your enrolled courses: when checked, only shows courses that the logged-in administrator is enrolled in.

Manage table coloumns

Administrators can customize which columns are displayed in the course list by clicking "Manage table columns" above the results table. Note! The Title column is always visible and cannot be hidden. 

Click "Apply" to save your selection or "Cancel" to discard changes.

9.2 Managing external users

If the external course catalogue is enabled for a site, administrators have the option on the page "User and access rights" to quick find users created via external enrolment. For this, they can select the option "External enrolment" in the filter "Creation method".

In addition to giving insight in the amount of external users, it also allows administrators to manage them. For example, if a dedicated profile has been created for external users after they were initially assigned to the Guest profile, the administrator can quickly assign this new profile to all external users using the bulk actions.

10 Troubleshooting

Course Catalogue Not Visible

Symptoms: Users cannot access course catalogue functionality 

Solution:

1. Verify course catalogue is enabled under Features and security
2. Check user profile has "Local course catalogue" permission
3. Confirm courses have been added to the catalogue

External Users Cannot Create Accounts

Symptoms: Account creation options not available or failing 

Cause: External course catalogue account creation settings disabled 

Solution:

1. Check "Allow the creation of a new account using an email address" setting
2. Verify email system configuration is functional
3. Confirm terms and conditions link is accessible

Course Teachers Not Receiving Notifications

Symptoms: No daily notifications about enrolments or applications 

Solution:

1. Verify notification timing is configured under Regional settings
2. Check that courses use registration types that generate notifications
3. Confirm email system is delivering notifications properly

Subjects Not Appearing in Course Addition

Symptoms: Subject selection empty when adding courses to catalogue 

Cause: No subjects configured in system 

Solution:

1. Add subjects under Edit global settings > Course catalogue subjects
2. Inform teachers they can create subjects during course addition process

Contact Support: For additional support, contact your itslearning administrator or visit the itslearning support pages

For unresolved issues, contact your itslearning Key Account Manager or support team with error messages and screenshots.

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The features shown are part of the project within the framework of the German Development Project (GDP), a cooperation between four German states and itslearning with the aim of improving digital education in Germany through tailor-made product developments.

Click here to learn more about the GDP roadmap and what other features you can expect.

For German readers: Click here for more information about the project within the framework of the German Development Project.