Programs overview

A program is the container for the learning you deliver. It holds the modules and lessons people work through, the assessments attached to it, its schedule, its enrollment, and its results. Whether you think of it as a course, a curriculum, a track, or an academy, the program is the unit you build, publish, and enroll people into.

What this does

Programs group modules, lessons, and content blocks into one publishable unit that people enroll in. Each program has a type that describes how people move through it, and a lifecycle status that controls whether learners can reach it.

Programs belong to a single organization. If you administer more than one, switch organizations in the sidebar before you create — a program created in the wrong organization has to be re-created or duplicated across. Lurno staff accounts get an extra organization dropdown on the Programs page itself instead.

Before you start

Confirm you can see Programs in the navigation. If you can’t, the module isn’t enabled for your organization.
Decide the shape of the experience: self-paced, a group on a shared schedule, a blend of online and live, or a sequence of programs.
Have your source material ready, or plan to build it in the lesson editor.

Program types

You pick a type on the first step of the create wizard. It is a description of the shape of the program, and you can change it later from Settings.

Type	Wizard description
Self-paced course	Each learner moves at their own speed. Best for evergreen content.
Cohort program	A group starts together and moves through on the same schedule.
Blended (online + in-person)	Mix online modules with scheduled live or in-person sessions.
Event-led series	Built around live events. Modules unlock around each event.
Multi-course pathway	A sequence of programs learners complete in order.
Certification program	Track completion of all required parts and issue a credential.

Picking a type pre-fills the program’s completion defaults. It does not by itself create a schedule, release windows, or prerequisites — those are configured separately under the program’s Scheduling section. See Schedules and release windows, Prerequisites, and Drip content.

Create a program

Choose Create program on Programs. The button only appears if you have permission to create programs, and where it leads depends on whether you can use AI.

With permission to use AI, it opens the Create flow: describe what you want to teach, or pick a shape, review the plan, and let it write as much of the course as you choose. Every step can be skipped.

Without it — or in an organization with AI switched off — it opens the manual two-step wizard:

Go to Programs and choose Create program.
Step 1 — What kind of program? Pick one of the six type cards.
Step 2 — The basics. Give it a Title (required) and a Summary. Show advanced reveals a Slug field; leave it blank for an auto-generated value.
Choose Create program. You land straight on the new program’s workspace.

Cover image, subtitle, standards mapping, completion rules, and sharing are all set afterwards from Settings — they are not part of the wizard.

Inside a program

The program workspace has a cover header and a left rail. The rail is the whole navigation for the program: Overview at the top, then an Apps group, then a Dashboard group holding everything else.

Rail item	What it holds
Overview	Enrollment, activity and completion stats, module progress, and a shortcut into the publish checklist.
Apps	The content surfaces you have added to this program. Add App adds one.
Publish	The publish checklist and the Publish Program button.
Settings	Basics (cover, title, subtitle, summary, type), standards mapping, completion rules, source documents, sharing, and the danger zone.
Scheduling → Schedule / Prerequisites / Drop policy / Calendar	The scheduling module’s surfaces for this program.
Enrollment	Who is enrolled, and enrollment actions for this program.
Grading	The grading queue scoped to this program.
Results	Results across the program.

Apps are added, not pre-built. A brand-new program starts with no content app. To add modules and lessons you must first choose Add App → Learning Materials. The other app types are Assessments, which is real and attaches assessments to the program, plus Feed, Events, and Resources, which are placeholders today — adding one shows a short “coming soon” card and nothing else. Each app in the rail has a ⋯ menu with Remove.

Full authoring detail is in Building a course.

Archive several courses at once

Tick courses in the list and a selection bar offers Archive, with Select all and Clear. You get “12 archived”, or “10 archived, 2 could not be” where some were refused.

Archive is the only bulk lifecycle action, deliberately. Publishing runs each course’s own checklist, and a course that fails its checks isn’t published — so a bulk publish would quietly do nothing for half a selection while reporting success. Publish from the course itself, where the checklist can tell you what’s missing.

Draft, published, archived

The Programs list opens on Published by default — the programs people are actually using. All is one tap away, and your choice is kept across reloads and when you navigate back to the list. An organization with nothing published yet gets a Show all link instead of an empty page.

