Preview Changes will not be visible to customers until published.

WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Use Case - Creating a Video Lessons LMS And Tracking Student Progress


Use Case - Creating a Video Lessons LMS

Back to User Guides

Requirements This use case requires WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin to be installed and activated - This document uses version 3.4.2

Video Use-Case

Introduction

The WordPress Video Lessons Manager plugin gives the ability to organize videos into lessons to create a video-based learning environment on your WordPress site.

Example

Video Lesson

Video lesson example - WordPress Video Lessons Plugin
Video lesson example

Student Dashboard

Student dashboard example - WordPress Video Course Plugin
Student dashboard example

Where Are The Videos Located?

Videos can be fetched from Vimeo or Wistia and shown on your site. 

The videos are hosted by Vimeo/Wistia and not your server.

Use Case Assumptions

In this example use case guide, we'll cover how to create a simple video LMS with content from Vimeo where you can track your students' progress.

We consider that you already have content in either Vimeo or Wistia but have not installed the base plugin yet.

It follows:

Installing the Plugin

The process is the same for all CM plugins and add-ons.

CreativeMinds Customer Account Dashboard - Install the WordPress LMS Plugin
CreativeMinds Customer Account Dashboard
  • Download the add-on from your customer dashboard.
  • Log in to WordPress and navigate to the WordPress Admin  → Plugins settings.
  • Click on Add New.
  • Activate it and add the license.

Connecting Vimeo or Wistia

For the WordPress Video Lessons plugin to work, API keys must be obtained from either Vimeo or Wistia, whichever platform has been chosen. 

Vimeo or Wistia? 

For the purposes of our plugin, the only difference between Vimeo and Wistia is that you can integrate two Vimeo accounts and only one Wistia account.

Vimeo Free Accounts Are Supported

It's possible to connect to Vimeo even if your account is Basic (free). Vimeo limits Basic accounts to 25 API calls/minute, but the plugin only makes calls when importing videos. So it's likely the limit won't be a problem. 

Learn more from Vimeo API Rate Limiting | Vimeo - Vimeo Free vs. Vimeo Premium Accounts

Where Should I add The Keys?

API keys are entered on the Settings page. From the WordPress dashboard, navigate to CM Video Lesson Manager Pro → Settings, then click on the General tab.

From there, the keys should be copied to the relevant section (Vimeo API or Wistia API)

General plugin settings / API settings - Online Course WordPress Plugin
General plugin settings / API settings

Vimeo API Key

Guide with more pictures: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Getting Started - Initial Setup (API Keys)

1) Access Vimeo App

Log in to Vimeo. Then, visit the Vimeo developer website by clicking this link. Choose an existing app or click on "+ Create App"

Creating Vimeo App
Creating Vimeo App

You need to have verified your email in order to do this.

2) Create a New App

Fill out the required fields and click on the "Create App" button at the bottom of the page.

  • App name - Used for your control only. 
  • App Description - It's preferable to mention the plugin name
  • Will people besides you be able to access your app - Choose "No"

Enter the Authentication Page for that app. In here:

  1. Copy the Client identifier
  2. Generate an access token. If you plan to import private Vimeo videos, be sure to check the "Private" box when generating the key.
  3. Copy the Client Secrets.

    Getting Vimeo API Key
    Getting Vimeo API Key

Reminder: Extra Setting for Private Videos

If you plan to import private Vimeo videos, be sure to check the "Private" box when generating the key.

Enabling embedding private Vimeo videos
Enabling embedding private Vimeo videos

Wistia API Key

On your Wistia Dashboard navigate to Account → Settings. On the Settings page Choose API Access from the menu on the right.

Wistia account settings
Wistia account settings

The Master API token will be displayed. Click the "Copy" button to the right of the password to copy it to the clipboard. Then paste this into the Wistia API token field back on the WordPress dashboard.

Getting Wistia API Key
Getting Wistia API Key

Importing Videos from Vimeo and Wistia

TIP: Import/Export

It's also possible to import/export videos between different websites with WordPress' tool. Read our guide about this feature.

Step by Step

To begin the process, click on "Import Videos" at the top of the Videos screen, and then you will be at the import page show below.

Importing videos - WordPress LMS Plugin
Importing videos

Next, follow these steps:

Choosing the source of importing - WordPress Video Lessons Plugin
Choosing the source of importing
1) Choose platform 

First, choose your video platform (Vimeo or Wistia). Then you can select from either " Show all videos" or "Show Vimeo albums and channels".

