Zenler Communities Explained: When to Use Public, Private, Secret & Course Discussions

Master Zenler's community features: understand public, private, and secret options, set up course discussions, and manage student access effectively.

Topics Covered in This Educational Live Support Desk:

The three main community types (public, private, secret) and when to use each
How course discussion communities differ from standalone communities
Setting up one-to-one live sessions with proper scheduling
Managing community moderation and post approval settings
Troubleshooting survey results and automation workflows

Community features can make or break an online course. They're where students connect, ask questions, and get unstuck. But setting them up properly requires understanding which type serves which purpose.

During a recent live support session, creators asked the questions that matter most: How do I control who sees what? Can I have multiple discussion topics without creating chaos? What's the difference between all these community options?

The Three Community Types

Zenler offers three visibility levels, each designed for different situations.

Public communities appear to everyone. Search engines index the content, which makes them valuable for discovery. Anyone visiting your site can read posts, watch videos you've shared, and see the activity happening. If they want to participate, they need to register—but registration is free. This openness serves a specific purpose: it's lead generation. People see the value you're creating, and they want in.

Private communities show up in your community list, but visitors can't see what's inside. The title appears, creating curiosity about what's behind that locked door. You control access by connecting it to course purchases or pricing plans. It's the "bonus content" approach—buy the course, get access to the community.

Secret communities don't appear anywhere unless you've granted someone access. These are your VIP rooms. You manually invite people, or you tie access to specific high-ticket courses. No one even knows they exist unless they're supposed to be there.

Then there's a fourth option many people miss: course discussion communities. These get created automatically when you enable discussions in your course curriculum. They exist only for students in that specific course. Even if you enable discussions on 100 different lessons, Zenler creates just one community per course—not 100 separate spaces.

Creating Multiple Discussion Topics

One creator wanted three separate discussion areas: "Introduce Yourself," "Have You Kept Your Habit Today?" and "Share Your Wins."

The confusion came from thinking these needed to be three separate communities. They don't. These are topics within one community—the course discussion community that Zenler created automatically when discussions were enabled.

When you set up discussions through your course curriculum, students enrolled in that course see all the discussion topics you've created. They don't need separate communities. They need one community with organized conversation threads.

If you want truly separate spaces—say, a public community for general discussion and a private one for paying members—then yes, create multiple communities. But for different conversation topics within the same group of students, use one community with multiple discussion threads.

Controlling Access Without Creating Confusion

The access question generates the most confusion. How do people actually get into these communities?

For public communities, anyone who registers on your site gains access immediately. This creates a management challenge: you might want to differentiate between freebie-seekers and serious buyers.

One approach is running everyone through a course—even a free one. When someone comes through a course, you can tag them properly in your system. You know whether they bought something or just grabbed the free offer. This makes filtering and targeted communication much easier later.

For private and secret communities, access ties to pricing plans. When you create a pricing plan for a course, you can specify which communities that plan unlocks. Buy the course, get the community. It's direct and simple.

Course discussion communities handle access automatically. Enrol in the course, access the discussions. You don't set this up separately—it happens when you enable the discussion feature.

Setting Up One-to-One Live Sessions

Beyond communities, creators asked about managing one-to-one coaching calls within Zenler.

The platform handles these through its live session features. You create a session, set the date and time, and students book their spots. The challenge: when someone books a time slot, other people can still attempt to book it. They won't actually get through, but the system doesn't grey it out visually.

The workaround is clear communication. Tell students that if they can't select a time, it's already taken—try another slot.

For ongoing clients where you're already in conversation, there's a simpler method. Create the one-to-one booking while you're talking to them. Make it secret so it doesn't appear on your public calendar. Add their email, set the recurring schedule if needed, and send them the direct join link. They don't have to navigate through booking systems. You've set it up during your conversation and moved on.

This works particularly well for high-touch services where you're already talking to people individually. It takes seconds to set up a private session for a specific person.

Managing Survey Results and Automations

Another creator needed survey responses sent to both the student and themselves—a common request for qualifying potential clients or gathering information before coaching calls.

Currently, survey results live in your reports section. Go to Reports, scroll to Quiz and Survey results, and filter by course or funnel. You can export as a CSV file, which you could then email to students if needed.

The automation to send results directly to both parties doesn't exist as a built-in feature yet. The workaround is manual: check your survey results regularly, export when needed, and share as appropriate.

This matters most for qualification funnels where you're using surveys to determine if someone's a good fit before selling them a high-ticket offer. You ask questions, they respond, you review their answers, then decide whether to invite them to purchase. Without automatic result emails, you need to schedule time to review responses in your dashboard.

Post Approval and Moderation

Community standards matter, especially for sensitive topics or professional settings.

Zenler offers post approval settings. Enable this, and nothing appears publicly until you've reviewed it. You maintain complete control, though it creates more work for you.

You can also restrict who can post. Set it so only admins can create new posts, or require approval for member posts. For secret communities, you control invitations—only admins can invite new members by default.

The question came up: how strict should your community guidelines be? Some creators worry about being too harsh. Others don't want to seem too permissive.

The practical answer: state your expectations clearly, but keep the tone human. If you're vetting people before they join—through a qualification process or because they've paid for a premium offer—you can acknowledge that in your guidelines. "Everyone here has been personally invited. I don't expect problems, but here are the standards we maintain." Then list what those standards are.

For communities where people can self-register, stricter guidelines make more sense. You're dealing with unknowns.

The moderation tools let you adapt to what you need. Enable approval temporarily while you're establishing culture. Turn it off once things are running smoothly. Or leave it on permanently if that's what your topic requires.

Pinning Important Content

Featured posts stay at the top of your community feed regardless of new activity. This works like Facebook's pinned posts.

Use this for community guidelines, welcome messages, or important announcements. When you pin something as featured, it appears in a special block at the top of the feed. It doesn't get pushed down when new discussions start.

You can pin multiple items. They appear in the order you pinned them. If you want to reorder them, unpublish and republish in the sequence you want.

This keeps essential information visible without forcing you to repost the same announcements repeatedly.

When Course Discussions Make More Sense

If you're building a structured learning experience where discussions should happen alongside specific lessons, use course discussions instead of standalone communities.

Enable the discussion feature on any lesson. Students see the discussion option right there in their learning interface. They don't have to leave the course, find the community section, and navigate to the right space. It's integrated.

This works particularly well for courses where discussion topics align with lesson content. Lesson on habit formation gets a discussion thread about implementing habits. Lesson on overcoming obstacles gets a thread about challenges people faced that week.

The course discussion community keeps everything contained. Only people in that course participate. You don't have students from different courses mixing in ways that don't make sense.

For broader community building across all your students—regardless of which courses they've taken—standalone communities work better.

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Categories: : Live Support Desk