Hi and welcome to this third and final part in this series on why I created what I believe to be one of the easiest, no-brainer ways of turning your LearnDash e-learning site into a fantastic and powerful membership website, without all the hassle and fuss.
In the first part of the series, I discussed some of the challenges that came up against while we were trying to figure out how to protect non-LearnDash course content in my e-learning website, and how I found few other options than to install bulky, overpowered membership plugin into my site just to protect a few additional pages, posts, and other custom post type content. But in the second part of the series, I explained the actual installation, configuration, and management that my staff and I encountered while trying to run a large e-learning membership website smoothly for our customers. Please check out those articles by clicking on the respective links above if you’re interested in learning more about how I came to the conclusion that something needed to be done to make this process easier for LearnDash site owners who are interested in gaining more membership features.
So as I mentioned in the previous part of the series, I took it upon myself as a developer to start building a plugin for WordPress: the one that would exclusively fit perfectly into the LearnDash ecosystem.
These were some of the goals that I had in mind before starting out in my development journey:
- Make setup and configuration of this plugin a total breeze, requiring very little in terms of learning curve, or getting accustomed to a new plugin’s management and interface. We all know that every plug-in is designed differently, with a different philosophy in mind, and with very different user interfaces, despite being woven into the WordPress platform.
- Make protecting pages, posts, knowledge-based articles, testimonials, downloads, products, or any other custom post type in your WordPress installation, ridiculously easy to protect with a click-of-a button
- In addition, make it super duper easy to protect multiple pages, posts, and other content types in your WordPress installation, also with a few clicks of a button.
- Allow you to really have the best of both worlds: the lightness, performance-friendly, and simplicity of LearnDash and its check out and subscription system, coupled with the power to protect non-LearnDash course content, as effectively as full-blown membership plugins.
- Reduce user and site management overhead, by reducing staff standard operating procedures when handling customer enquiries and technical issues related to the e-learning site.
- Provide a simple and effective mechanism for not only detailing which LearnDash courses are associated with a protected page or post to a non-member, but also making it super easy for them to to purchase or upgrade to the LearnDash course associated with a page they’re interested in viewing.
With these goals in mind, we set out to create the perfect membership solution for a LearnDash-based eLearning management software (EMS) sites.
As someone who always ensures to eat my own dog food, I’m proud to say that this plugin has indeed met the goals listed above for me and my team.
We couldn’t be happier with the plugin and what it has done to reduce time, overhead, and headaches so much, that we thought we’d share the great plugin with you all!
Dashing memberships for LearnDash is now available for purchase here at RistrettoApps.
Please check it out and let us know what you think!