Protect MemberPress Courses

In MemberPress, you sell your courses by having users register for the required membership. This means that enrollment to MemberPress Courses is based on the user's active subscription to a required membership.

When you create courses in MemberPress, they will be publicly available to any user, without Rules protecting each of them.

This document will show you how to protect MemberPress courses with rules to make them available only for authorized members. This way, only users who properly registered for your memberships will be able to enroll in your courses.

Protect a Single MemberPress Course

To protect a single Course, head to MemberPress > Rules > Add New page, and select the “Single Course” type from the drop-down. Then search for your Course by title and select it. Last, select which Membership(s) will provide access to this Course when purchased. Your Rule should then look something like this:

Your course is now protected from unauthorized views by guests or members who are not subscribed to one of the Membership(s) you selected in the Rule's Access Conditions.

Protect All MemberPress Courses

Protecting all Courses is very similar to protecting a single Course. Head to MemberPress > Rules > Add New and select the “All Courses” type from the drop-down. Then add your Membership(s) in the Access Conditions. This will make it so that a user must purchase that Membership if they'd like to gain access to all the Courses. For example, you might create a Platinum Membership which provides members access to all of your Courses.

Note: For more information about creating Memberships, see this page. To learn more about MemberPress Rules, visit this page.

Your Rule should look something like this:

Protecting Courses Based on Tags or Categories

In some cases, you can provide access to courses, lessons, or quizzes in groups. For example, your courses might be grouped as Beginner, Advanced, and Professional. Here, purchasing a specific Membership should allow users to access all courses within only one of these groups. The best way to do this is to use Categories or Tags and create rules based on them.

Categorizing and Tagging Courses

Categorizing or tagging courses is beneficial if you need to provide access to groups of individual courses based on the membership purchased. This way, you can use a single rule based on a category or a tag to protect multiple courses.

To add or manage your Course categories or tags, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Dashboard > MP Courses > Courses page.

2. Click the Categories or Tags button at the top of the page to add Course Categories or Course Tags. 
3. Next, depending on the button you clicked, you’ll be transferred to the Course Categories or Course Tags page. You can create New categories or tags, and Edit or Delete existing ones on these pages.

Note: Course Categories and Course Tags are custom taxonomies used only for MemberPress Courses. 

After you create Course categories and tags, you can add them to your courses through the Course editor. You will find the Course Categories and Course Tags panels on the right-hand menu of the Course editor.

Categorizing and Tagging Lessons and Quizzes

Similarly to Courses, you can use Curriculum Categories and Curriculum Tags to protect Lessons and Quizzes.

Note: Curriculum Categories and Curriculum Tags are custom taxonomies used only for Lessons and Quizzes within MemberPress Courses. 

Categories and tags could be used to create collections of lessons and quizzes. For example, you could create a collection of all lessons and quizzes that belong to one learning unit. Then, you can protect each of these collections with a single rule.

As with Courses, you can find Categories and Tabs buttons on the top of both Lessons and Quizzes pages. To manage these categories and tags, access the Curriculum Categories or Curriculum Tags page by clicking the buttons above. 

Also, you will find the Curriculum Categories and Curriculum Tags panels on the right-hand menu of Lesson and Quiz editors. Here, you can add Curriculum Categories and Curriculum Tags to your Lessons and Quizzes. 

Creating Rules Based on Categories and Tags

Once you add categories and tags to your Courses, Lessons, and Quizzes, you can protect them by following these steps:

1. Navigate to Dashboard > MemberPress > Rules > Add New.
2. Select the appropriate rule type in the type drop-down:

• All Content: “All Content with Course Categories” / “All Content with Curriculum Categories” or “All Content with Course Tag” / “All Content with Curriculum Tag”
• Courses: “Courses with Course Categories” or “Courses with Course Tag”;
• Lessons: “Lessons with Curriculum Categories” or “Lessons with Course Curriculum Tag”;
• Quizzes: “Quizzes with Curriculum Categories” or “Quizzes with Course Curriculum Tag”.

3. Next, search for the category or tag you need and select it. 
4. Lastly, add memberships to the Access Conditions section of the rule. Here, you should add memberships required to access the Courses, Lessons, or Quizzes associated with the chosen category or tag. Like with other rule types, you can add one or more memberships.

5. Click the Save Rule button to save changes.

Protecting Sections

Each course section within a course can be protected with MemberPress rules using the Course Section rule type.

Protecting All Lessons in Section

Sometimes you may want to protect all lessons in the specific section. For example, in the screenshot below I have 4 sections.

If you want to protect all lessons from the Intro section, you could create a Single Lesson rule for each lesson in the section. However, the easiest way is to use the Course Section rule.

Head to MemberPress > Rules > Add New, and select the “Course Section” type from the drop-down. Next, search for the section you want to protect and select it. Last, add the Membership(s) that should provide access to all lessons in this section by adding them to your Access Conditions.

Your Rule should look something like this: