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Activity settings, Completion rules, and Visibility rules
Activity settings, Completion rules, and Visibility rules

Learn about how to adjust the settings for activity pages and flows, including prerequisites, revealing at a date & time, & more

Terra van der Lugt avatar
Written by Terra van der Lugt
Updated over a week ago

In order to adjust the settings for each activity in your course, navigate to the "Settings" button on the top right of your activity page. You'll reveal a slide-in menu with options to change the Activity settings, Completion rules, and Visibility rules.

  • Activity settings: adjust settings specific to the type of activity

  • Completion rules: determine when an activity is open and ready for learners to complete

  • Visibility rules: determine when an activity is visible to learners on the course sidebar

You can also use the slide-in menu to duplicate an activity within your course or delete an activity.

Settings slide-in menu

The slide-in menu for settings will stay open as you navigate between activities. If you are using a large monitor, you will be able to view the activity settings panel while viewing the course's activity page, allowing you to easily interact with content and settings at the same time.


Activity settings

The first tab of the slide-in menu is for the Activity settings. Each activity contains different options for setting, depending on the activity. Some activities don't have any specific activity settings.

A few examples:

  • A Discussion activity has settings that let the instructor set the requirements for completing the discussion activity and the option to separate discussions by tags.

  • A Submission activity has settings for allowing learners to submit multiple attachments, choose the types of attachments that are permitted, determine if learners are allowed to edit after they submit, and more.

Take a look

Below is an example of the activity settings for a Quiz activity, where instructors can edit the quiz, determine how correct answers are revealed, and decide if learners are allowed multiple attempts to retry the quiz.


Completion rules

You can use completion rules to decide when an activity is open and ready for learners to complete. With completion rules, learners will always see the activity title on the course sidebar, although it may be locked or not available to a learner (yet).

You can set completion rules for:


Completion rule: Prerequisites

Setting a prerequisite rule on an activity will require a learner to complete a previous activity (or multiple previous activities) before this activity is open and ready to complete.

To set a prerequisite, go to Completion, select + Add rule and choose Prerequisite. Select + Add prerequisite and select the previous activity (or activities) that you want learners to complete prior to opening access to this activity.

When a prerequisite has been set for an activity, it will be Locked until the prerequisite activity (or activities) have been completed. Locked activities are indicated on the course sidebar by a grey lock symbol.

See the learner's POV for a locked activity due to a prerequisite

Once all of the prerequisites have been completed for an activity, then the activity status will change to Ready to complete (indicated by the blue open circle symbol). Learners will then be able to interact with the activity.

See the learner's POV after the prerequisite is completed

When you add a prerequisite under Completion rules, the activity will still be visible on the course sidebar, even if the activity is locked. If you want to hide the activity description for locked activities, check out Activity description visibility. If you want to hide the activity from the course sidebar completely, check out Visibility rules.


Completion rule: Opens at

Setting a completion rule for Opens at will lock the activity from being open for the learner until a specific date & time.

To set a completion rule for Opens at, go to Completion, select + Add rule and choose Opens at. Select the date & time that you want the activity to open. The date & time will be in your current time zone (the time zone on your device) and will display in your preferred time format (12-hour or 24-hour).

Learners will see the activity title in the course sidebar. Prior to the opening date & time, the activity will be locked, indicated by the grey lock symbol and the warning "Activity not open yet". Learners will see the opening date & time in their own time zone.

See the learner's POV for an activity with an opening date

You can use the activity description visibility setting on this rule to determine if a learner can see the activity description, or if the content will be hidden while the activity is locked. In the example above, the learner can see the activity description, even though the activity is locked.

See the learner's POV for an activity with an opening date with the activity description hidden

In the example above, learners will still see the activity title on the course sidebar, but the description will be hidden until the open date.


Completion rule: Deadline

Setting a completion rule for a Deadline will keep an activity open and ready to complete until a specific date & time. After the deadline date & time, the activity will be closed to learners.

To set a completion rule for a Deadline, go to Completion, select + Add rule and choose Deadline. Select the date & time that you want the activity to close. The date & time will be in your current time zone (the time zone on your device) and will display in your preferred time format (12-hour or 24-hour).

