Creating a Private Course Catalog

If you offer products that are only available to certain users (for example, a set of products that will be shared with a select group of users, but will not be available on your public course catalog),we have a way for you to limit those products to a specific catalog page. In this article, we'll first walk you through how to create a page that only contains those products, as well as how to exclude specific products from your main course catalog. 

Step 1: Create the Product

First, you'll need to create a product(s) for the course(s) that you want to offer. Check out this article for all the details there! Once you have created the product, be sure to note the Product ID as listed on the product listing page. Note that if you have several products that you want to show on this new product listing page that we're building, you can opt to use product categories. See this article for more details on product categories on the course catalog.

Step 2: Create a New Course Catalog Page

Once that's been done, create a Course Catalog page that will show just that product or category of products using the steps here:

  1. Go to Pages & Menus > Pages.
  2. Click + Create Page, and enter a title for the page.
  3. You can choose to load a layout. With this, you can simply select our Product Listing layout so that it will look like the regular Course Catalog, yet you'll be able to pick what Products show. Do this by selecting Layouts > Load Layout > Product Listing.
  4. Double click the grey part on the top grey block that says Text if you want to edit the text entered.
  5. Now, double click the grey part of the second block that says Product List. Here is where you will choose what products are shown. Enter the Product ID(s) from Part 1 under the section that says "Only Show Specific Products". Click Save Changes. If you're using product categories instead, you can enter the name of the category under the "Only Show Products with following Categories " heading so that the page will only show those categories. 
  6. You can preview the page by clicking Preview in the upper right.
  7. Once you have finished the page, click Save Page.
  8. After the page has been saved, you'll see that the Slug (URL) will show on the edit page. This is the URL you'll be able to share for this new course catalog page.

As a reminder, pages aren't automatically added to a menu. You can add the page to a menu using the steps here. If the page is not added to a menu, the only way a user will be able to be access it will be via that URL, which creates a private experience with only that specific product(s) showing.

Step 3: Exclude Products from Main Course Catalog

Lastly, you will want to be sure to exclude the product from your main course catalog.

  1. Go back to Pages & Menus and Pages. Click on the Product Listing page.
  2. Double click the Product List block on the grey part. Enter the Product ID(s) from Part 1 under the section that says "Exclude Specific Products". Save changes.
  3. Preview page if you wish, and then Update Page to save the changes to the page.