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On-Page Guidance and Progress Tracker

Weekly guidance does not have to live only in email. Dantian Course Cadence can show the same guidance on pages of your site, so students can re-read this week’s instructions, look back at earlier weeks, search, and see how far through the course they are — and trainers can preview exactly what students receive.

There are two on-page views:

View	Shortcode	For
Student guidance	`[dcc_student]`	Enrolled students (and administrators previewing)
Trainer guidance	`[dcc_trainer_edit]`	Trainers assigned to a course (and administrators)

This page explains what each view shows and how navigation works. For every shortcode option, see the Shortcode reference. For suggesting changes from the trainer view, see Trainer edit workflow. For search, see Guidance search.

Setting up the student guidance page

In WordPress, go to Pages → Add New and create a page such as “Student Guidance” or “Weekly Guidance”.
Add a Shortcode block containing [dcc_student]. Leave out course_id to show every course the student is enrolled in (recommended for most sites).
Publish the page.
Copy the page’s URL into Course Cadence → Settings → Emails → Student preferences & links → Student Guidance Page URL. Weekly emails then include a “View this guidance online” link that opens this page at the right week.
Log in as a test student (or check with a real student) to confirm the page shows their courses.

If you run separate pages per course, add course_id to each, for example [dcc_student course_id="42"]. A single-course page also lets you turn on the optional history and trainer-notes sections.

What students see

Students must be logged in. Logged-out visitors see “Please log in to view your guidance.” with a Log in to view your guidance button that brings them back to the same page — including the week in an email link — after they sign in.

The page looks different depending on whether it was set up for all courses or one course.

All-courses view (`[dcc_student]` with no course)

A Your Learning Guidance heading (can be hidden with heading="false").
One week navigation bar shared by all courses, labelled by date — for example “This week (10 – 16 August 2026)”.
A search box: “Search guidance across all courses…”.
A card for each enrolled course with:
- the course name and its own week — “Week 5 of 20” for a Fixed period timeline, or “Week 5” for a Rolling timeline;
- a progress bar (Fixed period timelines only);
- a Week 5 Guidance section with that week’s prompts.

Other card states:

Situation	What the card says
The course’s timeline hasn’t started	“Guidance for this course begins on {date}.”
The timeline has finished	Labelled Finished: “This subject finished on {date} after {N} weeks. Use Previous Week to revisit its guidance.”
A scheduled break with no guidance	“{Break name} — no guidance is scheduled this week. Week {N} resumes after the break.”
A scheduled break, but the week has guidance	“{Break name} — teaching is paused this week.” above the guidance
Nothing scheduled for this week yet	“No guidance is scheduled for Week {N} of this subject yet.”

Each course shows its own week. Two courses that started on different dates (or have different breaks) will show different week numbers on the same page — that is expected.

Courses with no timeline at all are left off the page. If the student has no enrolments, they see “You are not enrolled in any courses.”; if none of their courses has guidance, “No guidance available at this time.”

Single-course view (`[dcc_student course_id="…"]`)

The course name as a heading.
Week navigation by week number (see below).
The progress tracker.
A search box: “Search guidance across all weeks…”.
A Week {N} Guidance section.
Optionally, a collapsed history section and a Trainer Notes section (see Optional sections).

If the selected week has no prompts, the page keeps the course heading and week navigation and shows “Guidance for this week is not available yet.” At the end of a Fixed period course it shows “You have reached the end of this course. Use the week navigation above to revisit any past week’s guidance.”

Other messages: “You are not enrolled in this course.” (logged in but not enrolled), “Guidance for this course begins on {date}.” (timeline not started), “No active timeline is configured for this course.” (no current timeline), and “Course ID {N} not found.” (wrong ID in the shortcode).

Prompt cards

Each prompt shows its subject and body with the student’s details filled in (for example {student_name} becomes their display name). The card can also include:

Related Lessons — links to lessons the administrator linked to the prompt (published lessons only; see Prompt management).
Attachments — each file is listed with an icon matching its type (PDF, document, spreadsheet, presentation, archive, image, video, audio or text) and opens in a new tab.

