Timeline Management

A timeline is the schedule behind a course’s weekly guidance. It sets when the course starts, how its weeks are counted and when teaching pauses for breaks. The guidance itself is written as prompts, and each prompt belongs to a week of a timeline (see Prompt management).

A course sends no weekly guidance emails until it has a timeline that is currently running. This page is for site administrators and course administrators who set up and maintain timelines.

Timelines & Prompts screen

Where to find it: in the WordPress admin sidebar, go to Course Cadence → Timelines & Prompts. The page heading reads Timelines & Prompts with the description “Use this workspace to manage timelines, prompts, and email previews.”

Who can use it: only administrators, meaning users who can manage site options. Trainers never see this screen. They suggest changes to prompts from the front-end guidance page, and an administrator reviews those suggestions (see Trainer edit workflow).

From top to bottom, the screen shows:

1. Pending Edit Suggestions. This panel appears when trainers have suggestions waiting for review and has a Review now button.
2. Timeline Management. This section has the course picker, the + Create Timeline button and a card for each of the selected course’s timelines.
3. Weekly Prompts. This section appears once a timeline is selected. It shows the pending catch-up banner when students are behind (see Catch-up emails), the + Add New Prompt and Insert week… buttons, and the prompt list.

Choosing a course

• Year filter: the screen looks for four-digit years in your course titles (for example “Cert III Individual Support 2026”) and lists them in a Year drop-down. It starts on the current year if any course title contains it, and otherwise on All years. A count beside the filter, such as “12 courses”, shows how many courses match. The filter only appears when at least one course title contains a year.
• Course drop-down: pick the course to work on. A course that has any timeline at all (past, current or future) shows (active) after its name. If you only have one course, its name is shown as plain text instead of a drop-down.
• When the screen opens, it selects the first course whose timeline is running today. If none is running, it selects a course that has a timeline, and failing that, the first course in the list.
• If no courses exist, the screen shows “No courses found.” In standalone mode it adds a link: “Go to Classes and add a class first, then return here to create a timeline.” With an LMS, it says “Create a class or connect an LMS course before creating a timeline.” See LMS integration and native classes.

Timeline cards

Each timeline appears as a card showing Type: (Fixed period or Rolling), Starts: and Ends:. Click a card to select it and load its prompts underneath. Each card has an Edit timeline button and a Delete link.

Links from other screens can open the workspace on a particular course or prompt. For example, the edit link for a prompt on Overview → This week, or a Review & send link for pending catch-ups, opens the right course and, where relevant, opens that prompt for editing.

Timeline types

Type	How it works	Best for
Fixed period	Fixed start and end dates. The whole cohort shares one week number, whenever each student enrolled.	Cohorts and terms, such as an RTO intake that starts together on one date
Rolling	No start or end date to enter. Each student’s week count starts from their own enrolment date.	Self-paced courses and continuous or rolling intake

The form explains each type when you choose it:

• Fixed period: “Fixed period timeline. All students follow the same schedule between defined start and end dates.”
• Rolling: “Rolling timeline. Each student’s week count starts from their own enrolment date — no fixed start or end date needed.”

How week numbers are worked out

Fixed period:

• Week 1 begins on the start date. A new week begins every 7 days after that, so if your start date is a Wednesday, each week runs Wednesday to Tuesday.
• Before the start date the course is “not started” (week 0). No emails are sent, and students see “Guidance for this course begins on {date}.” instead of week content.
• Weekly emails go out on the dispatch day and time set under Settings → Schedule, which is Monday at 09:00 by default. Each dispatch sends the prompts for whichever week the course is in on that day. For the simplest schedule, start the timeline on your dispatch day. See Automated weekly emails.
• The end date: the timeline counts as running up to the start of its end date, not to the end of that day. A dispatch that falls on the end date itself does not send. Set the end date at least one day after your last dispatch day.
• Breaks pause the count, as described in Break periods below.

Rolling:

• Each student’s week 1 begins on the day they enrolled. The time of day is ignored, so enrolling at 8 pm still counts as day 1 of week 1.
• The timeline starts when you create it and has no end date. The screen shows an end date of 31 December 2099.
• Trainers on a Rolling course have no enrolment date. Their weekly email uses the number of weeks since the timeline started.
• Students the LMS has no enrolment date for are skipped by the weekly dispatch.
• Students who enrolled before you created the timeline still count from their own enrolment date, so they may start part-way through the series.

