Poet Tips & Tricks

Small things in the new Poet that save authors real time: finding and replacing text across a whole course, how saving and versions work, the Flex editor, Course Flow, and the settings most people never find.

 TOP TIP: Start here.  ADMIN  needs admin access. ROLLING OUT  is not on every account yet

Contents

• Get around faster
• Find & Replace across the whole course
• Saving, auto-saves & versions
• Your dashboard
• Starting a course
• Editing pages
• The Flex editor
• Course Flow: the course as a map
• Hidden-gem settings
• Preview & publish
• Reviews & translations
• For admins
• Shortcut card

Get around faster

You rarely need to go hunting through menus.

Press ⌘ K / Ctrl K for the command palette.   TOP TIP 

Type a few letters and press Enter. From here you can go to the Dashboard, create a course, toggle dark mode, change language, open your profile or notifications, reach the Help Centre and replay the guided tour. Use the arrow keys to move and Esc to close.

⌘ N / Ctrl N starts a new course.

This opens the same Create New Course window as the blue button, from anywhere you have the palette.

Collapse the side panel for more room.

Click the small arrow on the edge of the left panel to fold it down to icons. Poet remembers your choice next time.

Dark mode and interface language

Toggle dark mode from ⌘ K. Change the interface language from the globe at the bottom of the side panel, or in Account › Language.

Missed the tour? Replay it

Open the ? Help menu at the top right and choose Replay guided tour. There are separate tours for the dashboard, the course editor and reviewers, and each one plays for the area you’re in.

The bell shows what’s happening in the background.

Course builds and review processing appear in Notifications, so you don’t have to wait on a page while a build runs.

Find & Replace across the whole course

One of the biggest time-savers in the new Poet. It searches everything: slides, activities, questions, feedback, categories, and the course’s own labels and messages.

Open Find at the top right of any course   TOP TIP 

1. Type your word or phrase and press Enter (or click the search icon).
2. Results are grouped by where they live, for example, Configuration › Category Header, Category 1 › Title or Activity › Feedback, with the match highlighted.
3. Click a result to jump straight to that page with the text highlighted. Use the up and down arrows next to “1 / 6 results” to step through them.

Narrow the search with 'Aa' and 'ab'.

Aa matches case, so “Code” won’t match “code”. ab matches whole words only, so “act” won’t match “action”. Use both when you’re renaming something short, like a company acronym.

Switch on Find & Replace to change text everywhere.

Turn on the Find & Replace toggle under the results and type the new wording. Replace changes the highlighted result only. Replace All Unlocked changes every match that isn’t locked.

Items with a padlock are locked and are skipped by Replace All. That’s handy for protecting wording that legal has approved. To include a locked item, unlock it first.

Make a safety copy before a big replace.

Before a Replace All, choose Versioning › Save As Version and add a note such as “Before renaming Acme to Globex”. If anything goes wrong, you can roll back from Version History.

Use Find as a checklist.

Search for placeholder text such as “Replace this content”, “Untitled” or “TBC” before you send a course for review to catch anything left behind.

Saving, auto-saves & versions

Poet auto-saves as you work across the course. The one thing it doesn’t save for you is content you change inside a page or slide: save that page when you finish editing it.

Content changes are saved page by page   TOP TIP 

As soon as you change content inside a slide or page, the Save button at the top of that page turns solid blue. Click Save (or Save & Leave) to keep the change. Everything else is auto-saved, so the Save button is your reminder that there’s content still to save.

Poet won’t let you lose work by accident.

If you click away from a page with unsaved edits, you’ll see Leave Without Saving? with three choices: Cancel (stay and keep editing), Discard Changes (leave and throw the edits away) or Save & Leave (save, then go).

See your auto-saves in Version History.

Poet’s auto-saves are recorded as versions. See them in Versioning › Version History by switching on Display Auto Saves. Each entry shows who saved and when. Click View to look at an older state.

Name the milestones with Save As Version.

Use Versioning › Save As Version with a short comment at the moments that matter, such as “Sent to legal”, “Client sign-off” or “Before translation”. Named versions are much easier to find later than a list of timestamps.