On the page, prompts display basic formatting only — paragraphs, bold, italic, underline, lists, links, sub-headings and block quotes. Other markup (such as images or tables pasted into a prompt body) is removed from the on-page view.

The progress tracker

The progress tracker shows where the student is in the course today:

Fixed period timelines: a bar filling from 0 to 100%. Screen readers announce it as “Course progress: Week 5 of 20 (25%)”. In the all-courses view, the “Week 5 of 20” text sits on each course card; in the single-course view the current week shows in the navigation as “Week 5 (Current)”.
Rolling timelines: there is no fixed length, so there is no bar or percentage. The single-course view shows “Currently at Week 5”, and the all-courses card shows “Week 5”.

The tracker always reflects the current week, even when the student is looking at an earlier week. It never goes beyond the last week of a Fixed period course.

For Rolling timelines, each student’s week is counted from their own enrolment date. Weeks are whole days — a student who enrols at 8 pm is in week 1 for that whole day. Scheduled breaks pause the count.

Week navigation

Students — single-course view

Control	What it does
← Previous Week	Goes back one week (hidden on week 1).
Week {N} (Current)	Shown when you are on the current week.
Viewing Week {N} \| Return to Current Week	Shown when looking at another week; the link jumps back to now.
Next Week →	Goes forward one week, up to the current week. Students cannot step into future weeks.

The week being viewed appears in the page address as ?dcc_week=N, so it can be bookmarked or shared.

Students — all-courses view

The shared bar moves through calendar weeks rather than week numbers, because week 4 of one course can be a different fortnight from week 4 of another:

Control	What it does
← Previous Week	Steps back seven days, as far back as the earliest course start date.
This week ({date range})	Shown when viewing today’s week.
Viewing {date range} \| Return to Current Week	Shown when looking at an earlier week.
Next Week →	Steps forward seven days, never past today.
Current Week →	Replaces Next Week when one more step would pass today.

Each course card then shows whatever week that course was in during the dates being viewed.

Links from emails and search (`?dcc_week`)

The “View this guidance online” link in weekly emails, the weekly admin digest and guidance search results all add the course and week to the page address (?dcc_course_id=…&dcc_week=…).

Single-course page: opens that week directly.
All-courses page: works out the dates of that week in the named course and shows every course as at those dates. It never shows a date later than today.
An older link with only ?dcc_week=N (no course) opens week N if the student has just one course with a timeline; otherwise it opens the current week.

Optional sections (single-course pages only)

These shortcode options only take effect when course_id is set:

Option	What it adds
`show_history="true"`	A collapsed Show history / Hide history section under the current guidance, holding a Week {N} Summary for every earlier week that has student guidance. It works without JavaScript and each one on a page opens independently.
`show_trainer_notes="true"`	A Trainer Notes section showing trainer-only prompts for the week being viewed. Trainer prompts are normally private — only use this on a page students cannot reach, or when you are happy for students to read them.

Full details and examples are in the Shortcode reference.

The trainer guidance view

The [dcc_trainer_edit] page shows trainers what their students receive plus private trainer notes, and is where they submit suggestions.

Choosing a course

Without a course_id the page opens on Select a Course — “Choose a course to view and edit guidance prompts:” — listing every course the logged-in user is an instructor of. Each course shows “Active timeline configured” or “No timeline configured” and a View Guidance button.

If the courses span more than one year, a Filter by year: menu (with All years) and an Apply button appear. Years come from the class’s year field in Native mode or, failing that, from a four-digit year in the course title (for example “Cert III ECEC 2026”). If no course matches: “No courses found for the selected year.”

Administrators only see courses they are instructors of in this list. To preview any other course, add ?dcc_course=ID to the page address (or use a page with course_id set).

