Getting Started: 6 Steps to Launch
Welcome to Academy of Mine! We're thrilled to have you onboard and to get you up and running with your platform. There are many different functions available to you and this guide is designed to help you get set up as quickly as possible.
You can also check out this handy video tour that walks you through the Admin Dashboard and gives a high-level overview of how the platform's functionality all fit together. We recommend taking the time to review the video and the following article to get acquainted with the platform and how to configure it for your business needs.
To immerse yourself in the platform and get the full benefit of this guide, it's best to follow the steps with the actual material you plan to use to build out your Courses--it's easier to grasp a feature's functionality when seeing it applied to your real Course! We also have a more comprehensive Quick Start Guide PDF available here for more information.
The 6 Steps to Set Up Success
- Adding your team
- Customizing platform branding
- Building a Course
- Setting up eCommerce and selling a Course
- Building Site Pages
- Setting up a Portal for B2B Training
Step 1: Adding Your Team
If there are others in your business that will need admin access to the platform, you'll want to bring them onboard first. You can add new users with different roles and specific permissions depending on their access requirements. Overall, there are five user types:
For clients that began their membership prior to September 25th, 2023, please visit our help article on User Roles and Permissions (Legacy). For clients that began their membership after that date, please continue reading.
- Owner: The Owner can manage and make changes to all aspects of the platform
- Portal Admins: Portal Admins can manage a specific Portal (Portals are described in more detail in Step 6)
- Staff: Staff are users that can create content and offer live webinar
- General: General users are the users taking courses
- Admin: Admin users are restricted to Academy of Mine staff and exist for monitoring and troubleshooting your account when necessary
Generally, all users on your team should be added as Staff, so they will have access to various parts of the platform and will be able to make changes based on the permissions you give them. This way, you can all work together to get your platform ready to launch!
For more details information about adding users, please follow our guide: Adding a User.
Step 2: Customizing Platform Branding
Next, let's set up the branding for your platform so that it represents your business and students feel like they're on your platform! You can brand the platform as your own by uploading your company logo and customizing colors throughout the interface. Further add your branding by inserting custom headers and footers. These can include a contact email address, phone number, and a custom copyright notice.
If there are any other changes you would like to make to closer match your branding, you have the option of adding custom CSS. This allows you to modify text sizes, introduce new layout options, change the formatting of pages, and more.
To learn how to make those branding changes, review our custom branding guide: Customize Your Branding.
Step 3: Building a Course
Courses are the core of your platform--they are what drive all activity on the platform and it is how you deliver your content to students and organizations. Before showing you how to build a Course, let's first do a quick primer of Courses and how they work in Academy of Mine.
The platform offers both Self Paced and Instructor Led courses. The difference between these course types is how the material is presented to students, so each type is built a different way. Note that Instructor Led courses may not be available on your platform, depending on your plan. Please reach out to support at help@academyofmine.com with any questions about this or to inquire about adding this feature!
Self Paced Courses combine all the educational material you have built into one package that students can access and take online on their own time, without being in a class led by an instructor. The material of a course is built up of different Modules which together create the curriculum. Modules are individual parts of a course that have their own type which we present in the most optimal way to a student. You can add PDF modules, SCORM modules, text-based modules, video modules, and so on. We also have modules like Quizzes, Assignments, and Discussions which allow you to test student knowledge and collect student responses. Once you have built out the content of your Course, you can attach a Certificate which students receive upon completion - that is, if they match or exceed the criteria that you specify. You can combine one or more courses into a single bundle that can be sold as a Product, allowing you to sell a course package if desired. More on selling courses will be covered below in Step 4 of this document.
Instructor Led Courses are made up of live classes instead of modules. The classes each have a date, time, and location for when they are offered. The location can be in-person or virtual. If virtual, you will need to connect to one of our webinar provider integrations such as Zoom, GoTo Training or GoTo Webinar.
To learn more, check out our Introduction to Courses article to get started on creating your courses.
Step 4: Setting Up eCommerce and selling a Course
If you are looking to sell your Courses via self-service, our built-in eCommerce function allows an individual to purchase, enroll, and complete a Course without the need for you to be involved. This makes selling your Courses much more scalable! Our purchase and checkout flow also make it possible to sell products and courses in bulk, allowing organization representatives to buy seats for multiple people and move through the entire process without needing supervision.
To sell a Course, it first needs to be included in a Product. The Course is what a student gets enrolled in that holds the educational content, whereas the Product is what is bought via the eCommerce flow to get access to a Course. When creating a Product you can determine the price, description, and Course to be included, and once created, the Product becomes available for purchase on the Course Catalog page (so technically, the Course Catalog page is showing Products that include Courses).
To learn more about creating Products and using the Course Catalog, please follow our guide the Introduction to eCommerce.
Step 5: Building Site Pages
Setting up web pages is a great way to present your business and the products you offer. You can use our in-house page builder that makes it possible for you to construct and customize your web pages by yourself. The web pages will be shown on the front-end of the website which, if you do not set your site to Private, can be accessed by anybody, regardless of whether they are logged into the platform.
If you already have a marketing website, you may want to remove most placeholder pages from your platform. Then you can add links in the navigation menu that go back to the marketing website, seamlessly integrating the platform with your existing site.
Learn how to set up your web pages in the Using the Page Builder article.
Step 6: Setting up a Portal (B2B Training)
If you are in the business of selling courses in bulk to organizations and institutions - for example 100 seats/licenses to an entire team or a company, our Portals feature streamlines this entire process. It allows you to onboard representatives of the organization or company as Portal Admins, giving them the ability to take on Learner and Course management on your behalf. Portal Admins will have a similar dashboard as you have, though more slimmed down as they will be focused on managing the courses they have purchased and the students they have enrolled in the Portal.
Setting up a Portal can be done manually or the process can be automated, allowing organization representatives to purchase a large quantity of seats. The manual process is ideal for clients that already have a sales and invoicing process in place and do not want their own clients to have to purchase via the platform. The automated method is perfect for clients that want the opposite, allowing company representatives to go on to the platform and purchase the seats directly.
If the Portal option sounds like a good fit, you can learn more about how to get started with our Introduction to Portals article.
You're all set!
Congratulations on making it this far! You should now have a good grasp of the platform and its fundamentals. You should now also be familiar with our Help Docs, which were created to make every part of managing your learning platform easy. Should you have trouble understanding a page or performing some activity on the platform, be sure to click the Help beacon in the bottom right of your screen, to view related help documentation.
If you still have a question, are running into an issue, or are looking to initiate the customization request process for custom-made functionality, please contact the Support team either via the Tutorials & Support bubble or by sending an email to help@academyofmine.com.