How to drip feed your courses

Drip-feed allows you to release your course content gradually instead of giving learners access to everything at once. This helps you guide learners step by step and keep them engaged over time.

You can choose when each course section becomes available, either on specific dates or based on when a learner enrolls.

Enable the drip-feed 

To drip-feed your courses:

1. Go to Course Manager and open the course you wish to drip-feed.

2. Click on the Drip feed feature under the Course Outline.

3. Enable the Drip feed and select the type that best suits your course flow (Drip by date - Drip by days). 

4. Save your changes.

Drip by date

You can unlock course contents on specific dates regardless of the time students enrolled. All students will acquire access to the learning material at the same time.

When the drip is set to date, the below No Date specified (or the footsteps) new button is shown in the Contents tab, linked to the drip feed.

When the date is not specified, the section will be available to users. To ensure it remains hidden, be sure to select a future date.

Drip by days

Unlock course contents based on the date the student enrolled in the course (i.e. 1 week, 2 weeks). Each student will get access to the learning material separately.

When the drip is set to days, a 0 days (or the footsteps) new button is shown under the Course Outline tab linked to the drip feed. 

 A value of 0 days means the section is available immediately after enrollment

Set up the drip feed for course sections

Each course is divided into course sections, which you can schedule individually. 

1. Enable the drip feed feature in your course (see above).

2. Go to the Contents tab, where you will see that the course is dripped.

3. Click on the No date specified (Drip by Date) or 0 days (Drip by Days) (or the footsteps) icon to start setting up the drip-feed date for each course section.

4. In the section settings, define when the section becomes available

5. Save your changes

Drip-feed does not apply to free sections inside paid/private courses. However, if you have a free course with free sections, the drip-feed feature will work as expected.

Notifying users

You can notify users who are enrolled in a course once a section is unlocked. 

Once the section is unlocked, your users will receive an email notification you will have personally written about the newly dripped material. You can use variables to make the email personal and engaging.

Review user drip feed timeline

With Drip by days, you can track and manage learner access. 

• View each learner’s progress per section
   
• See which “day” each learner is on
• You can also unlock sections earlier for specific users if needed. To access this view, click the Users button next to the specified day.
  

• This is only available in the Drip by days feature.
• If a learner is enrolled in a course through a Learning Program that uses Drip by Days, you cannot adjust their access. This means you won’t be able to edit drip days, unlock sections early, or change their progress by modifying the enrollment date, and the edit (pencil) icon will not appear. If the learner is enrolled directly in the course, these options remain available.

Important notes

• The notification email must include content in its subject and body; otherwise, the email notification will not get delivered to users once the course section gets dripped fed.
• The drip-feed section is unlocked, and the email is sent at 00:00 based on your school's time zone. Make sure to set up the drip-feed notification at least 24 hours before the unlock (otherwise, the email notification will not be sent).
• If two or more sections of a single course are scheduled to be released on the same day/date, only the email notification for the last section is sent, so you will only need to set up the Send email notification option for the last section. 
• Always have a section (for example, the first one) with zero days or with the course's starting date applied to track each user's current location in terms of drip-feed progress.
• If a section is set to Soon, and you use drip-feed, it will remain locked and inaccessible to users. To make it available, you must manually update the section’s status.
• If a section is set to draft and the notification email is enabled, the email will still be triggered. Make sure to enable the notification only once the course is ready and you want the message to be sent.