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 tuned in and set up the basic items as quickly as possible. 

You can also check out this handy video tour that walks through the Admin Dashboard and gives a high-level overview of how the functions 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.

Step 1: Adding Your Team

If there are others in your business that will be needing admin access to the platform, you'll want to bring them aboard first. You can add new users with different roles and specific permissions depending on their access requirements. Overall, there are five user types:

• Owner: This is your role, where you can manage and make changes to the platform
• Group Admins: Admins who can manage a specific group
• Staff: Users who teach material, they can create content and offer live webinar trainings
• General: The users taking courses
• Admin: This is restricted to Academy of Mine staff only and exists for monitoring and troubleshooting your account when necessary

Generally, all users on your team should be added as Admins, so they will have access to the entire platform and will be able to make changes. This way, you can all work together to get your platform ready to launch!

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 add your company logo, which will be displayed in multiple locations throughout the platform, as well as change the colors seen on the platform to match your company’s brand. Further add your branding by inserting custom headers and footers--these can include a contact email address and 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 could help you modify text sizes, introduce new layout options, change the formatting of pages, and more.

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 bring 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.

AOM offers both  Self Paced and Instructor Led courses. The difference between this is how the material is presented to the students, and therefore, 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 are where you combine all the educational material you have built into one package that students can access and take online, without being in a class led by an instructor. The material of a course is built up out 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. As such, you can add a PDF module, SCORM module, text-based module, video module, and so forth. 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. What is also good to know is that you can combine multiple 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 classes instead of modules. The classes each have a date, time and location that they are offered and the student will attend the classes. The location can be both 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. 

Step 4: Setting Up eCommerce and selling a Course

If you are looking to sell your Courses via self-service, our built-in e Commerce function allows an individual to purchase, enroll, and complete a Course without the need for you to be involved. This makes your platform 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).

Step 5: Building Site Pages

Especially for clients that are selling to individuals and that want a front-end representation of their platform, building and setting up web pages is a great way of representing your business and the products you offer. You can use our in-house page builder that makes it possible for you to construct your web pages by yourself and it's highly customizable. 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 (this is different compared to the dashboard and courses). 

Of course, 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, tying the LMS nicely together with your existing site

Step 6: Setting up a Group (optional)

If you are in the business of selling courses in bulk to organizations and institutions - for example 100 courses to an entire team of a company - our Groups feature streamlines this whole process for you. It allows you to onboard representatives of the organization or company as Group Admins, giving them the ability to take on the student and course management on your behalf. This makes selling large quantities of courses incredibly scalable. Group Admins will have a similar dashboard as that 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 Group.

Setting up a Group can be done manually, or the process can be automated, allowing organization representatives to purchase a large quantity of a course which sets up their Group right away. The manual process is ideal for clients that already have a certain sales process in place which involves invoicing 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 onto the platform, purchase the seats, and have everything set up that way. 

You're all set!

Congratulations on making it this far! It's important to have a good grasp of the platform and its fundamentals, and you should now 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 in the platform, be sure to click the Help beacon in the bottom right of your screen, to view related help documentation.

If you are still left with a question unanswered, you are running into an issue, or you 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 emailing directly to help@academyofmine.com.