Creating a timeline

1. Go to Course Cadence → Timelines & Prompts and pick the course.
2. Click + Create Timeline. A dialog titled Create timeline for course name opens with two tabs: Create New and Copy Existing. Copy Existing is described in Timeline cloning.
3. On Create New, choose the Type: Fixed period (the default) or Rolling.
4. For a Fixed period timeline, enter the Start date and End date. Both are required. For a Rolling timeline these fields are hidden.
5. Optional, Fixed period only: add break periods (see the next section).
6. Click the button that names what you’re creating, for example Create Fixed period timeline for Cert III Individual Support 2026. You’ll see “Timeline created successfully!”, the dialog closes and the new timeline is selected.
7. Add the weekly prompts (see Prompt management).

Rules and limits

• If the end date is earlier than the start date, the plugin doesn’t reject it. It quietly sets the end date to one week after the start date. Check the dates on the card after saving.
• A course can have more than one timeline. Once a course has a timeline, the screen shows a reminder: “This course already has an active timeline. Creating another is only needed if you intend to run multiple timelines for this course.” Avoid overlapping dates. If two timelines on one course both cover today, the one with the earlier start date is used for sending.
• Creating a timeline is recorded in the audit log under Settings → System.

Break periods

Break periods pause teaching for holidays and mid-semester breaks without losing any guidance. They are available on Fixed period timelines.

1. In the create or edit form, find Break Periods (Mid-semester breaks, holidays, etc.) and click + Add Break Period.
2. Enter a name in Break name (e.g., Mid-semester break). Students see this name on the guidance page during the break.
3. Choose the break’s start and end dates. Both dates count as part of the break.
4. Add more breaks the same way. To remove one, use the × button beside it.
5. Save the timeline.

What happens during and after a break

• No weekly emails are sent when a dispatch day falls inside a break. The admin dispatch summary lists the course as held back for the break.
• The week number freezes for the whole break. Students keep seeing the week they were on, with a note that teaching is paused, such as “Mid-semester break — teaching is paused this week.”
• After the break, numbering continues where it left off. When a break is over, its length is rounded to the nearest whole number of weeks and taken off the count. A 9-day break counts as one week. A 14-day break counts as two weeks. A break of 3 days or fewer rounds to zero weeks: no email is sent on a dispatch day inside it, but numbering carries on as if there had been no break.
• Catch-up compares students against the last dispatch that actually ran, so nobody is flagged as behind just because a break skipped a send.
• A break with a missing or invalid start or end date is dropped when you save. Always fill in both dates.

Before a timeline starts

A Fixed period timeline whose start date is still in the future is upcoming:

• It appears in the Upcoming Timelines table on Course Cadence → Overview (All courses tab).
• Students on the guidance page see “Guidance for this course begins on {date}.” Trainers see “The timeline for this course begins on {date}.”
• No guidance emails are sent until the start date.

Editing or deleting a timeline

Editing a timeline

1. Select the course, then click Edit timeline on the timeline card. An Edit timeline form opens below the cards.
2. Check that the Start date and End date fields show the dates you expect before changing anything. Correct them if they don’t.
3. Change the Type, dates or break periods as needed.
4. Click Update timeline. You’ll see “Timeline updated.” To leave without saving, click Cancel edit.

What changes, and what doesn’t

• Changes take effect straight away for the guidance page, catch-up calculations and the next dispatch.
• A timeline can’t be moved to another course. To use the same structure on a different course, clone it (see Timeline cloning).
• Moving the start date changes which week every student is in. Emails already sent are never sent again, even if the course moves back into an earlier week. If you move the start date earlier, the weeks you skip over can show up as pending catch-up for students who never received them.
• Switching from Fixed period to Rolling keeps the original start date and removes the end date. Switching from Rolling to Fixed period requires you to enter both dates.
• The email pause setting (below) is kept when you edit a timeline.
• Every update is recorded in the audit log.

Deleting a timeline

1. Click Delete on the timeline card.
2. A Confirm Delete dialog asks “Are you sure you want to delete the timeline that runs from {start} to {end}?”
3. Click Delete to confirm, or Cancel.

Before you delete, note:

• Deleting cannot be undone. There is no recycle bin.
• The timeline’s prompts are not removed from the database, but you can no longer reach them on this screen. Email delivery records also stay in the database.
• The course stops sending weekly guidance immediately unless it has another running timeline.
• If you might want the content again, clone the timeline into another course first.
• The deletion is recorded in the audit log.

Pausing and resuming email delivery

Pausing stops the weekly guidance emails for one course without changing its timeline, prompts or history. It’s useful for an unplanned hold, such as content under review or a cohort start that has slipped. Pausing applies to one course at a time. There is no pause for all courses at once.

