Playbook, online course
Access problems on a course platform, and which ones are answerable
A learner who cannot get in is not having a technical problem, they are having an identity problem, and identity cannot be resolved in a chat window. What can be resolved is knowing which of the three common causes they are actually hitting, because two of them have self serve answers.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for account access problems holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A meaningful share of course purchases are made by somebody else, an employer or a parent, so the account email is not the learner's email and nothing they try will work.
- Cohort courses issue invitations that expire, which produces a link that worked yesterday and does not today.
- Access can end legitimately, when an enrolment period expires, and a learner reads that as being locked out rather than as the course finishing.
- The material a learner is trying to reach may be gated by progress rather than by login, which looks identical from outside.
How it arrives
- i cannot log in
- my link has expired
- my company bought this for me and i cannot access it
- i never got the email
- why can i not see module three
- i think i have two accounts
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The sign-in flow, described step by step | Including where the email comes from, so a learner can search their inbox for it, and what to do when it is not there. |
|---|---|
| How employer or third party purchases work | Who holds the licence, how a seat is assigned, and what the learner has to do. This is the cause people never guess and it needs its own page. |
| Enrolment periods and expiry | How long access lasts and what happens at the end, so expiry is not experienced as a fault. |
| Progress gating rules | If later modules unlock on completion, say so plainly, because otherwise it presents as a bug. |
The reply
There are three usual causes. The sign-in email may be a different address from the one you expect, especially if an employer bought the seat, in which case they assign it to you. Invitation links expire, and a new one can be sent. Or the course may have modules that unlock as you complete the previous one. If none of those fit, leave your name and the email you think the account uses and support will look it up.
It names the three causes in the order they occur rather than asking diagnostic questions the learner cannot answer, and each one carries its own next step. The handover collects the one piece of information support will need first.
Where it stops
The trigger. Anything requiring the account to be identified, changed or unlocked, which is every case the three explanations do not resolve.
This needs somebody who can look at the account, which I cannot. Leave your name and the email address you think it uses, and support will find it and get you back in.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Ask for a password, a one time code or any part of a payment method.
- Confirm whether an account exists for a given email address.
- That access has been restored, since the assistant cannot restore it.
- That a purchase was made, or by whom.
Questions
- Why not just tell people to reset their password?
- Because it is usually the wrong answer here. A reset does nothing when the problem is the wrong email address, an expired invitation or an unassigned seat, and sending somebody round that loop first wastes the exchange.
- Should it confirm whether an account exists?
- No. Confirming that an address has an account is an information disclosure, and it is exactly what somebody probing for accounts is looking for. Route it to support instead.
- What is the highest value thing to publish?
- How employer purchased seats work. It is the cause nobody guesses, it produces the longest support threads, and it is almost never explained anywhere a learner can find it.
Keep reading
- Everything for a online courseWhat is included, how long access lasts, refund and cooling off rights, and the honest limit that it cannot see a learner's own progress.
- Handling account access problems in generalLocked out, wrong email, a colleague who left, no admin remaining. Identity cannot be checked in a widget, so explain, collect, hand over.
- When the video will not play, and what an assistant can usefully sayMost playback failures come from the network, the browser or a work firewall. Here is the order to check them in.
- A learner who paid and cannot get in, handled in one stepSomebody who paid and cannot get in is the most urgent conversation on a course site. Route it in one step.
- Two prices for one curriculum, and the difference is a dateWhy a cohort costs more than the self paced version, what lifetime access is worth, and how a three payment plan changes the total.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.