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Quick Start

This is the real first-run path, end to end: from a freshly activated plugin to a test email in your inbox and a schedule you can trust. It takes about 30–45 minutes for one course. The order is content first — build your class, timeline and prompts, then wire up pages and delivery — which matches the “Welcome to Course Cadence” checklist on the Overview page and the order of the Course Cadence menu.

You need an administrator account for every step. If the plugin is not installed yet, start with Requirements & installation.

Before you start: which mode are you in?

Course Cadence picks its course source automatically:

  • Tutor LMS active → your Tutor LMS courses, enrolments and instructors are used.
  • LifterLMS active (and not Tutor LMS) → your LifterLMS courses, enrolments and instructors are used.
  • Neither → standalone mode: you create classes and enrol people yourself under Course Cadence → Classes.

The quickest way to tell: if Course Cadence → Classes appears in the menu, you are in standalone mode. (If Dantian Training Hub is also active, manage classes in Training Hub instead — see Integration with Dantian Training Hub.) More detail: LMS integration and native classes.

With an LMS, make sure the course you want to use is published — only published courses appear in Course Cadence.

Step 1 — (Standalone only) Add a class and enrol people

Skip this step if you use Tutor LMS or LifterLMS.

  1. Go to Course Cadence → Classes and click Add New Class.
  2. Fill in Label (required — this is the course name students see), and optionally Class Code (up to 30 characters), Year (for example 2026, used by the year filters), Status (leave as Active) and Notes.
  3. Click Add Class. You are taken straight to Timelines & Prompts with the new class selected and a notice: “Class created! Now create a timeline below to start scheduling prompts for your students.”
  4. Use the notice’s enrol your students and trainers link (or Classes → Manage Members later) to open the class’s members screen.
  5. Under Find people, type at least two letters of a name or email address, pick one or more people, choose Role (Student or Trainer), and click Add Members. Repeat for the other role.

Adding someone as a Student counts as an enrolment: if the course has already started, they are sent a catch-up email about five minutes later. You can enrol people before or after building the timeline. Full detail: Native classes.

Step 2 — Create a timeline

  1. Go to Course Cadence → Timelines & Prompts.
  2. Choose your course in the Course dropdown (if you only have one course, its name is shown instead of a dropdown).
  3. Click + Create Timeline. The Create timeline for your course dialog opens on the Create New tab. (The Copy Existing tab copies another course’s timeline — see Timeline cloning.)
  4. Choose a Type:
    • Fixed period — “All students follow the same schedule between defined start and end dates.” Set the Start date and End date.
    • Rolling — “Each student’s week count starts from their own enrolment date — no fixed start or end date needed.” No dates to enter.
  5. Click the create button. Its label names what you are creating, for example Create Fixed period timeline for Certificate IV in Massage Therapy — 2026 Intake A.

Week 1 starts on the timeline’s start date (Fixed period) or the student’s enrolment date (Rolling). You can add break periods and pause emails later — see Timeline management.

Step 3 — Write your first prompts

  1. With the timeline selected, click + Add New Prompt. The New Prompt dialog opens.
  2. Fill in:
    • Week number — the week this prompt belongs to (1 or later).
    • Day offset — “Number of days after the week starts (0 = Monday, 1 = Tuesday, etc.)”. Leave at 0 for most prompts.
    • Audience — Student, Trainer or Both (“Who will receive this guidance email”).
    • Subject — the heading for this prompt. You can use placeholders such as the student’s name or the week number; see Placeholder reference.
    • Body — the guidance itself.
    • Attachment URL (optional) — a link to a document or resource.
    • Linked lessons (Tutor LMS and LifterLMS only) — tick lessons from the course so they appear as links.
  3. Click Create prompt.
  4. Repeat for each week. At minimum, write a student prompt for the week the course is currently in, so your test email in Step 7 has something to send.

Every later edit keeps a version you can restore. Full detail: Prompt management.

Step 4 — Create the front-end pages

Create ordinary WordPress pages and add a shortcode to each. Publish them.

Page Shortcode Who uses it Needed?
Student guidance (for example “My weekly guidance”) [dcc_student] Students Yes — emails link here with “View online”
Email preferences [dcc_email_prefs] Students Recommended — the email “manage preferences” link points here
Trainer guidance [dcc_trainer_edit] Trainers If trainers will review guidance or suggest edits

Students and trainers must be logged in to see their guidance. Options for each shortcode: Shortcode reference.

