What is Program-Based Access?

Program-based access is an enrolment type that limits who can join a class to learners already enrolled in a specific program. When you set a class to program-based access, eligible learners can join seamlessly as part of their existing program enrolment — no separate payment required. Think of it as a private "members only" door for your program learners.

Who is this for?

• Admins setting up or editing classes within a course
• Learners enrolled in a program who need to access a linked class

Use cases

• A university wants to restrict access to a course's live tutorial class to students enrolled in a specific degree program
• A corporate training team is running a compliance course and only wants employees enrolled in the company's onboarding program to join
• An RTO offers a blended learning class as part of a qualification program, and doesn't want external learners accidentally enrolling
• An educator wants to ensure learners can't bypass program prerequisites by directly joining individual classes
• An admin is managing multiple programs and wants to assign a class to several programs at once, without duplicating the course

How to set it up

Before you begin: The course must already belong to at least one program. If it doesn't, the program-based access option won't be available.

1. Open the course and navigate to the Create/Edit Class modal.

2. Under Enrolment Type, select the Private: Program based access radio button.

   • You'll see the helper text: "Only students already enrolled in a program this course belongs to can join."

3. In the Select Program dropdown that appears, choose one or more programs from the list.

   • Use Select All to include all available programs, or Clear All to start over.

4. Review your selections, then click Save to confirm the class settings.

   • The Save button will only become active once at least one program is selected.

5. Your class is now live with program-based access. Eligible learners will see it when browsing the course and can join without an additional payment.

Good to know

• Learners outside the selected program(s) won't see the class at all. Program-based classes are hidden from anyone not enrolled in a linked program, so there's no need to worry about unexpected enrolments.
• No programs are pre-selected by default. When you choose program-based access, you'll always need to manually select at least one program before you can save. This prevents accidentally publishing an inaccessible class.
• Eligible learners skip the payment step entirely. When a program learner joins, they'll see a confirmation screen showing the class name, certificate type, start date, and a note that there's no additional cost. Then they go straight into the course.