LearnDash Groups: Everything You Need to Know About Them

There’s no arguing that LearnDash is the most popular LMS in the WordPress space.

And, this is because it’s packed with powerful features, integrates well with most 3rd party extensions, and is flexible than any other LMS out there.

Having said that, the functionality of Groups and Group Registrations is one such feature that stands out.

And, in this article,  we’ll take a look at 6 major benefits of LearnDash Groups and ways in which you can enable this function.

But, before we dive deep, let’s quickly cover

What are LearnDash Groups?

LearnDash Groups allow site owners to create various groups of students with a group leader in charge of managing those students.

For e.g: The Principal of a LearnDash school can create different subject groups such as Science, Arts, English, etc., assign the subject specialist Instructor/Teacher as the Group Leader of their respective groups to manage them, and add students in their respective subject groups.

This functionality can be used to conveniently accomplish a number of tasks related to the daily operations of your e-Learning site. 

And, on that note, let’s move on to the……

Advantages of using Groups & Group Registration in LearnDash

There are many advantages of using LearnDash Groups and Group Registration, but for lack of time, we’ll take a look at 6 major benefits only. Let’s see:

1. Easy bulk enrollment

With LearnDash Groups, it’s easy to manage bulk enrollment of students on your e-Learning site. Once a group has been created and a group leader assigned, you can allow the leader to enroll all members of the group in any of your courses with the help of group registration functionality.

Payments can also be made for all enrollments at once. In doing so, a large number of students can be enrolled quickly in any particular course, thus saving time and boosting your revenue at the same time.

2. Better student tracking for larger classroom sizes

LearnDash Groups can make life quite easy for you especially if you’re a teacher or tutor teaching tons of students.

You can create groups of students who belong to the same grade and track their progress easily. This can be of great help in planning future lessons and helping students having difficulties. Plus, it works perfectly especially, when you’re running large online classrooms.

3. Smoother communication

Communicating with your students also becomes very easy with the help of LearnDash Groups. All you need to do is communicate your message to the Group Leader of the concerned group through a Group Email. And that Group Leader can then convey it to all of the students in his/her group.

In this way, you don’t need to take the effort of manually sending out emails to all of your students or a particular section of your students.

4. A clear chain of command

With Groups, the chain of command in your e-Learning site also remains very clear. You can assign a person responsible for tracking the performance of students in every single group. It’ll make it easier to communicate with them to figure out how your course content is being consumed by the students and how they are responding to it.

If there are no group leaders, it can become tricky. Because then you’ll have to personally analyze the performance and activities of every student to figure out the quality of your course content.

5. Division of responsibility

With LearnDash Groups, you can afford to delegate responsibility on your e-Learning site. You can split the responsibilities of student groups among their Group Leaders who can manage the course progress as well as track the performance of every individual student.

As you can imagine, it will open up opportunities for you to focus on more productive and important tasks related to the expansion of your e-Learning business.

6.  More sales options

LearnDash Groups also open new sales opportunities before you. You can run many new types of offers by enabling Group Registration on your e-Learning site.

You can put up offers like Group Discounts for larger groups, special offers for specific groups, and various other creative offers that can boost your sales.

In addition, you can also sell group memberships to organizations, which can enroll their workers to develop skills from your site. All these new opportunities can significantly boost your sales.

With that being said, let’s jump into…..

3 Popular ways to create Groups in LearnDash

Now that you know about the benefits of LearnDash Groups, it’s time to take a look at how you can implement these groups. Here are the 3 most popular ways to create LearnDash Groups.

1. Native LearnDash Setup for Groups

Right off the bat, we have the native Group feature included in LearnDash. It’s the simplest way to get started with LearnDash Groups because it doesn’t require you to install any 3rd party plugins and all of its functions are self-explanatory.

The features included in the native LearnDash Groups setup are basic and not as extensive as you can get from some 3rd party plugins.

Key Features of LearnDash Groups

• Create unlimited groups – You have the freedom to create unlimited groups with as many members as possible. Your students can also be members of as many groups as they wish.
• Group email feature – Communicate easily with your group members through the email facility.
• Complete control over content – You have full control over group content, certificates, and everything else.

Demo

Take a look at its Live Demo to see if the default basic groups feature fits your needs.

Pricing

• $159 – Single site Annual License. (Basic groups feature is included)

 

2. WISDM Group Registration Plugin

Created by WisdmLabs, WISDM Group Registration plugin allows you to create groups, assign group leaders, manage course subscriptions, offer bulk discounts for groups, create sub-groups & sub-group leaders, and track student progress in an easy manner.

Key Features of WISDM Group Registration

• Automatic creation of Group Leaders – The bulk buyer is assigned the role of Group Leader automatically. 
• Bulk discounts option to sell more groups – You can set bulk discounts for seats and sell groups of licenses at a reduced price to drive more sales.
• Create sub-groups & sub-group leaders – You or your Group Leader can create sub-groups within the groups and assign sub-group leaders to ensure smooth and better management.
  For e.g: If a principal buys a Group of courses for 1000 students in his school, he can then divide them into groups of 200, and then assigns a Teacher as a Sub-Group Leader for all these sub-groups or classes.
• Using Group Codes – You or your Group Leaders can further simplify student management by creating Group Codes in the form of shortcodes. This can then be given to students who can use them to enroll themselves in the course groups saving tons of time and effort on your end.
• Front-end management of groups – Group Leaders don’t need access to your backend because they can manage their groups from their own dashboard itself. 
• Track Progress with reports – Separate progress reports for every group so your group leaders can track the progress of students easily.

As far as drawbacks are concerned, there’s no major one that can make you feel bad about it.

Demo

You can even check out its Live Demo to experience and explore the plugin before buying.

Pricing

• $80 – Single site Annual License.

 

3. Uncanny Owl Group Registration Plugin

The Uncanny Owl Group Registration plugin is another powerful LearnDash extension that can be used for utilizing the power of LearnDash Groups. It allows you to do all of the stuff that’s included in the native setup of LearnDash groups.

However, the cost is also something that may deter a lot of people.

Key Features of Uncanny Owl Group Registration

• Front-end group management – It is similar to the WISDM Group Registration plugin.
• Custom group licenses – You visitors can create a group of their choice with desired courses, and then pay for it to enroll the desired number of students.
• Customize Group Management elements –  You can modify any element of your Group Management pages to provide the desired functionality to group leaders.

Demo

You’ll have to rely on reviews as Live Demo for this plugin is not available.

Pricing

• $149 – Single site Annual License.

 

Choose the best option!

Now, you may be wondering which of the aforementioned options is best for your eLearning site?

Well, both WISDM Group Registrations and Uncanny Owl Group Registration plugins can provide full-fledged functionality of groups to your LearnDash site.

But, if we had to choose one, we’d pick the WISDM Group Registration plugin since it is economical, feature-rich, and budget-friendly.

Conclusion

By now you might have understood the power of LearnDash Groups very well. In addition to that,  you also know which extension you can use to get started with this robust feature on your e-Learning site.

If you still have any questions in this regard, feel free to ask them in the comments and we’ll try our best to answer them at the earliest. And if you’ve any other thoughts in your mind about this subject, do share them as well 🙂

 

• eLearning, LearnDash