Managing online courses is no small task. Whether you’re running a training program, an online academy, or offering live workshops, clarity and user experience are key to keeping learners engaged.
The WordPress Course Catalog plugin, along with its powerful add-ons, offers a smart and scalable way to organize, present, and manage courses directly on your WordPress site.
Why the Calendar View Is a Game-Changer
In this article, we’ll explore how to elevate your course offering with two major features: an interactive calendar view and a personalized student dashboard. Together, they create a professional, self-service environment for learners – and save administrators a lot of time.
Presenting courses as a visual calendar gives users an immediate understanding of your course schedule. Instead of reading through endless course descriptions, visitors can:
- Browse upcoming sessions by date
- Quickly check availability during their preferred timeframes
- Get a clear visual overview of busy and quiet months
- Instantly access course pages with one click
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Each course can be assigned a specific background color in the calendar, helping differentiate categories or course types visually. Want to highlight webinars in blue and in-person workshops in orange? You can.
And if a calendar isn’t your audience’s preferred view, the plugin also supports a clean list layout with all the essential details – great for mobile users or those who prefer a simple reading experience.
You can even filter the calendar by category or custom taxonomies, allowing users to focus only on courses relevant to their interests – like “Web Development”, “Marketing”, or “Design Tools”.
Example of the Calendar
Customize the Experience to Match Your Brand
One of the strengths of the WordPress Course Catalog plugin is its flexibility. The calendar view can be customized in several ways:
- Choose the first day of the week (Sunday or Monday)
- Set a default calendar year
- Translate month/day labels into other languages
- Enable course pages to open in a new tab
- Fully customize colors and labels
Course Catalog Calendar Settings
You can easily insert the calendar anywhere on your site using a shortcode, and fine-tune it using parameters such as:
[cmcc_calendar_view view="calendar" category="photography,ux-design"]
These options make the plugin suitable for any type of course-based business, from small bootcamps to large academic institutions.
Give Students Control With a Personal Dashboard
A key part of learner satisfaction is the ability to manage their own journey – and the Student Dashboard add-on does exactly that.
Example of the User Dashboard
Once a user registers for one or more courses, they gain access to a front-end dashboard where they can:
- View all registered courses in one place
- Track course status and details
- Access purchase history (integrated with Easy Digital Downloads)
- Update their profile information
- Even unregister from courses if needed
Student Dashboard Settings
This isn’t just convenient – it also reduces the burden on your support team. Students don’t need to email to check course details or request updates – they can do it all themselves.
Even better, you can customize the dashboard tabs. Want to include a “Resources” tab with downloadable materials? Or integrate third-party tools with shortcodes? No problem. You can create as many custom tabs as you like and reorder them via drag-and-drop.
Use Cases: Who Can Benefit From This Setup?
The combination of a course calendar and student dashboard can be transformative in many contexts:
- Universities and colleges presenting academic courses semester-by-semester
- Training centers offering certification programs with regular sessions
- Corporate learning portals providing onboarding or employee upskilling
- Freelancers or coaches managing small workshops or one-on-one sessions
- Online schools offering recurring live or pre-recorded classes
Whether your catalog has 5 or 500 courses, the plugin scales with you. And since it’s based in WordPress, you retain full control over your data, layout, and customization.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to online education, presentation and user experience matter just as much as content.
The WordPress Course Catalog plugin, with its Calendar and Dashboard add-ons, offers a complete solution for displaying courses and managing learners – without the need for a third-party LMS or complex custom coding.
With a professional calendar view and a self-service student area, you can build trust, improve retention, and make your course site a pleasure to use.
Want to see it in action? Explore the WordPress Course Catalog plugin and its add-ons and discover how easily you can turn your WordPress site into a full-featured learning platform.
