Prompt Management
Prompts are the guidance messages your students and trainers receive each week. Each prompt belongs to one week of a timeline and is written for a particular audience. A week can have as many prompts as you like, for example one for students and one for trainers.
This page is for administrators. All prompt work happens in the Weekly Prompts section of Course Cadence → Timelines & Prompts, below the timeline cards. Select a course, then click the timeline you want to work on. To set up the timeline first, see Timeline management.
Creating and editing prompts
The prompt list
Each prompt appears as a compact card showing its week, an audience badge (Student, Trainer or Student + Trainer) and its subject. Click the card or its expand toggle to see the full body, the day offset and any attachments. Each card has Edit and Delete buttons. Prompts are listed by week number, then by day offset.
If the timeline has no prompts yet, the list shows “No prompts drafted yet.”
Creating a prompt
- Click + Add New Prompt. The New Prompt dialog opens.
- Fill in the fields described in the table below.
- Click Create prompt. You’ll see “Prompt saved.” and the dialog closes.
| Field | What it does | Default and rules |
|---|---|---|
| Week number | The timeline week this prompt belongs to | Default 1. Must be 1 or higher. There is no upper limit, but weeks past a Fixed period timeline’s end date are never sent |
| Day offset | Help text: “Number of days after the week starts (0 = Monday, 1 = Tuesday, etc.)”. Sets the display order within a week (see below) | Default 0. Must be 0 or higher |
| Audience | “Who will receive this guidance email”: Student, Trainer or Both | Default Student |
| Subject | The prompt’s title (see “How the subject is used” below) | Required. Plain text only, so any HTML tags are removed |
| Body | The guidance itself. Line breaks become paragraphs. Basic HTML such as links, bold and lists is kept, but unsafe code is removed | Required. Supports placeholders |
| Attachment URL | A single link to a resource | Optional. See Attachments below |
| Linked lessons | Lessons from the course to list under the prompt | Optional. See Linking lessons to a prompt |
Audiences
| Audience | Emailed to | Shown on the page to |
|---|---|---|
| Student | Enrolled students who haven’t opted out of this course’s emails | Students |
| Trainer | The course’s trainers (instructors) | Trainers |
| Both | Students and trainers. Each person gets their own email | Students and trainers |
How the subject is used
- In a single-course weekly email, the email’s subject line comes from Settings → Emails → Email Subject, not from the prompt. The prompt’s own Subject isn’t shown in that email, only its body.
- In consolidated emails (a student with several courses that week), catch-up emails and on the guidance pages, the prompt Subject appears as the heading above its body.
Write each Subject as a short heading that makes sense on its own, such as “Week 3: Observation techniques”.
What day offset does, and doesn’t do
Day offset does not delay sending. Every prompt for a week goes out together at the weekly dispatch set under Settings → Schedule. Day offset only sets the order prompts appear in within a week, on the guidance pages and in emails. It also groups the Overview → This week list under “Day Offset 0”, “Day Offset 1” and so on, counted from the dispatch day. To stagger messages across days, put them in different weeks.
Editing a prompt
- Click Edit on the prompt card. The dialog is titled Edit prompt — subject.
- Change the Day offset, Audience, Subject, Body, Attachment URL or Linked lessons.
- Click Update prompt. You’ll see “Prompt updated.”
Things to know:
- Week number is read-only here. The note under it says “The week is changed with a separate move, so delivery records stay correct.” Use Move to another week… instead (see below).
- Sent prompts are not locked. You can edit any prompt at any time. Each person receives a given prompt only once, so editing a prompt after it has been sent does not resend it. The new wording reaches students who haven’t had it yet and shows on the guidance page straight away.
- Every save keeps a copy of the previous version, even if you didn’t change anything. See Prompt version history.
- If the prompt has saved versions, a Version history (N) section appears at the bottom of the dialog.
Deleting a prompt
Click Delete on the card, then confirm in the Confirm Delete dialog (“Are you sure you want to delete the prompt “{subject}”?”). Deletion is permanent and has no undo. The prompt’s earlier versions can no longer be restored from this screen. The deletion is recorded in the audit log.
