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Control Who Can Enroll

The course and organization settings that decide who may join your courses—Students can enroll themselves, publish state, price, signup rules, and Internal Enrollment Only—plus recipes for common setups.

This page covers the settings that decide who is allowed in. For the mechanics of how a student actually joins (self-enrollment, invite links, direct add), see How Course Enrollment Works.

What students need before they can enroll

For public self-service paths (landing page, Explore), the course must be:

  • Published — unpublished courses are not listed in Explore and do not accept open enrollment from the public site
  • Active — deleted courses are blocked in all paths

Email invites are a partial exception: a valid invite token lets a student join a course whose Students can enroll themselves is off, but the course must still be published and not deleted. To build a roster before a course goes live, use People → Add people, which works on unpublished courses.

Free vs paid vs closed — quick reference

Goal Suggested setup
Anyone can join Free course, published, Students can enroll themselves on
Only people you email invites to Students can enroll themselves off (optional), send email invites
Only people you add manually Students can enroll themselves off, use People → Add people to directly enroll existing students
Paywall + optional invites Set a price, send invites to buyers who should skip or supplement checkout
Visible in catalog, enrollment closed Published course, Students can enroll themselves off, use invites or People to add members
Only your own members can enroll, no outsiders Enable Internal Enrollment Only in Settings → Authentication → General; non-members must be invited

Enrollment vs visibility

Restricting who can join a course is not the same as hiding it from every student view.

Control What it affects
Published Whether the course is live on your academy and eligible for Explore
Students can enroll themselves Whether the public Enroll button works on the landing page
Email invites Who can join via a link sent to their email (works on closed courses, but not unpublished ones)
People → Add people Who you add directly, with or without an invite link
Price Whether open self-enrollment requires payment
Internal Enrollment Only (org-wide) When on, only existing org members can self-enroll; anyone else needs an invite, even on an open course

Workarounds:

  • Keep the course unpublished until you are ready for students to discover it.
  • Switch Students can enroll themselves off and use invites or People so only the people you choose can actually join.
  • Unpublish the course to close every self-service path at once, including outstanding invite links.

For where students see enrolled vs available courses, see Student Dashboard.

Organization-level access settings (separate from course enrollment)

Course enrollment is different from organization signup. In Settings → Authentication → General, you have three org-level controls that work together:

Block all new signups — the strictest setting: nobody can create a new account on your academy, invite links included. Existing accounts are not affected, so someone who already has a Edvello account and holds an invite to your organization can still join. Turning this on reveals a Signup Disabled Message field, where you can explain how to request access.

Allow public signups — a filter rather than a lock. When turned off, your signup page stays available but only people you have invited can use it: a new account can be created, as long as its email address has an active invite. Leave it on to let anyone register.

Both settings control who can sign up for your organization, not which courses they can join.

Internal Enrollment Only — when enabled, only people who are already members of your organization can enroll in your courses. Anyone else has to be invited; they cannot enroll themselves from a course page even if the course is open to new students. Members still self-enroll normally, since Students can enroll themselves is on by default for published courses. This is what makes an internal academy closed: pair it with Allow public signups off, add employees via course invite links (which creates their account as a student in your organization), and from then on they can discover and join your open courses from Explore themselves.

A student might be in your org but not enrolled in any course until you assign them or they self-enroll on a course with Students can enroll themselves on.

Common scenarios

1. Open cohort — anyone can join

Create a free course, publish it, and leave Students can enroll themselves enabled. Share the landing page link.

2. Private cohort — only invited emails

Turn Students can enroll themselves off to hide public enrollment. From People, send email invites with expiry and optional one-time use. Only people with a valid invite link can join.

3. Staff-only or hand-picked list

Turn Students can enroll themselves off. Use People → Add people to directly enroll existing students, or send email invites to people who do not have an account yet. No one can self-enroll.

4. Paid course

Set the course price on the landing page. Students pay to enroll, or you send invites to people who should receive complimentary access.

5. Closed org academy — only your people, any course

Turn off Allow public signups and enable Internal Enrollment Only in Settings → Authentication → General, leaving Block all new signups off so the people you invite can still create their account. Add employees by sending them course invite links from People → Add people — accepting a course invite creates their account as a student in your organization. Once they are students in your org, they can discover and self-enroll in your other published courses from Explore without per-course setup, while people outside the org cannot enroll themselves at all. Courses you want kept shut stay shut: turn Students can enroll themselves off and members cannot join them either.

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