Course progress

Every student has a completion percentage per course, shown as a progress bar in the course sidebar and as a number in My courses.

How it is calculated

completed lessons ÷ all lessons attached to the course × 100

Two details matter:

• The denominator is every lesson attached to the course — including lessons that are not assigned to a section and therefore do not appear in the outline.
• The numerator is the lessons this student has completed, recorded per student and per course.

The orphaned-lesson trap

A lesson attached to the course but with no section is invisible in the outline and still counted in the total.

The consequence: a student can complete every lesson they can see and never reach 100%.

The fix is structural — give every lesson a section. Audit it from the lesson list's Section column, where a dash marks the problem. See Assign a lesson section.

Where the progress bar appears

In the course sidebar, above the outline, on both the course page and every lesson page, with a line stating the percentage completed.

Whether a progress bar also appears in the page layout, and where, is a site-wide setting under Settings → POM LMS → Course and → Lesson.

Progress requires a signed-in student

It is recorded against the student's account. An anonymous visitor reading a preview accumulates nothing, and the bar reads zero.

That is correct, and it is why a public course cannot show meaningful progress to anonymous readers.

Progress survives losing access

A student who is refunded, whose subscription lapses, or who falls outside a time-based rule keeps their recorded progress. They simply cannot open the lessons.

If access returns, they are exactly where they were — which is a genuine argument to include in renewal messaging.

Adding or removing lessons changes everyone's percentage

Because the denominator is the course's current lesson count, adding a lesson lowers every student's percentage and removing one raises it.

That is unavoidable, and worth planning for:

• Finish a course before launching it, so the total is stable.
• When adding lessons to a live course, tell students — a percentage that drops silently reads as a bug.
• Prefer adding a new course to substantially extending a completed one.

Progress is per course

Each course counts independently. Moving a lesson between courses changes both courses' totals, and a student's completion of it is recorded against the course it was in.

What progress does not do

• It does not unlock anything. There is no sequential gating.
• It does not expire.
• It does not trigger a message, an email or a certificate at 100%.
• It is not reported anywhere for staff; there is no per-course student list in the administration.

Verify

1. Sign in as a student with access.
2. Note the percentage.
3. Complete a lesson, according to your completion mode.
4. Confirm the bar and the number both change, in the sidebar and in My courses.
5. Confirm the course can reach 100% — if it cannot, look for lessons with no section.