Once you have connected Shopify & Thinkific, you can start creating your first course in Thinkific!
In this article:
Introduction to the Course Builder
How to Create a New Course
First things first, let's get started by creating a new course!
- In your Shopify admin, select Apps
- Select Thinkific
- On the top right, select New course
- Name your course as desired. Don't worry, you can change this later!
- Select Create
Introduction to the Course Builder
Once you have created your course, you will be taken to the Course Builder. In the Course Builder, you can create/import lesson content, set your course pricing, and more! We will cover some basic areas throughout this article and you can always learn more about navigating the Thinkific Course Builder here.
Add Your Content
Content can be added in two areas of the Course Builder:
Bulk Importer
If you already have video, audio, and/or PDF content created for your course, the Bulk Importer is great for quickly uploading all of your content at one time! To bulk import content:
- Select the Bulk Importer tab
- In the upload box, drag & drop your desired files
Learn more about the Bulk Importer here!
Curriculum
The Curriculum tab can be used to add individual lessons and chapters within your course.
To start adding lessons to your course, you'll need to first create a new chapter! You can think of chapters as containers that hold one or more lessons.
How to Add a New Chapter:
- Make sure you are in the Curriculum tab
- On the left-hand side, click Add Chapter
- Name the Chapter title field as desired
- Click Save
Adding Lessons to your Course
Once you have created a chapter, you can start adding lessons to your course! Before walking through these steps, you will want to decide which lesson type to include in your course. You can check out our various lesson types here: Thinkific Lesson Types.
How to Add a New Lesson:
- Make sure you are in the Curriculum tab
- On the left-hand side, click Add Lesson
- Select the desired Lesson Type
- Name the Lesson Title as desired
- Add your content
- Click Save
Configure Course Settings
The Settings tab of the Course Builder is where you can go to add basic details for your course. We have included the essential settings as you are getting started. If you have any additional questions about available settings, send us an email!
Basic settings
This is where you can update your Course name. The course name will be visible on course cards that your students will see when they login to access your course. For example:
Course image & description
Your Course image will appear on your course cards as you can see in the example above. You don't need to worry about Course description for this integration.
Course Player appearance
The Course Player is the learning environment where students will be interacting with your content. You can customize the look of Course Player to match your branding. Check out The Thinkific Course Player for more details.
Course progress & completion
This includes some optional course settings that you might like to customize. Available options will be dependent on your current Thinkific plan and include:
- Video lesson autoplay - Video lessons will autoplay and also automatically progress to the following lesson upon completion
- Video completion percentage required - Video lessons will be marked complete when a student reaches your desired completion percentage
- Chapter completion messages - By default there is a popup enable when students complete a chapter. This can be disabled.
- Completion certificates - Issue a certificate when your students reach 100% completion of your course
- Custom completion page - Customize the page students see when they reach 100% completion of your course. This is optional and you can always preview your course as a student to see what the default completion page looks like.
These basic settings will get you started! If you have questions about additional options, feel free to reach out.
Next Steps - Prepare to Publish Your Course
Once your course is ready for your customers and your content is in place, you need to publish it so that it becomes visible to your students.
When you publish your course it appears in your student's course dashboard and on your Thinkific facing landing pages (if you choose to use these), but won't appear in your Shopify store right away.
If you're selling your course on Shopify, publishing your course won't make it available in your sales channels, so that will be your next step! Go to your Product's list in Shopify and add it to your Shop. For more details on this step, head to Shopify App: Step 4 - Launch Your Thinkific Course on Shopify.
Congrats on creating your first course! Before you hit that publish button make sure you consider:
- Check lessons with warnings - Make sure that you don't see any red warnings of missing content in the Curriculum tab
- Uncheck Draft on all the chapters and lessons you want to available to your students - Even if your course is published, the Draft setting will keep content hidden until this setting is removed
- Preview Your Course - Test your course from the student's perspective
- Review our Pre-Launch Checklist
For additional resources, check out Shopify App: Getting Started Selling Thinkific Courses on Shopify.