Courses let you deliver structured learning experiences inside your Heartbeat community — with lessons, assignments, and events organized into modules.
Find Courses in the left sidebar of your community. If you don't see it, enable it in your sidebar settings.
Course types
When you create a course, you'll choose one of two structures:
🌲 Evergreen Self-paced and always available. Members enrol individually and progress at their own pace. Lessons can be released on a drip schedule (by date or based on prior lesson completion) or made available all at once.
👥 Cohort-based Group learning with a fixed start and end date — suited to bootcamps, fellowships, and live programmes. Members progress together. Discussion channels can be auto-generated for each cohort.
What's inside a course
Each course is made up of modules. Each module can contain:
- Lessons — content units built from video, text, embeds, and file downloads
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Assignments — tasks for members to complete; three types are available:
- Public — submissions appear as posts in a community channel, encouraging peer feedback
- Private — submissions are only visible to instructors; can require approval before a member advances
- External — links members to an outside tool (e.g. a quiz or Google Form), then prompts them to mark completion in Heartbeat
- Events — live sessions tied to a lesson or module (Q&As, classes, office hours)
Community integrations
Courses connect with the rest of your community. You can integrate:
- Discussion channels for course participants to chat
- Live or recurring events tied to lessons
- Automated member match-ups for peer connection
- Document sections restricted to course members
- Community embed cards on the course overview page or individual lessons — linking to instructors, channels, events, or documents
Access and monetisation
Control who can access your course:
- One-time purchase — members pay once to unlock the course; Heartbeat generates a digital product offer automatically
- Bundled with a membership — course access is included in a paid membership tier or offer
- Free — open to all members, or granted to specific members via exemption
Get started
- Create a course
- Customise your course
- Monetise your course
- Build your course curriculum
- Create lessons and assignments
- Set up a publish schedule for lessons
- Preview your course as a member
- Invite members to your course
- Monitor member progress
Frequently asked questions
What file formats can I embed in a lesson? You can embed MP3, M4A, and PDF files directly into a lesson.
Can I grade assignments? Not in-app. Assignments can be reviewed and approved by an instructor, and instructors can request resubmissions with feedback — but there's no numerical grading. For quizzes or scored assessments, use the External assignment type to link to an outside tool, then prompt members to mark completion in Heartbeat.
Can I copy a module from one course to another? Yes. Go to the course where you want to add the module, select Add content, then choose Import and select the source course. This copies the module without recreating it manually.
Can I edit a past cohort? Edits to a cohort-based course apply to the most recent cohort by default. To edit a previous cohort, open the cohort object directly.