2) Assign the videos to a lesson (optional)

Decide which lesson to assign the video to, or whether to do it later. Don't worry about skipping this, because you can modify the setting at any time.

Choosing album/channel for importing - LMS in WordPress
Choosing album/channel for importing
3) Skip existing videos (optional)

It's possible to skip videos that were already uploaded by checking this option:

Skipping videos which are already imported - WordPress eLearning Plugin
Skipping videos which are already imported
4) Import the selected videos

Click on the check boxes beside the videos that are to be uploaded then click " Import chosen videos".

Selecting videos to import - WordPress Learning Management System Plugin
Selecting videos to import

A message will appear to indicate the successful import. Upon successfully being imported, the chosen video or videos will appear at the top of the list of videos shown on the videos page.

The videos associated with the chosen API will appear. The Thumbnail, title, video duration and release date are also displayed.

Learn more: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Admin - Managing, Importing, Deleting Videos

TIP: 50 Videos Per Page

Only 50 videos will appear at once. This limit helps preventing overburdening the server.

Editing Video Data After Upload

To Edit a video's meta information hover over the row of the video to be edited. Options should appear below the video's title and description. Click the "Edit" option to open the full Edit screen or "Quick Edit" to open the short drop down edit option.

Editing videos - WordPress Video Courses
Editing videos

For each video that is added to the site with WordPress Video Lessons plugin a Custom post is created. This Post contains all the Meta information relating to the video. These various fields can be edited manually here.

'Edit Video' page - WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin
'Edit Video' page
  1. Title - By default this appears the same as it does on Vimeo or Wistia.
  2. Description - Also imported from Vimeo or Wistia by default. Shortcodes are accepted in this field.
  3. Assigned to Lesson - Videos can only be assigned to one lesson at a time. To assign the same video to different lessons import the video more than once and assign each import to a different lesson.
  4. Shortcodes - Provides handy shortcuts for shortcodes related to this content
  5. Player - Indicates the platform that the video is being hosted on. It also shows how the video will appear on the page.
  6. Status and Visibility - Applies to the front-end of the site. For videos to appear this must be set to "Public", which is the default for newly imported videos.
  7. Files - Attaches files to this specific video (feature added in version 3.1.7).
  8. API information - Indicates clearly where the video was imported from.

Quick Edit

Hover over the chosen video row until the hidden options appear below the video title/description and select "Quick Edit" . 

This will hide the video thumbnail and information and will display the quick edit fields. The Quick edit is more limited.

Quick editing of video - WordPress Video Course Plugin
Quick editing of video

Changing Appearance of The Video Platform

To alter the appearance settings of the platform in courses and, navigate to Settings → Appearance tab.

Appearance settings - Online Course WordPress Plugin
Appearance settings

The list of aspects you can change is long. Highlights:

  • Videos per page
  • Default view - Playlist or tiles
  • Show or not full description
  • Show lesson author name
  • Video autoplay

Two Examples With Different Settings

Example of the lesson appearance #1 - WordPress LMS Plugin
Example of the lesson appearance #1
Example of the lesson appearance #2 - WordPress Video Lessons Plugin
Example of the lesson appearance #2

Learn more: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Settings - Appearance.


Organizing Videos Into Lessons and Courses

Videos can be organized in lessons and in courses. 

Hierarchy: Courses > Lessons > Video

A course contains lessons; a lesson contains videos.

Managing lessons and courses - LMS in WordPress
Managing lessons and courses

Lesson - Specifics

The Meta information that can be altered in this page are as follows.

  1. Lesson Title - The title that is assigned to the lesson must be entered manually.
  2. Lesson Description - This text area can be used for describing the Video content. There are various tools for formatting the text or alternatively the description can be written in HTML. Shortcodes are accepted.
  3. Videos - Assigned videos can be added and removed for the lesson. All videos shown here also exist in the videos dashboard. Ordering videos can be done by dragging and dropping or by selecting any of the existing ordering options available.  Adding more videos to the lesson can be done by typing the video name, and clicking on it from the list of videos appearing below the search box.
  4. Appearance - Various settings can be altered here (they will override the default settings). Customers can also override the Note text area option for an individual lesson. Learn more below
  5. Files - Files attached to the Lesson
  6. Shortcodes - allows entering shortcodes, for example, Lesson ID or Produces lesson player with playlist.
  7. Status and Visibility - The current draft status and Public visibility of the Lesson.
  8. Related Courses - The lesson can be assigned to a course. To do this, check the box to the left of the selected course. Alternatively a new course can be created and the lesson assigned to it by clicking + Add New course.
  9. Post Attributes - This sets the order in which the lessons will appear in the Lessons page. The lowest number appears first.
  10. Featured Image - allows adding a featured image to the entire lesson.
  11. Sorting Videos - Determines how the videos are sorted in the lesson.
Editing a lesson - WordPress eLearning Plugin
Editing a lesson

