03. Getting Started with LearnDash
LearnDash is a WordPress LMS plugin for creating and selling online courses. BeaverDash gives you visual control over how LearnDash content is presented — which means the templates you build in Beaver Builder are populated with data from LearnDash. Understanding LearnDash's structure helps you build layouts that work correctly across your course content.
The LearnDash content hierarchy
LearnDash organises learning content in a four-level hierarchy. Each level is a separate WordPress post type, and BeaverDash has modules and field connections for all four.
Courses are the top level. A course contains lessons, and learners enroll in a course to gain access to its content.
Lessons sit inside a course. Each lesson can contain topics and quizzes. Lessons are where most course content lives.
Topics sit inside a lesson. They let you break a lesson into smaller sections, each with its own content, video, or quiz.
Quizzes can attach to a course, lesson, or topic. They are always leaf nodes — no content sits inside a quiz.
When you build a Beaver Themer layout for any of these post types, BeaverDash's field connections pull the correct data for whichever specific course, lesson, topic, or quiz the learner is viewing.
Progression and access
LearnDash controls whether a learner can access a given lesson or topic based on their enrollment and progress. This is called lesson progression. When progression is enabled, learners must complete each item in order before the next one unlocks.
BeaverDash reflects this state visually. Navigation modules show locked items differently from available ones. Status modules display the current item's state (Open, Started, Completed, or Locked). The Mark Complete button only appears on items the learner is eligible to complete.
Drip is a related feature that releases lessons on a schedule rather than immediately upon enrollment. BeaverDash's drip field connections let you display the release date in your layouts and conditionally show or hide content based on whether the drip date has passed.
Themer and LearnDash
LearnDash page templates can be overridden using Beaver Themer. You create one Beaver Themer layout targeting the LearnDash course singular post type, for example, and it applies to every course page on your site. BeaverDash modules and connections give that layout access to the full LearnDash data for whichever course is being viewed.
Installing LearnDash
Purchase a LearnDash license from the LearnDash website, download the plugin, and install it via Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin. For complete setup instructions, see the LearnDash documentation.
Next steps
Once Beaver Builder, Beaver Themer, and LearnDash are active, follow Installation and Setup to add BeaverDash to the stack.