Get started with POM LMS
This chapter takes a site from an installed plugin to a published course with lessons that the right students can reach. It separates the steps deliberately: understanding the product, checking prerequisites, installing, licensing, building content, and testing access as a real student.
Choose the right article
| If you need to… | Read |
|---|---|
| Understand what the plugin does before changing the site | What POM LMS does |
| Check theme, WordPress and WooCommerce prerequisites | Requirements and compatibility |
| Install the plugin and confirm it is running | Install and activate POM LMS |
| Connect the site to its POM subscription | Activate your POM LMS license |
| Learn what every screen and panel is for | Tour the POM LMS interface |
| Publish a first course with lessons | Create your first course |
| Prove that access works before students arrive | Test the course as a student |
| Approve a course for launch | Course launch checklist |
| Update the plugin or prepare a support request | Updates, support, and safe maintenance |
Recommended order for a new installation
- Confirm the deployment meets the requirements, starting with the POM theme.
- Install and activate the plugin.
- Save and validate the license under Settings → POM LMS.
- Decide the course URL structure before creating content.
- Create one course, with its sections.
- Create two or three lessons and attach them to the course and its sections.
- Set the course's access rule.
- Test the course signed out, and as a student who does not have access.
- Only then create the rest of the content.
The three things a course is made of
The course — the landing page a student reaches first: title, description, image, and the panel that decides who can open it.
Sections — the named groups the course outline is built from. A lesson that is not assigned to a section does not appear in the outline.
Lessons — the content students work through, each attached to one course and one of its sections, ordered by the order attribute.
Miss any one of the three and the course looks broken to a student while looking complete in the administration.
The rule that saves the most time
Test access with a real non-administrator account.
An administrator can usually open everything, so an administrator's view proves nothing about what a student sees. Every access article in this documentation ends with the same instruction, and it is the single most common cause of "it works for me" reports.
Where access is decided
Three layers, evaluated in a fixed order:
- Login requirement on the course.
- A permission rule, on the lesson if it has one, otherwise on the course.
- The paid-course setting, when no rule applies.
Preview lessons are the deliberate exception. The whole model is explained in Access control.
Start with What POM LMS does.