Learn moreWordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Admin - Managing Lessons

Courses Specifics

To create a new course enter the details on the left of the Courses page and hit the "Add New Course" button

  1. Name - Give the course a name.
  2. Slug - This is what will appear in the URL for the course to help make it address bar friendly.
  3. Parent - Choosing a Parent course will make this 'course' a module of that course.
  4. Description - The way they are displayed is dependent on the theme. This field accepts shortcodes.
  5. Image - Add a thumbnail for the course.
  6. Files - Attaches files to this specific course.
  7. Course Notifications  - Toggles whether or not to send notifications when a user completes the course. Learn more below
Editing a course - WordPress Learning Management System Plugin
Editing a course

Learn moreWordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Admin - Managing Courses

Showing Lessons and Courses To Users

Now you have the content and it's organized. But how to show it to users? It's really easy. We'll discuss two ways.

Who Can See The Video Content?

You can restrict the videos of your site to logged-in users only or show them to everyone. This setting is in General tab → Access section.

General plugin settings - WordPress Video Courses
General plugin settings
Configuring the access settings - WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin
Configuring the access settings

1) Automatically-Generated Pages (Easy Way)

TIP: New Lesson or Course = New Link

All new lessons and courses receive a new URL when they are created. So, in most cases, there's no need to add them elsewhere on your site.

You can find specific Frontend links from the lesson or course management screen.

Links for viewing lessons and courses - WordPress Video Course Plugin
Links for viewing lessons and courses

You can change the link path of these automatically-generated pages from the General tab → Navigation section.

Navigation settings - Online Course WordPress Plugin
Navigation settings

2) Shortcodes (More Flexible Way)

TIP: What Are Shortcodes

Shortcodes add dynamic content to your site via a small piece of code. Learn more: Shortcodes - How To Use

Use shortcodes to add courses and lessons anywhere on your site. One benefit of this method is that you can customize its interface, along with the content of the whole page.

General Playlist -  [cmvl-playlist]

This is the most important shortcode. 

Shortcode with all attributes:   [cmvl-playlist view="playlist|tiles" layout="left|right|bottom|nomenu" course="id|slug" lesson="id|slug" video=id navbar=1 searchbar=1 linksbar=1 ajax=1 urlsearch=0 maxwidth=0]

Visual Attributes:
  • Option to turn off the linksbarnavbar and searchbar and ajax for enabling/disabling Ajax calls.
  • Set the maximum playlist width in pixels by parameter maxwidth (0 means no limit).
  • With view, set specific videos positioning for each playlist: tiles or playlist (list of videos).
  • With layout, decide where to display the video list (only if using view=playlist) - left, right or bottom.
  • urlsearch is used for the developers to allow searching a keyword passed by the URL parameter.

Learn more: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Admin - Shortcodes.

Example 1: Course, Default Interface

[cmvl-playlist course="all-videos"]  

Displaying a course with a shortcode - WordPress LMS Plugin
Displaying a course with a shortcode

Example 2: Lesson, Modified Interface

[cmvl-playlist view="tiles" lesson="video-lessons-manager-tutorials" navbar=0 searchbar=1 linksbar=0 maxwidth=720]

Using appearance attributes in the shortcode - WordPress Video Lessons Plugin
Using appearance attributes in the shortcode

Showing Lesson or Course List

Use  [cmvl-lessonlist] and [cmvl-courses-list] to show the list of lessons and courses, respectively.

Examples

Lesson List

[cmvl-lessonlist group_by_course=1] groups the lessons by group

Displaying a list of lessons using the shortcode - LMS in WordPress
Displaying a list of lessons using the shortcode

Course List

[cmvl-courses-list]

Displaying a list of courses using the shortcode - WordPress eLearning Plugin
Displaying a list of courses using the shortcode

Learn more: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Admin - Shortcodes .


Student Progress and Report

One of the main benefits of the plugin is that you can track the progress of your students.

Quick Definitions

  • Students - All registered users are listed as students. There is no specific role.
  • Progress - How much of a certain video that student has watched.