See who changed what.

Configuration › Course History keeps a log of saves and major events, such as the course being created or a script being imported, with the person and the version.

Your dashboard

The stage counters are filters.

Click In Progress, Translating, Translations Complete, Post-Translations Edit or Published at the top to see only those courses.

Drag courses into folders.

Drag a course row onto a folder to file it, or use … › Move to Folder. Manage Folders lets you create and rename them. Folders per author or per client year keep a busy list under control.

Archive, don’t delete.

… › Archive takes a course off your list but keeps it under Archived Courses. Delete is permanent.

Preview without opening

The … menu on each course has Preview, Rename and Duplicate, so you can check or copy a course without going into the editor.

Table or cards

Switch between the table and card views with the toggle above the list, and use Search all courses to jump to one by name.

“Reviews assigned to you”   ROLLING OUT 

A panel on the dashboard lists the reviews you’ve been asked to do, both active and completed, so reviewers can go straight to their work.

Starting a course

Sketch an outline before you create   TOP TIP 

In Create New Course › Blank Course, click Start outlining and type your categories and topics. Poet builds the structure for you, and you can still rename or remove anything later.

Pick the right template.

Templates offers ready structures such as Small Adaptive (3 categories, 12 topics each, completed in any order), Large Adaptive (5 categories, 20 topics each) and Small Fixed Order (categories and topics presented in order). Each card lists its structure so you can compare them.

Bring a script, assets and translations in one go

Upload Script takes your Word script (.doc or .docx) together with an assets zip and translation spreadsheets (.xlsx), so the course arrives complete.

Reuse a good course.

Duplicate Existing Course copies a course under a new name. It’s the quickest start for an annual refresh.

Editing pages

Drag to reorder in the structure tree

The left panel shows the course in the order a learner meets it. Drag items to move them, and use Expand all to open every section at once.

The ⋮ menu on any item

Hover an item in the tree and click ⋮ for Add New Page, Add Slide, Preview and Delete, without opening it first.

Browse slide types with a live preview.

When you add a slide, the picker has three tabs: Slides (Flex layouts such as Accordion, Carousel, Click to Reveal, Case Study and Key Points), Templates (the Core Layouts) and Legacy Slides. Click any option to see a preview and a one-line description before you add it.

Move a slide without dragging.

On a slide, Actions › Change Location moves it to another part of the course. The Type and Location chips under the title show what it is and where it lives.

Check the Page Settings tab

Each page has a Page Settings tab beside Content. On the Title Screen, for example, it holds the start and resume button text and an option to stop returning users restarting the course.

Add alt text as you go

Background and image layers have an Alt text box (“Describe this background for screen readers…”). Filling it in as you build is far quicker than an accessibility pass at the end.

Paste clean text

Pasted from Word and the formatting looks odd? Select the text and click the clear formatting button (T with a line through it) in the text toolbar. Undo and redo sit alongside it.

The Flex editor

Open it full screen.

On a Flex slide, click Open in Flex Editor. The slide fills the screen, with a layer list on the right.

Use the layer list to select precisely.

The right-hand panel shows the page as nested layers: Full Page Layout › Content › Left Container › Image. Click a layer to select it, even when it sits under something else on the canvas.

Add blocks where you need them.

Click Add New inside any container to insert a block: Simple Content, Button, Click to Reveal, Floating Box, Speech Bubble, Carousel, Break It Down, Conversation Thread, Video, Accordion, Checkbox, Slider or AI Component. Add New Section adds a whole new band to the page.

Start from a template.

Insert Template at the top left drops in a ready-made layout that you then edit.

Flip between Edit and Preview.

The Edit / Preview switch at the top shows exactly what the learner will see, without leaving the editor.

Save before you Exit.

Use Save, then Exit, to return to the course.

Upgrade older slides.

Classic pages show Upgrade to Flex. To convert several at once, use Configuration › Flex Upgrade Tool.