Every program carries a lifecycle status, shown on the cover header and filterable on the list page.

Draft — the starting state. Learners cannot reach it.
Published — set by running the publish checklist under Publish and choosing Publish Program. The button is disabled until every check passes, and it only appears if you have permission to publish.
Archived — available from Settings → Danger zone, and only on a program that is already published.

The publish checklist runs four checks:

Program has a title
Program type is set
At least one module exists
All modules have titles

Publishing a program does not enroll anyone, and it does not publish the modules and lessons inside it — those are published individually. See Enrollment overview.

The list page’s status filter also offers In Review. There is no control that puts a program into that state, so it is normally empty.

If your organization sits above other organizations, you can share a program down the tree from Settings → Sharing.

Open the program, go to Settings, and scroll to Sharing. The panel only appears if you can edit the program.

Pick an Access level:

Level	What the other organization can do
Preview only	Open it read-only to look it over. Their learners can’t take it, and they can’t copy or change it. Your edits keep flowing through.
Use with learners	Add it to their own programs, enroll their learners, and follow their progress — without owning or editing a single word of it. Your edits reach their learners automatically. If you stop sharing, their learners lose access; their progress and certificates are kept.
Use with learners + Duplicate	Everything above, plus taking their own independent copy to edit freely. Once copied, that copy is permanently independent — your later edits never reach it, and theirs never reach you.

Pick the organization from the dropdown and choose Share. Existing grants are listed underneath, each with its level, and can be stopped again from the bin icon.

Changing a level warns you first. Moving an organization to a narrower level — say, from Use with learners to Preview only — tells you how many of their enrolled learners will lose access before you confirm. Their progress and certificates are kept regardless; only their access to continue changes.

Removing a share doesn’t touch copies the other organization already made — those stay independent.

Using a shared program with your own learners

The receiving organization finds shared programs through Shared catalogue in the header of their Programs page. What they can do there depends on the level you granted:

Preview only shows the content and offers nothing else.
Use with learners (or higher) adds an Enroll learners step: they add the program to their own list and run their own enrollment, grading and results against it — while you keep editing and publishing the content itself. The program they see is marked read-only, naming which organization owns it.
Use with learners + Duplicate additionally offers Duplicate, taking a fully independent, editable copy.

Each organization using a program this way runs its own enrollment and sees its own learners’ progress — your overview shows the activity across everyone using it, including each organization’s own cohort.

Reference

Each program action is guarded by its own permission, checked against the program’s organization.

Permission to…	What it unlocks
Create programs	The Create program button, which opens the manual wizard.
Create programs and use AI	The same button opens the Create flow instead.
Edit programs	Editing basics, modules, lessons, blocks, and the Sharing panel.
Publish programs	The Publish Program button on the publish checklist.
Archive programs	Archive in the Settings danger zone, on published programs.
Delete programs	Delete in the Settings danger zone.

Two of these are enforced on the server but not reflected in the interface: the Delete entry on a program card in the list is shown to everyone and simply fails if you can’t delete, and the Publish / Unpublish controls on individual modules and lessons are always shown even though the server requires publish permission for them.

Troubleshooting

There is no “New Program” button. You don’t have permission to create programs in the active organization. The button is hidden rather than disabled.

“Programs” isn’t in the navigation. Your organization is on a subscription package with the Programs switch off. That is a platform-side setting; ask Lurno. Note this only hides the navigation entry — it doesn’t block a direct link.

The Publish Program button is greyed out. One of the four checks has failed. Each failed row has a Fix this link that jumps to the screen where you can correct it.

You published the program but learners see nothing. Publishing the program is only the outer layer. Check that the modules and lessons inside it are published too, that people are actually enrolled, and that any schedule or release window has opened.

Delete is refused: “learners are still enrolled”. A program with active enrollments can’t be deleted. Archive it first so existing learners keep their access, then delete once enrollments wind down.

A receiving organization’s learners suddenly lost access to a shared program. Its sharing level was narrowed — from Use with learners to Preview only, for instance, or the share was stopped entirely. Their progress and certificates are kept either way; widen the level again, or re-share, to restore access.

You created the program in the wrong organization. There is no move. Re-create it, or share it to the right organization at View + Duplicate and take a copy there.