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Setting Up a Free Preview Lesson

  1. Jump to

  2. Use Case Information
  3. Unlocking a Lesson for Free Preview
  4. Choosing a Free Preview Lesson
  5. Learner View
  6. FAQs

 

Free Preview allows you to configure a small sample of your content for viewing by the general public.

Use Case Information

Any purchasable course can be configured to grant learners access to one or more free preview lessons, either to all learners, or only to learners who will provide an email address. This allows potential learners to preview a sample lesson before purchasing the course. This is a two step process. First, open lessons up to be available as a sample lesson. Next, select a Sample Lesson in the Enrollment Step.

Warning

If you do not select a Sample Lesson on the Enrollment Step, the option for a Sample Lesson will not be available to learners on the detail page.

Unlocking a Lesson for Free Preview

  1. From your homepage, select Courses, then All Courses.
  2. Click the Content Title for the course you want to alter and you'll land on the Content Step.
  3. Locate the lesson that you would like to make available as a preview and click the pencil icon located next to the padlock icon which indicates the current setting as either locked or unlocked.FreePreviewLesson_OpenLesson_AdminView_GIF.gif
  4. Select a preview option:
    • Open to learners only.

      Note

      Open to learners only is default option and does not qualify as open for a sample lesson

    • Open to everyone.
      • When Open to everyone is selected, anyone with a link to that free preview will be dropped directly into the first open lesson and will view any open content within the course interface.
    • Open to everyone with email capture.

      Tip

      View the captured emails in the Email Capture Details report. Go to Reporting > Reports > Email Capture Details to view the report.

  5. Click Save and don't forget to publish your changes!

Choosing a Free Preview Lesson

  1. From your dashboard, select Courses, then All Courses. 
  2. Click the Content Title for the course you want to alter and go to the Enrollment Step. 
  3. Locate the Sample Lesson field and click the drop-down to choose the lesson where the preview should begin. Any of the lessons that you previously set to Open to everyone or Open to everyone with email capture will be available.

    Tip

    If you have multiple lessons set to Open to Everyone or Open to everyone with email capture, we recommend that you choose the first lesson opened.

  4. Optionally enable the setting Show Syllabus with Free Preview Lessons if you would like to allow unregistered learners to see the course syllabus (sections, lessons, and pages) in free preview lessons.FreePreviewLesson_SampleLesson_AdminView.png
  5. Click Save. 

Learner View

Detail Page: Learner will click Sample Lesson above the purchase widget on the Detail Page sidebar to access the content preview.

Email Capture Messaging & Terms: When Open to everyone with email capture is selected, clicking the preview link from the course detail page will display the email capture page prompting the learner for his/her email address. The learner will then be taken to the preview lesson within the course interface.

Paywall: When learners are finished previewing the will see this paywall.

Show Syllabus with Free Preview Lessons: If you want to set non-consecutive lessons as part of the preview, you also need to enable the setting Show Syllabus with Free Preview Lessons. FreePreviewLesson_DisplaySyllabusSetting_LearnerView_GIF.gif

Note

To learn more about editing paywall and email capture terms visit the article Customizing Paywall Terms and Confirmation Information

FAQs

How can I offer a free preview with SCORM content?

SCORM packages themselves can’t be made available as Free for Preview. The recommended best practice is to provide the preview using native pages, and keep the SCORM content gated behind enrollment.

A common setup is to structure this as a Course with two lessons:

  • Lesson 1 (Open / Free Preview): Use native pages to introduce or preview the content (no SCORM or xAPI).
  • Lesson 2 (Closed): Include the SCORM package on a SCORM page, available only to enrolled learners.

Why does the preview option say “Sample Lesson” on the course detail page and can I change it?

By default, the preview label shown to learners is “Sample Lesson.” You can update this text in Translations by searching for course.look-inside.

What happens after a learner finishes viewing the preview lesson pages?

Once a learner views all pages included in the preview lesson(s), they’ll hit a paywall prompting them to purchase the full course. We recommend customizing the paywall language. To edit it, go to: Courses > All Courses (select course) > Enrollment Step > Ecommerce tab > Advanced > Edit Paywall & Terms.

Does Free Preview work with Force Linear Progress?

Free Preview does not work well with Force Linear Progress enabled, unless you are opening only a single page as the preview. Since completion cannot be recorded in preview mode, learners won’t be marked as having completed a page, which can prevent them from progressing to subsequent pages when Force Linear Progress is turned on.

Can progress be tracked/saved for unregistered learners in sample lessons?

No. Progress can’t be tracked or saved for unregistered learners, so if your sample lesson includes interactive activities (quizzes, match pairs, SCORM, etc.), progress will reset when the learner navigates away from the page.

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