Course Flow: the course as a map

Open Course Flow at the right of the course toolbar

• Drag empty space to pan; hold Ctrl / ⌘ and scroll to zoom.
• Hover a card for actions, and click the pencil to edit that page.
• Right-click the canvas to leave a comment for your team.
• Use the eye toggle to switch between edit and preview.
• Group categories and go fullscreen from the right-hand rail.

Good for a sense check

Course Flow is the quickest way to spot an empty category, a slide in the wrong section, or topics that are out of balance before a review.

Hidden-gem settings

Everything course-wide lives under Configuration, grouped into Course Info, Admin Panel, Learner Experience and Course Studio.

Variables for branching

Course Info › Variables lets you create variables with values that you then use to show different content to different learners.

Fast Track Progression

Learner Experience › Navigation: lets learners press Continue before finishing all content on a page. Useful for refresher audiences.

Progress bar and topic order

Also in Navigation: Enable Progress Bar, Lock Topic Order, Open External Links in New Window and Display Subtitles Below Video.

Enhanced Accessibility

In Navigation: switches off text animation on Conversation Thread slides and Text Thread activities for learners who need it.

Category Selection layout

Learner Experience › Category Selection sets the layout, header text and background of the screen where learners choose a category.

WCAG colour themes

Course Studio › Theming labels the themes that meet WCAG contrast. Apply Global Brand pulls in your organisation’s brand settings in one click.

Motion and sound

Course Studio › Motion sets card-flip speed and page transitions. Sound turns the default interaction sound effects on or off.

Filter assets by size

Admin Panel › Asset Manager filters a course’s files by type and by size (under 500 KB, 500 KB–5 MB, over 5 MB), which helps you find the big files slowing a course down.

Media Library vs Asset Manager

The Media Library in the side panel is shared across your organisation’s courses. The Asset Manager holds files for one course only. Put logos and standard imagery in the Media Library once.

Preview & publish

Page Preview vs Preview Course

Preview in a page’s header shows just that page. Preview Course at the top builds the whole course and opens it as a learner would see it. Do this after any sizeable change.

Validate before you publish.

The Build menu runs in order: Course Build, Validate, Preview, Publish. Validate catches problems before a learner does. Publish becomes available once a preview build exists.

Know your publishing credits.

Account › Publishing Credits shows how many credits your team has, and lists previous publishes.

Handy downloads

Download offers a Full Backup, the Script (great for a quick read-through in Word) and a SCORM Test Package for checking the course in your own LMS before go-live.

Reviews & translations

Send a course for review from the Build menu   ROLLING OUT 

Build › Start Review: choose a Content or Translation review, then add people as Reviewers (they comment) or Editors (they can also suggest replacement wording). No more exporting a Word script and merging redlines.

Tips to share with your reviewers   ROLLING OUT 

• Interactive plays the course like a learner. Full content shows every page as scrolling text, which is faster for checking wording.
• Select a specific piece of content before commenting so the author knows exactly what you mean.
• Suggest the exact wording you’d prefer, and the author can accept it as it stands.
• Click Mark my review done when finished. You can reopen it if you think of something else.
• Reviews are pinned to a version. If you see “Course updated”, click Refresh to latest.

Translation Workflow

Translations › Translation Workflow extracts all translatable text, lets you translate in the editor or export for your vendor, and tracks progress per language. Choose Confirm (managed by us) or Own Vendor.

Translation Memory saves you paying twice

Approved translations are stored in the Translation Memory in the side panel and reused automatically on future jobs, so standard wording such as button labels only has to be translated once.

For admins

Share a script without downloading it   ADMIN 

Configuration › Course Operations › Content Script Link: click Copy Link and send it. Recipients can download the latest content script. Import Script on the same page brings edits back in.

Slim a course with Asset Clean Up   ADMIN 

Asset Manager › Asset Clean Up removes duplicate files from a course to reduce its size and avoid conflicts.

Set the brand once   ADMIN 

Brand Settings holds the company logo, the header logo and colours, and the default branding theme. Authors then use Apply Global Brand in each course.

Talk to all your authors at once   ADMIN 

Notifications in the side panel posts organisation-wide notices to authors and reviewers. Each course also has its own Admin Panel › Notifications for notes to whoever is working on it.

Shortcut card