Student Report - Admin Backend View

Admin users can access the progress report from the Backend.

Progress Report - WordPress Learning Management System Plugin
Progress Report

Admins can group the report by user, course, video or lesson, as well as filter the data.

Example

Progress report admin dashboard - WordPress Video Courses
Progress report admin dashboard

Optionally, it's possible to log the precise date and time when users watched content.

Learn more: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Admin - Report (Admin Panel)

Student Report - Frontend View

Report of Each Student

The shortcode [cmvl-stats] generates the user statistic for the specific user that is logged-in.

Student Report - Frontend View

Progress report student dashboard - WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin
Progress report student dashboard

Learn moreWordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - User - User Statistics (Front-end)


User interface - The Dashboard

Displaying the Dashboard

The dashboard will be displayed on any page or post using the shortcode  [cmvl-dashboard]

The plugin allows you to add a dashboard with multiple tabs for site users. In each tab you can have different information shown to the users by inserting either text, shortcodes and more.

You can configure if from the Dashboard tab in the settings.

Dashboard settings - WordPress Video Course Plugin
Dashboard settings

The settings are:

  • Dashboard page - Select a page to display the user's dashboard or choose "-- create new page --" to create such page. 
  • Show dashboard after login - If enabled, users will be redirected to the Dashboard page assigned above by default after logging in to Wordpress.
  • Dashboard tabs - The tabs that will appear in the dashboard can be named and their shortcodes added here. To rearrange them click and hold the space between the title and the space for the shortcode and drag them up or down.

    Changing student dashboard tabs order - Online Course WordPress Plugin
    Changing student dashboard tabs order

Example

Statistics tab - WordPress LMS Plugin
Statistics tab

Learn more: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - Settings - Dashboard.


Notifying The Admin And Students

You can (and should) use email notifications to make sure your students are engaged and your teachers, up-to-date.

Available Notifications

  • Course Progress - Sent each time the user finishes watching a course
  • Lesson Progress - Sent each time the user finishes watching a lesson
  • Video Progress - Sent each time the user finishes watching a video
  • Notes Overview - Sent at the end of the month with all notes created by the user that month
  • New Lessons Notification - Sent as soon as the admin adds a lesson

General Notification Settings

General notifications settings are managed from Settings → Notifications tab.

Notifications settings - WordPress Video Lessons Plugin
Notifications settings

You can configure each of the messages listed above.

Example of the email template - LMS in WordPress
Example of the email template
  1. Enable / Disable the notification.
  2. Add one or more email addresses to notify (separated by commas).
  3. Add the email subject using placeholder for dynamic info.
  4. Create the email template, again using placeholder for dynamic info.
  5. Check the placeholder reminders 

TIP: Specific Settings

You can define specific notification settings for each course or lesson when editing them.


Translating Interface

You can adapt all text related to the plugin. Head to Settings → Labels and edit all relevant text. 

Labels settings - WordPress eLearning Plugin
Labels settings

Example

Example of changing labels - WordPress Learning Management System Plugin
Example of changing labels

TIP: Reset Labels

At any time you can reset the labels to their original labels via the button at the lower right of the settings screen.

Resetting labels - WordPress Video Courses
Resetting labels

Learn more: Settings - Labels


Extra -  Restricting How Much Time Users Have To Watch Videos

Admins can prevent users from watching videos after they have already watched content for a certain time.

If the time is up, the user will see a warning such as this when trying to watch a new video.

Example

Restricting time for watching videos - WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin
Restricting time for watching videos

The settings are in the General tab → Restrictions section.

General settings - WordPress Video Course Plugin
General settings
Restrictions settings - Online Course WordPress Plugin
Restrictions settings

Learn more: WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin (CMVLM) - How To - Restrict How Much Time Users Have To Watch Videos

TIP: Label

This setting has a label connected to it

Restriction message label - WordPress LMS Plugin
Restriction message label

Recap

Below we show a lesson page and a fully-fledged dashboard.

Example

Video Lesson

Example of created courses and lessons - WordPress Video Lessons Plugin
Example of created courses and lessons

Student Dashboard

Student dashboard example - LMS in WordPress
Student dashboard example

More information about the WordPress Video Lessons Manager Plugin

Other WordPress products can be found at CreativeMinds WordPress Store

Let us know how we can Improve this Product Documentation Page

To open a Support Ticket visit our support center
Did this answer your question? Thanks for the feedback There was a problem submitting your feedback. Please try again later.