What a pause does and doesn’t stop

Item	While paused
Weekly guidance emails for the course	Not sent. The admin dispatch summary lists the course under “Email dispatch paused”
The course’s entries in the external weekly digest (where that integration is used)	Left out
Catch-up emails (automatic on enrolment, or sent from Review & send)	Still sent
Retries of earlier failed emails	Still sent
Test emails from Email Delivery → Test Emails	Still sent
On-page guidance (shortcodes)	Still shown as normal
Week numbering	Keeps counting. A pause is not a break

While a course is paused, Overview → This week shows a Paused badge on its prompts and a Paused count card. The weekly preview of the next dispatch also lists the course as paused.

Resuming: when you resume, sending restarts at the next dispatch, using whatever week the course has reached by then. Weeks that passed during the pause are not sent automatically. Students who missed them show up as behind on the catch-up banner, where you can choose to send or dismiss them (see Catch-up emails).

How to pause or resume in version 1.0.0

There is no pause switch on the Timelines & Prompts screen in this version. The pause is stored on the timeline and can only be changed through the plugin’s REST API. Course trainers can also do this through the API. If you aren’t comfortable making REST requests, ask your developer or host. Alternatively, use one of the options listed after these steps.

1. Create an Application Password for your administrator account (Users → Profile → Application Passwords). Use it only from a secure machine.
2. Find the timeline’s ID by listing the course’s timelines. The course ID is the LMS course’s post ID, or the class ID in standalone mode: GET https://your-site.example/wp-json/dcc/v1/course-timelines/{course_id}
3. To pause, send: POST https://your-site.example/wp-json/dcc/v1/timelines/{timeline_id}/email-pause with the JSON body {"paused": true}
4. To resume, send the same request with {"paused": false}.

The response confirms the new state, for example {"timeline_id": 12, "email_paused": true}. Each change is recorded in the audit log as a timeline Updated entry.

Options that don’t need the API

• For a planned stop, such as holidays or a reading week, add a break period. It stops emails and freezes the week number.
• For a hold before the course starts, set or move the timeline’s start date later. Nothing is sent before the start date.

Permissions

Who	What they can do
Administrators	Everything on this page: create, edit, delete, clone and insert weeks, and view the audit log
Trainers (course instructors)	No access to the admin screen. They view guidance and suggest prompt edits on the front end. The REST API also lets a trainer edit, delete or pause timelines for their own courses
Students	See only the resulting guidance on the student guidance page and in emails

Data, privacy and uninstall

• Timelines are stored in the plugin’s own database table: course, type, start date, end date, break periods and pause flag.
• Creating, updating and deleting timelines is logged in the audit log under Settings → System.
• When the plugin is uninstalled, timelines are kept by default unless you have chosen to remove plugin data (see Settings reference).

Troubleshooting

“Select a course before saving a timeline.” / “No course selected.” No course is selected in the Course drop-down. Pick one and try again.

“Unable to update the timeline.” or “Unable to delete the timeline.” The database didn’t accept the change. Reload the page and try again. If it keeps happening, check your site’s PHP error log or Site Health.

“A timeline cannot be moved to a different course after it has been created. Delete and recreate it under the target course.” The course can’t be changed on an existing timeline. Clone it to the other course instead.

Emails didn’t go out on the last week of the course. The dispatch probably fell on the end date. The timeline stops counting as running at the start of its end date. Extend the end date by at least a day.

Emails stopped and the dates look right. Check, in this order:

• Is the course in a break period?
• Is the course paused? Look for the Paused badge on Overview → This week.
• Does the current week have a prompt? The dispatch summary lists courses with no prompt for the week.
• Is a second, overlapping timeline being used instead?

Worked example: a 20-week certificate intake

An RTO runs a Certificate III intake with teaching from Monday 2 February 2026. There is a two-week mid-semester break from Monday 6 April to Sunday 19 April. Weekly emails go out on the default schedule, Monday at 09:00.

1. On Timelines & Prompts, select Cert III Individual Support 2026 and click + Create Timeline.
2. Choose Fixed period, set Start date to 2 February 2026 and End date to 3 July 2026.
3. Click + Add Break Period, name it “Mid-semester break” and set 6 April to 19 April 2026.
4. Click Create Fixed period timeline for Cert III Individual Support 2026.

What happens:

• Week 9 begins Monday 30 March, and its prompts are emailed that morning.
• Mondays 6 and 13 April fall inside the break, so nothing is sent. Students see Week 9 with “Mid-semester break — teaching is paused this week.”
• On Monday 20 April the course moves to Week 10 and its prompts go out. The 14-day break counts as exactly two weeks.
• Week 20, the last teaching week, begins Monday 29 June. Its email goes out that day because the end date, 3 July, is after the dispatch.

Related

• Prompt management
• Timeline cloning
• Automated weekly emails
• Catch-up emails
• Admin dashboards
• Administrator guide