Attachments
The Attachment URL field accepts one web address. An attachment link is shown on the guidance pages as a list item with a file-type icon. It is not added to the weekly emails.
- Only links on your own site, or on an allowed domain, are kept. The allowed domains are drive.google.com, dropbox.com and onedrive.live.com, plus anything you list under Settings → Emails → Attachments → Allowed Attachment Domains. Other links are dropped without a message.
- A value that isn’t a valid web address shows “Attachment URL must be a valid URL.”
- Known limitation in 1.0.0: a URL typed into the Attachment URL field is not kept when the prompt is saved. Until this is fixed, put resource links in the prompt Body (for example, “Download the observation template“). Body links appear in both emails and on the guidance pages.
Placeholders
You can use placeholders such as {first_name} and {course_name} in the Subject and Body. They’re replaced with real details when the email is sent or the page is shown. Which placeholders work depends on where the prompt appears. For example, catch-up emails and the guidance pages only fill {student_name}, {course_name} and {week_number}. See the Placeholder reference for the full list.
Checking how a prompt will look
There is no preview button on the prompt card. To see a real email, use Course Cadence → Email Delivery → Test Emails to send a test for a course and date (see Admin dashboards). Overview → This week also lists every prompt due at the next dispatch, and you can view each one there.
Linking lessons to a prompt
Linking a lesson adds a Related Lessons list, with a link to each lesson, after the prompt’s body. The list appears in guidance emails and on the guidance pages, so students can go straight to the matching course content.
- In the New Prompt or Edit prompt dialog, find Linked lessons.
- Lessons are grouped by topic (Tutor LMS) or section (LifterLMS). Click a topic to expand it (“Click a topic to expand and select lessons.”).
- Tick each lesson that relates to this prompt. The heading shows how many you’ve chosen, for example “2 selected”.
- Save the prompt.
To remove a link, untick the lesson and save.
Rules and edge cases
- Only lessons from the same course are offered.
- Only published lessons are shown in the Related Lessons list. A linked lesson that is later unpublished or deleted simply disappears from it.
- In standalone (native classes) mode there are no LMS lessons, so the picker shows “No lessons found for this course.”
- Cloning a timeline removes all lesson links, because lessons belong to a specific course. Re-link them after cloning (see Timeline cloning).
- Restoring an earlier version of a prompt also restores the lessons that version had linked.
- If the lesson list can’t be loaded, the picker shows “Failed to load lessons.”
Moving a prompt to another week
Use this to rearrange a series, for example after cloning a timeline into a course that runs topics in a different order.
- Open the prompt with Edit.
- Under Week number, click Move to another week…. The plugin checks whether the move is safe.
- In Move to week, enter the destination week.
- Click Move prompt. You’ll see “Prompt moved to week N.” and the list refreshes.
Moving one prompt doesn’t shift any other prompts. A week can be left empty, and a week can hold several prompts.
What the safety check can tell you
| Situation | What you see | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Nobody has received the prompt yet (for example, a freshly cloned timeline) | No message | Moves freely |
| Some students have already received it | “N student(s) have already received this prompt. They will not receive it again — moving it only changes when it reaches students who have not had it yet.” | Moves. Students who already had it won’t get it again |
| The week has delivery records from before the plugin’s tracking upgrade, and this prompt can be identified | “This week has delivery records from before the tracking upgrade; the ones for this prompt will move with it so past recipients are not emailed again.” | Moves together with its past records |
| Older delivery records are shared with another prompt in the same week (an “everyone” prompt, or two prompts for the same audience) | “This prompt cannot be moved: its week has delivery records from before the tracking upgrade… To place it elsewhere, recreate it at the week you want.” | Blocked. The Move to week box and Move prompt button are disabled |
The “tracking upgrade” cases only apply to sites that sent emails with a pre-release build of the plugin. A fresh 1.0.0 install never sees them.
Effect on students
- Moving a prompt later than a student’s current week holds it back until that week arrives.
- Moving a prompt to a week that has already been sent means students who haven’t had it will show as behind on the catch-up banner. You decide whether to send it (see Catch-up emails).