Step 5 — Connect the pages in Settings → Emails (auto-detect)

  1. Go to Course Cadence → Settings and open the Emails tab.
  2. Expand Student preferences & links.
  3. Student Guidance Page URL is pre-filled automatically if a published page contains [dcc_student]. You will see: “Auto-detected from the page “My weekly guidance”, which contains the [dcc_student] shortcode. Click Save Settings to confirm.”
  4. Email Preferences Page URL is auto-detected the same way from the page containing [dcc_email_prefs]. Email Preferences Link is on by default.
  5. Click Save Settings. The auto-detected address is only a suggestion until you save.

If you see “No published page contains the [dcc_student] shortcode yet. Add the shortcode to a page, then return here.”, the page is still a draft, the shortcode is misspelled, or the page is outside the 100 published pages the detector checks (alphabetically) — paste the page address in by hand.

While you are on this tab, check Delivery → Email Consolidation (one combined email for students in several courses is the default) and the Content & template section. All settings: Settings reference.

Step 6 — Set the email schedule

  1. Open the Schedule tab of Course Cadence → Settings. Its “Quick start” box repeats this checklist with links.
  2. Under Email Schedule Settings, set:
    • Day of Week — default Monday.
    • Time of Day — default 09:00, in your site timezone (Settings → General), not the server’s clock.
  3. Click Save Settings. The weekly dispatch is rescheduled automatically; there is no need to reactivate anything.

Check Settings → General → Timezone is your real location (for example Melbourne), or emails will go out at the wrong local time.

Step 7 — Send a test email

Test emails go to the real email address of the person you select, with “[TEST]” at the start of the subject. Use a test student account you control (for example a student account using your own email address), enrolled in the course.

  1. Go to Course Cadence → Email Delivery and open the Test Emails tab.
  2. Under Test Single Course, choose Select Course: and then Select Student:.
  3. Test Date: defaults to today — pick a date inside a week that has prompts.
  4. Choose Email Type: Student Guidance or Trainer Guidance.
  5. Click Send Test Email and check the inbox: subject, greeting, placeholders, lesson links, the “View online” link (it should open your guidance page at the right week) and the preferences link.

Test All Courses Email sends one consolidated test showing every course the chosen student is enrolled in.

If the test fails, the message tells you why:

Message Meaning and fix
“No active timeline for this date” The test date is outside the timeline’s dates, or the course has no timeline. Pick a date inside the timeline.
“No student prompts found for week N” That week has no prompt for the chosen audience. Write one (Step 3) or pick another date.
“Failed to send email. Check your WordPress mail configuration.” WordPress could not send mail at all — set up an SMTP plugin. See Troubleshooting.

Step 8 — Confirm your site can send scheduled email

  1. Open Tools → Site Health and check the three Course Cadence results: LMS dependency, Course Cadence database tables, and Course Cadence cron event scheduled (“The weekly email dispatch is scheduled. Next run: …”).
  2. Make sure WP-Cron actually runs on time. On low-traffic sites, ask your host for a real server cron job. See Scheduled tasks and Site Health.

Step 9 — Check the Overview

Open Course Cadence → Overview. The All courses tab now shows your course under Active Timelines (with its current week) or Upcoming Timelines (if it starts later), plus cards for Courses, With Active Timeline, Pending Suggestions, Students to Catch Up, Emails Delivered and Emails Failed. The This week tab lists every prompt scheduled for the dispatch week. After the first real dispatch, check Email Delivery → Send & Status for sent and failed counts. See Admin dashboards.

Worked example: an RTO’s first cohort

A registered training organisation runs Certificate III in Individual Support — 2026 Cohort A with no LMS.

  1. Classes → Add New Class: Label “Cert III Individual Support — 2026 Cohort A”, Class Code CHC33021-A, Year 2026. In Manage Members they add 18 students and two trainers.
  2. Timelines & Prompts: a Fixed period timeline from Monday 2 February to Friday 26 June 2026.
  3. Prompts: week 1 student prompt “Welcome, {student_name} — your week 1 plan”, plus a week 1 trainer prompt with session notes.
  4. Pages: “Weekly guidance” with [dcc_student], “Email preferences” with [dcc_email_prefs], “Trainer guidance” with [dcc_trainer_edit].
  5. Settings → Emails: both URLs auto-detected; Save Settings.
  6. Settings → Schedule: Monday, 07:30, site timezone Australia/Brisbane.
  7. Test Emails: a test to the coordinator’s own test student account for 2 February; the email arrives with “[TEST]” in the subject and the “View online” link opens week 1.
  8. Site Health: all three checks pass; the host adds a server cron job.

On Monday 2 February at 07:30, every student receives week 1 and the trainers receive their notes; a student added in week 3 receives weeks 1–2 as a catch-up five minutes after being enrolled.

Next steps

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