Using Discourse For Course Community

[mattpar]

Hello, I am considering using Discourse for my course community and was wondering if there was a way to segment free and paid users within Discourse.

For example, I’d like to have a free forum and then another private section of the forum that users only get access to when they buy my course. Is this possible using Discourse?

Also, I’ll be using Kajabi for my course and was wondering if Discourse and Kajabi can integrate so that when someone buys on Kajabi they also get automatic access to the private section of the Forum?

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!

[Robert_Fay]

You can use groups and then set up certain categories so only the “Paid” group can see that category. It is under category security.

[mattpar]

Thanks so much! So that will require manual adding? I’m currently having to manually add people to a Facebook group anyways so it’s not a huge problem, but if I could automate it would amazing

[osioke (Osioke Itseuwa)]

After setting up the groups, you can also use bulk invites to add members to specific groups. This guide explains this process in detail:

Send Bulk User Invites

A simpler way to invite many users to your Discourse instance is with a shared link. Select the main Invite button on your Invites page, adjust the options according to your needs, then select the  Save Invite to generate a sharable link. So you want to invite users to your Discourse instance, but you have so many that sending invites individually would be a lot of work? Good news – you can send bulk invites! Here’s how: Prepare CSV File Prepare a CSV file with the users you…

And if you want to better understand how to use groups for your specific use case, see this guide:

Understanding groups and category permissions (security settings)

See this video tutorial for an example of how to use these features: Create a private category with limited access for a certain group The Security tab on the category edit page is used to control both the visibility of categories and what users can do in a category. This is done by defining an access list of groups that associate a group name with an access level. The default permission for a new category is that the group everyone can Create/Reply/See. This means that a…

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

@mattpar

’ll be using Kajabi for my course and was wondering if Discourse and Kajabi can integrate so that when someone buys on Kajabi they also get automatic access to the private section of the Forum?

It should be possible, though it’ll take a custom plugin. If you have a budget and a clear description of the integration you desire you can post in marketplace.

[Stephen]

There are lots of third party sign-in options with Kajabi, and it looks like you weren’t the first to ask about Discourse integration. Maybe hit up @joebuhlig:

SSO with Kajabi

Hey, Chris! I might be able to help out. Can you shoot me an email at hello@procourse.co? We can talk through the process and details from there.

[mattpar]

Thank you! Really appreciate it! I’ll take a look at those posts

[mattpar]

Thanks Jay! If I go with Discourse (which I’m leaning towards) then I’ll definitely leave a post in the marketplace for a custom plugin. I checked Zapier and while they do connect Discourse and Kajabi it doesn’t do it in the way I need.

[mattpar]

Thanks for referencing that post! I’ll reach out to him if I go with Discourse!