Set up learner experience controls and lesson auto-progression
Configure how learners start, continue, and complete lessons in the Learning Experience Controls section of course Settings. From Portal and Groups, open Courses > Products, select your course, click Settings, and turn on Auto-Start First Lesson, Auto-Play Next Lesson, and Auto-Complete Lessons — the enhancements are enabled by default, and you can customize or override them per course.
What learners experience
Learner experience enhancements are enabled by default, so courses run smoothly out of the box: video lessons autoplay when opened, an Up Next card moves learners to the next lesson, and lessons are marked complete automatically as learners progress. You can leave these on or customize them per course.
Video lessons
Video lessons start automatically and keep the flow going without manual clicks.
Autoplay on Lesson Load: the video starts automatically when a learner opens the lesson.
Up Next card: appears inside the player with the next lesson's thumbnail, a countdown timer, and a Play Now button.
Play Now: skips the countdown and moves to the next lesson immediately.
Smart Auto-Completion: video lessons are marked complete based on meaningful progress when the learner moves to the next lesson.
Text lessons
Text lessons are marked complete automatically when the learner navigates forward to the next lesson, so progress follows the learner's movement through the course without a manual completion step.
Set up the controls
Set the pacing for one course, or standardize the experience across your catalog with Apply to All Courses.
Go to Portal and Groups, then from the top menu select Courses > Products.
Open the course you want to update (Edit a course with the course editor explains the editor workspace).
Click Settings, then go to the Learning Experience Controls section.
Enable Auto-Start First Lesson to automatically begin the first lesson when a learner enters the course.
Enable Auto-Play Next Lesson to let lessons continue automatically.
Enable Auto-Complete Lessons to mark lessons complete as learners progress.
Use Apply to All Courses to apply the same learner experience settings across your course catalog without updating each course individually.
Save your changes, then preview the course as a learner and test the flow.
Certificates and workflows
These settings manage lesson progression and completion behavior. If your course uses certificates or completion-based workflow triggers, review the full learner flow to confirm completion happens as expected — completion is what triggers certificate delivery, as described in Issue a certificate when a course is completed.