After you build out a course—whether for the first time or in any later iteration—you must publish it to make it visible to your assigned users.
Permissions: Draft content is visible only to collaborators with Author or Publish access. Everyone else — including View-level collaborators — sees the published version, exactly as learners do.
Course States
Every course exists in one of three states:
Badge | What it means | What learners see |
Draft | Never published | Nothing — the course doesn't exist for them yet |
Live | Published, no pending edits | The current visible version to assigned users. |
Unpublished changes | Published, but edited since | The last published version — not your edits |
Unpublished changes doesn't mean learners see a half-finished course — it means they're still seeing the older, finished version while you keep working.
How to preview a course before publishing
The Preview button has two options:
Preview draft — your unpublished work, as a learner would experience it.
Preview published — what learners are looking at right now.
Compare the two before publishing anything you're unsure about.
How to publish and unpublish a course
Publish a course
Publish takes everything in your draft and makes it the version learners see, all at once. There's no partial publish: you can't push one topic live and hold another back.
Within a course outline, click "Publish".
Unpublish a course
Unpublish hides a live course from learners without deleting anything. Progress and history are preserved, so re-publishing brings it back exactly as it was. Use it for a course that's seasonally irrelevant or temporarily wrong.
Within a course outline, navigate to the course title → click the three vertical dots → Unpublish.
Permissions: You must have Publish-level access, and it's grayed out unless the course is currently published.
How to discard draft changes
Discard draft changes throws away every unpublished edit and snaps the course back to its published version — the undo button for "I've made a mess of this."
Within the course outline, click the "Discard Changes" button.
Discarding restores anything you'd marked for deletion since the last publish, but it can't bring back a topic or step you created and deleted without ever publishing it.
That content never existed in a published version, so there's nothing to restore it from.
How to manage course collaborators
Collaborators work on the course. They see it before it's published.
Adding a collaborator does not assign them the course, and assigning a learner does not let them edit anything.
To manage collaborators:
Within the course library: click the three vertical dots on a course → Collaborators or click the person+ icon.
Within a course outline: click the person+ icon at the top right.
Level | Can view | Can edit content | Can publish/unpublish | Can add collaborators | Can delete the course |
View | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
Author | ✓ | ✓ | — | — | — |
Publish | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Each level includes everything below it. Remove revokes access entirely.
Alongside the access level, each collaborator has an independent Assign & track switch:
Assign & track | Grants |
On | Set the course's learner audience, and see or mark other people's completion |
Off | No ability to assign or view users' progress |
How to organize courses into folders
Folders are for your own organization — they don't affect who can see a course.
Click the +folder icon from the Courses tab, or choose a folder when creating a course. A course left unassigned appears under Uncategorized.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who sees my draft edits?
Who sees my draft edits?
Only people with Author or Publish access. Everyone else — including View-level collaborators and learners — sees the published version.
I'm an author — how do I see the course the way learners will?
I'm an author — how do I see the course the way learners will?
Use Preview published.
Does adding someone as a collaborator assign them the course?
Does adding someone as a collaborator assign them the course?
No — collaborating and being assigned are separate. If you want a collaborator to also take the course, assign it to them like any other learner.
Can I recover content I deleted before ever publishing it?
Can I recover content I deleted before ever publishing it?
No — Discard draft changes can only restore something that existed in a published version.
Ready to decide who should take the course? See How to Assign Courses and Track Progress.