Possible messages
- “Enter a week number of 1 or higher.”
- “The prompt is already at that week.”
- “This prompt has moved since you opened it. Reload the timeline and try again.” This appears if someone else moved the prompt while your dialog was open.
- “This prompt can normally be moved, but its recipients cannot be determined right now because no LMS provider is active. Activate the course’s LMS and try again.”
- “Unable to move the prompt. No changes were made.”
- “Could not check whether this prompt can be moved.”
Every move is recorded in the audit log as Prompt Moved, with the old and new week.
Inserting a week
Insert week… opens up an empty week partway through a series. Every prompt at or after the chosen week moves one week later. Use it when, for example, you need to add a revision week before an assessment.
- With the timeline selected, click Insert week… in the Weekly Prompts section.
- In the Insert Week dialog (“Insert an empty week at this position. Prompts at or after it shift up one week.”), enter Insert at week position. It must be between 1 and one more than the last week that has a prompt. The default is that last option, which adds an empty week at the end and moves nothing.
- Click Insert week.
- The new week is empty. Click + Add New Prompt and give the new prompt that week number.
What it changes
- All prompts in the chosen week and later weeks move up by one week, all at once. If any part fails, nothing changes.
- Students who already received a prompt won’t get it again because it moved.
- If the series now runs past a Fixed period timeline’s end date, you’ll see: “The series now extends past the timeline’s end date — extend the end date or the extra weeks will not send.” Extend the end date under Edit timeline.
- On Rolling timelines, this warning appears after every insert, because Rolling timelines have no end date. You can ignore it there.
- If you insert a week the cohort has already passed, the prompt you add to it shows as pending catch-up for students who were past that week.
- Each insert is recorded in the audit log as Week Inserted.
Possible messages: “Enter a position between 1 and N.” and “Could not insert the week. The position must be between 1 and the week after the last existing week.”
Permissions
| Who | Prompts |
|---|---|
| Administrators | Create, edit, delete, move, insert weeks, link lessons, restore versions |
| Trainers | Can’t use the admin screen. They suggest wording changes from the front-end guidance page, and an administrator approves or rejects them (Trainer edit workflow). The REST API also lets trainers edit, delete or move prompts for their own courses |
| Students | Receive and read prompts for the Student and Both audiences only. They never see Trainer prompts |
Data
Prompts are stored in the plugin’s own database tables. Each prompt holds its week, day offset, audience, subject, body, attachments and linked lesson IDs. Creating, updating, deleting, moving and inserting weeks are all recorded in the audit log under Settings → System. Prompts are kept on uninstall unless you have chosen to remove plugin data.
Troubleshooting
“Unable to save the prompt. Check there are no database constraints blocking this timeline.” The prompt wasn’t saved. Reload the page and try again. If it keeps failing, check the PHP error log.
“The specified timeline does not exist.” The timeline was deleted, possibly in another tab. Reload the page and select a current timeline.
A week’s email didn’t send. That week has no prompt for the audience, or the week falls after the end date. The admin dispatch summary names courses with no prompt for the current week.
A placeholder shows as {first_name} in the email.
Check the spelling, which must be lowercase with single braces. Also check the Placeholder reference to see whether that placeholder is supported where the prompt appeared.
Worked example: week 3 of a childcare certificate
A college running a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care sets up week 3:
| Audience | Subject | Day offset | Linked lessons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student | Week 3: Observation techniques and documentation | 0 | “Observing children”, “Recording observations” |
| Trainer | Week 3 trainer notes: key discussion points | 0 | — |
| Both | Reminder: first observation task due Friday | 1 | — |
On the week 3 dispatch, each student receives one email. It contains the student prompt, followed by its Related Lessons, and then the reminder. Each trainer receives one email with the trainer notes and the reminder. On the guidance page, the reminder appears after the main prompt because of its day offset of 1. The trainer notes are never shown to students.
Later, the college decides students need a practice week before assessment. The administrator clicks Insert week…, enters position 6 and adds a “Practice observation week” student prompt in the new week 6. The old weeks 6 and later each move one week later.