Learners will see the activity title in the course sidebar. Learners will see the deadline date & time in their own time zone and receive a reminder notification about 24 hours prior to the deadline.

See the learner's POV for an activity with an upcoming deadline

When deadlines are set as completion rules, learners will still see activities with deadlines that have passed in the course sidebar. They will be displayed as Overdue with a red x symbol, and learners will not be able to interact with or complete the activity.

See the learner's POV for an activity with an overdue deadline

In order to allow learners to complete activities with overdue deadline, you can use the summary page to override deadlines and offer extensions for individual learners.

💡Tip: If you want your learners to be able to complete an activity even after a deadline has passed, you can remove the rule about the deadline. If you delete a deadline, learners will see the activity as Ready to complete instead of Overdue, and you can still track completion dates & times on the Summary page under Metadata.


Completion rule: Based on Course data

Setting a Course data rule allows you to let activities be open and ready to complete based based on a learner's answers to a question from a previous activity (such as a Quiz or Form activity).

To set a completion rule based on Course data, go to Completion, select + Add rule and choose Course data. Select the activity with a learner response and choose the relevant selections. In the example below, the activity with this rule will only open to learners if they receive a score below or equal to 4 on a question about rating the quality of work from a peer review activity.

‍You can create course data rules based on learners' answers to questions from all of the following activities:

  • Quiz

  • Form

  • Self review

  • Instructor review

  • Peer review

  • Group member review

  • Feedback reflection

Curious to explore examples of when you might use course data rules?


Completion rule: Based on tags

Setting up a completion rule based on tags allows you to open an activity or flow for specific groups of learners based on their assigned tags. Tags can be assigned by the instructor, or learners can select a tag for themselves using the 'Select a tag' activity.

To set a completion rule based on Tags, go to Completion, select + Add rule and choose Tags. Determine if learners should have some of, all of, or exactly the tags you add (this is important if your learners have multiple tags in your course). Choose the tags that align with the learners who you want to be able to open the activity and make it ready to complete.

By setting a completion rule based on tags, you can choose which learners have access to complete an activity or flow. Once the learner is assigned the tag, they will open access.

In the following example, there are flows for each department in an onboarding course. Each flow has a completion rule based on tags to match the department they select at the start of their onboarding course. Once the learner selects their tag, they will open all of the activities in the flow that aligns with their tag to be Ready to complete.

Learners will open the activities that are relevant to them after selecting their tag for their department.

Notice that other flows are still visible along the course sidebar, but with a grey x symbol. This indicates that the learner is not part of those activities.

See the learner's POV for activities that they are not part of, based on tags

When you add a completion rule based on tags, the other activities will still be visible on the course sidebar, even if the activities are not open to the learner based on tags. If you want to hide the activity description for activities from other learners, check out Activity description visibility. If you want to hide the activities from other learners from the course sidebar completely, check out Visibility rules based on tags.


Completion rule: Based on manually selected learners

Similar to a completion rule based on tags, a rule for completion based on manual selection will allow you to manually select the learners who have access to complete the activity.

When you add a completion rule based on manual selection, learners who are not selected will still see the activity title on the course sidebar, even if the activities are not open to the learner.

See a learner's POV who has been manually selected to complete an activity

Note how the activity appears as Ready to complete and looks like any typical activity to the manually selected learner.

See a learner's POV who has been not manually selected to complete an activity

The activity is visible to the learner who hasn't been manually selected, but they see a grey x symbol which indicates that they are not part of this activity. Also note the warning "You are not included in the selection of participants that can complete this activity".

If you want to hide the activity description for activities from learners who are not selected, check out Activity description visibility. If you want to hide the activities from learners who are not selected from the course sidebar completely, check out Visibility rules based on manual selection.


Completion rules: Activity description visibility

If an activity is locked due to a completion rule, do you want learners to still be able to see the content and description of the activity? You can determine if learners can see the descriptive content in your activity with the Activity description visibility setting. Click on the gear symbol next to your rule to access this setting.

