How branching courses work

A course normally sends every learner the same content in the same order. Branching lets it do something smarter: a learner who struggles with a quiz gets extra help, one who flies through skips ahead, and one who tells you what they want next gets exactly that.

You still build one course. Different learners just take different routes through it.

The four pieces

A quiz or decision point that has at least one rule is called a branch point. Lessons and assignments never route anyone: they always lead to whatever comes next.

An example

Here is a small course. Everything not marked as a track is on the main path.

1. Lesson - Welcome

2. Lesson - The basics

3. Quiz - Check the basics

   • If failed → Refresher track: "The basics, again" and "A worked example", then rejoins at Putting it together

4. Lesson - Putting it together

5. Decision point - What would you like next?

   • If answered "Advanced" → Advanced track: two advanced lessons, then the course ends

6. Lesson — Wrapping up

Two learners take it:

Same course, same content to maintain, two quite different experiences. Neither learner is told they are on a particular path; the right next email simply arrives.

How a learner moves through a course

1. They follow their current path in order — the main path, or a track they have been sent onto.

2. When they reach a branch point, nothing further is sent until they produce a result: a quiz submission, or an answer to a decision point.

3. That result is checked against the branch point's rules, from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sends them to the start of its track.

4. If no rule matches, they simply carry on along the path they were already on.

5. When they reach the end of a track, they continue from its rejoin point, or the course ends there.

Tracks can branch off other tracks, up to ten levels deep. A learner deep inside nested tracks works their way back out through each rejoin point in turn.

What you will see in the platform

• A Track field on the lesson, quiz, assignment and decision point forms, once the course has at least one track. New content goes on the main path unless you choose otherwise.

• Tracks in the content table, each indented under the content that routes onto it, with a row saying where it rejoins.

• A Branching tab on saved quizzes and decision points, where rules are added.

• A Table / Flow switch, where Flow draws the whole course as a diagram of every route a learner can take.

Admins and editors can create tracks and rules. Everyone else in your organization can see them.

What changes once a course routes learners

Adding the first routing rule changes a few things about the course as a whole:

• A quiz with rules chooses a path instead of acting as a gate. Only the first submission counts, there is no retry, and failing sends the learner onto a track rather than ending their enrollment.

• Decision points are never blocking. If a learner doesn't answer by the deadline, they carry on along their current path.

• Learners stop seeing a progress bar — for everyone on the course, including those whose route never branches — because there is no longer one total that is right for everybody.