What’s on the page

Trainer Guidance View heading (can be hidden with heading="false"), the course name and a ← Back to Course List link.
Week navigation and the view toggle.
Student Guidance (What students see) — “These prompts are sent to students via email and visible on their guidance page.” This includes prompts set to the Student and Both audiences. If there are none: “No student guidance configured for this week.”
Trainer Guidance (Only visible to you) — “Private notes and reminders for trainers. Students never see these.” Shown only when the week has Trainer-audience prompts.
On each card: a Suggest Edit button (or a locked button with the reason) and your suggestion status badge.

Placeholders in the trainer view use sample values — {student_name} shows as “Sample Student”.

There is no progress bar on the trainer page. The current week is worked out from the timeline’s start date (allowing for breaks). For a Rolling timeline this is the timeline’s week, not any individual student’s.

Messages trainers may see: “Please log in to access the trainer interface.” (with a Log in button), “Only assigned trainers can access this interface.”, “You are not assigned as a trainer to any courses.”, “The timeline for this course begins on {date}.” and “No active timeline configured for this course. Please set up a timeline in the admin area first.”

Trainer week navigation

In the week-by-week view, trainers use the same ← Previous Week, Week {N} (Current) / Viewing Week {N} | Return to Current Week and Next Week → controls as students — but Next Week continues up to the last week that has any prompts, so trainers can preview future weeks.

View modes

The trainer page has two layouts, chosen with the View: toggle in the page header:

Mode	What it shows
Week by Week (default)	One week at a time, with week navigation. Locked weeks show the reason beside a greyed-out Suggest Edit button.
All Upcoming	Heading Trainer Guidance View – Upcoming Weeks and “Current Week: {N}”. Every week from the current week to whichever is later: three weeks ahead, or the last week with prompts. Each week heading carries a badge — Current (this week), Past, Locked – Emails Sent (a later week whose emails have already gone) or Upcoming.

Selecting a mode reloads the page in that layout. The plugin also records your choice as a preference, so the trainer page can open in the same mode next time. The view is part of the page address (?dcc_view=single or ?dcc_view=multi), which always wins over the saved preference.

The preference is saved only for accounts that can edit posts in WordPress (for example Authors, Editors and Administrators). Trainers with a Subscriber account can still switch views, but the page opens in Week by Week each time. A bookmark that includes ?dcc_view=multi gets around this.

Accessibility

Week navigation is a labelled navigation region; buttons have clear names such as “Previous week” and “Next week”.
The history section is a standard disclosure that works with the keyboard and without JavaScript.
The fixed-timeline progress bar exposes its value and a text label to screen readers.
The Suggest Edit window keeps keyboard focus inside it, closes with Escape, and announces success and error messages.
Locked edit buttons show their reason as visible text, not colour alone.

Troubleshooting

A student sees “No active timeline is configured for this course.” On a single-course page, the course has no timeline running today. Check the timeline’s start and end dates in Course Cadence → Timelines & Prompts (see Timeline management).

A student sees “You are not enrolled in this course.” They are logged in but not enrolled in that course in your LMS (or not a student member of the class in Native mode). Check the enrolment, or check the course_id on the page.

The email link opens the current week instead of the one in the email. Older emails sent before course-specific links were introduced carry only the week number. On an all-courses page with several courses, that link opens the current week. New emails include the course and open correctly.

A trainer’s view preference doesn’t stick. Their account can’t edit posts (for example a Subscriber). See View modes.

Worked example

Northside Allied Health College runs three Diploma of Nursing subjects for one cohort: Anatomy started on a Monday in February, Clinical Skills on a Wednesday in July, and both include a two-week mid-year break.

The administrator creates a “Weekly Guidance” page with [dcc_student heading="false"] and pastes its URL into Student Guidance Page URL.
A student opens the page in August. The bar reads “This week (10 – 16 August 2026)”. The Anatomy card shows “Week 24 of 30” and Clinical Skills shows “Week 5 of 18” — each course’s own week.
She selects Previous Week twice to re-read material from 27 July. During the break week, Anatomy shows “Mid Year Break — no guidance is scheduled this week. Week 22 resumes after the break.”
Trainer Ahmed opens the Trainer Hub, picks Clinical Skills and switches to All Upcoming to check weeks 5–8 before planning his sessions.

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