You can determine if learners can or cannot see the activity description of an activity when the activity is locked. Here's an example of what learners would see in both cases:

If learners cannot see the activity description when the activity is locked

If learners can see the activity description, even when the activity is locked

Note that when the activity visibility setting is set to "learners can see the activity description", the activity is still locked to learners. Learners can read the description, but they will not have access to interact with the activity, and they will not be able to complete it.


Visibility rules

You also have the option to set up visibility rules that determine if & when a learner can see an activity in your course in the course sidebar on the left. This is where you will typically set up rules that only shows the activity to a subset of learners or completely hides it from them.

Visibility rules allow you to reveal content on a specific date, open the flow to learners based on tags, user type, or by manually selecting them. You can also set prerequisites as well as preset a date and time to hide the activity from learners. Below is a list of all the visibility rules.

When using a visibility rule, the activity will not show in the course sidebar for learners until the activity is open and ready to complete for the learner.


Visibility rule: Reveals at

A visibility rule for Reveals at allows you to set up when an activity or flow will appear on the course sidebar to learners, and will automatically open the activity for learners to complete at the assigned date and time.

Prior to the assigned date and time, learners will not see the title of the activity and will not be able to access the activity. After the assigned date and time, the activity will appear on the course sidebar, and the activity will be open and ready to complete by learners.


Visibility rule: Based on tags

Using tags, you can allow an activity or flow to become visible for specific groups of learners based on their assigned tags. Tags can be assigned by the instructor, or learners can select a tag for themselves using the 'Select a tag' activity.

By setting a visibility rule based on tags, you can choose which learners will see an activity or flow. Once the learner is assigned the tag, they will see the title of the activity or flow appear on the course sidebar and open access to complete the activity.

For example, in an onboarding course, learners might select a tag for their department. If the instructor has a rule for completion based on tags on an activity or flow, then the activity will appear and be open for the learner with the tag to complete.

Note how the entire flow appears on the course sidebar once the tag is selected by learner.


Visibility rule: Based on manually selected learners

Similar to a visibility rule based on tags, a rule for visibility based on manual selection will allow you to manually select the learners who can see and access an activity.

Only learners who have been manually selected will be able to see and access the activity.


Visibility rule: Based on user type

When you set a visibility rule based on user type, you can make activities visible only to users with a specific user type. User types include learner, assistant, and instructor.

Only the users with the user type selected will be able to see the activity on the course sidebar, and only the users who can see the activity will have access to complete it.


Visibility rule: Prerequisites

You can require a learner to complete a previous activity (or multiple previous activities) before they can see and gain access to an activity by setting a prerequisite rule for visibility.

Choose + Add prerequisite and select the activity or activities that you want learners to complete prior to opening access to this activity. Once learners complete all of the prerequisite activities, they will be able to see and have access to complete the activity with this visibility rule.


Visibility rule: Deadline

You can hide an activity from learners after a specific date and time using the deadline rule for visibility. Learners will be able to see the activity up until the date and time set by the instructor.

After the assigned date & time, the activity will no longer be visible to learners, and learners won't see the title of the activity on the course sidebar. Even if learners have previously completed the activity, the activity will no longer be visible or accessible by learners after the deadline.


Visibility rule: Based on Course data

The Course data rule allows you to set up a rule for when an activity or flow is visible to a learner based on their answers to a question from a previous activity (such as a Quiz or Form activity).

We currently support course data rules based on learners' answers to questions from all of the following activities:

  • Quiz

  • Form

  • Self review

  • Instructor review

  • Peer review

  • Group member review

  • Feedback reflection

Curious to explore the possibilities with course data rules?


Examples of design possibilities

Here are a few examples of how you can leverage the these rules to achieve customized course designs:

  • You can set up a visibility rule to reveal an activity at a given date and time.

  • You can set up a visibility rule to hide certain activities from assistants.

  • You can set up a visibility rule that will reveal activities only once other activities have been completed.

  • You can set up completion rules for a flow that will propagate to all activities it contains.

Check back for more information on these options!

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