Courses recipe — internal LMS

The Courses recipe (openintranet_courses) turns Open Intranet into a small but complete internal LMS. It models two content types — courses and lessons — links them with a parent-child entity reference, ships Layout Builder-driven course pages, and tracks per-user lesson completion with a Learned flag.

It is a recipe, so it is opt-in — install with drush recipe recipes/openintranet_courses when the company is ready to deliver onboarding, compliance training, or upskilling content directly inside the intranet.

What it is

The recipe ships:

A Course content type (course) — the wrapper for a series of lessons with a cover image, description and ordered lesson list.
A Course Lesson content type (course_lesson) — the individual training unit with full CKEditor content, media library support, and a Learned flag for per-user progress tracking.
A Layout Builder layout for both content types (the only bundle in the default install with Layout Builder enabled — see Layout Builder & Frontend Editing).
A Lesson Learned flag (Personal scope) for per-user progress tracking.
Two views — Courses list (catalogue) and Current course (the lesson navigation block embedded inside a lesson page).
A custom view mode for lessons that renders them inside a course page in a compact table form.

Components

The Course content type

A course is the wrapper:

Field	Type	Notes
Title	Text	The course’s name.
Course description	Long text	The pitch — what learners get.
Course cover image	Image (with the course_cover image style)	Shown in the catalogue and as the page hero.
Course lessons	Entity reference (Course Lesson, multi-value, ordered)	The ordered list of lessons that make up the course.

The Course content type has Layout Builder enabled (node.course.default ships with Layout Builder turned on by default). That means each course page is composed visually — hero block, description, lessons table, related courses, etc. — and admins can add per-course customisations (e.g. a hero override for the flagship onboarding course).

The Course Lesson content type

A lesson is the individual unit:

Field	Type	Notes
Title	Text	The lesson title.
Body	Long text + summary	The lesson content. CKEditor with full formatting, media library support (images / videos / audio), the AI assistant, and the standard reactions / comments.
Lesson Learned flag	Flag (rendered as a field)	The To learn / Learned button — see below.

Lessons can be standalone (a tutorial that is not part of any course) or part of multiple courses (one Drupal cache basics lesson can appear in both Drupal for editors and Onboarding for engineers). The relationship is held on the course side — a course references its lessons; a lesson does not need to know about its courses.

The Lesson Learned flag — per-user progress

Progress tracking is implemented with a Flag module flag (Personal scope, AJAX link type, rendered as a field):

Default state — To learn button on every lesson the user has not yet flagged.
After click — Button switches to Learned with a green confirmation: “Marked as Learned”.
Click again — Switches back to To learn: “Marked as ‘To learn’”.
Per-user — Each user has their own progress; no global counter.
AJAX — No page reload, no scroll jump.

Course page layout

The course page (the bundle’s Layout Builder layout) shows:

Hero — the cover image, the title, the description.
Lessons table — each lesson rendered in the course_lessons_table_display compact view mode (title + a To learn / Learned button), so the learner sees the full progress at a glance.
Optional sidebars — per-course related material, instructor info, etc., added through Layout Builder.

The lesson page layout

A lesson page renders the body content full-width with the Current course navigation block (the second view shipped by the recipe) showing where the learner is in the course — previous lesson, current lesson, next lesson — for one-click navigation through the material.

Views

Courses list (views.view.courses_list) — The catalogue. Title, cover image, description, lesson count. Sortable / filterable.
Current course (views.view.current_course) — Navigation block embedded in lesson pages — previous / current / next lesson links plus a progress indicator.

Media support

The recipe enables media, media_library and image modules — lessons can embed images, videos, audio and any other media library asset (PDF handouts, slide decks). The CKEditor Insert media button (the standard Drupal one) lets editors pick from the media library or upload new files.

Translation

Both content types opt into language.content_settings, so courses and lessons can be translated per language for a multilingual workforce.

Workflow

The day-to-day flow:

Build lessons — author each one individually with rich content.
Build the course — create a course node, fill in title / description / cover image, then drag lessons into the Course lessons field in the order learners should take them.
(Optional) Customise the layout with Layout Builder for that one course (e.g. add a hero override or an instructor block).
Publish. The course appears in the catalogue.
Learners open the course, work through the lessons, click Mark as learned on each one. The Current course block guides them lesson by lesson.
Reporting — A simple Drupal view filtered by the Lesson Learned flag answers “who has completed Lesson X?” and “what’s our overall completion rate for the Compliance course?”.

Integration with other features

Layout Builder & Frontend Editing — Both course and lesson types ship with Layout Builder enabled; the default course page layout is the canonical Layout Builder example in the platform.
Social interactions — Lessons can be liked and commented on like any other content. Comments are great for learner Q&A under each lesson.
Engagement scoring — Reading lessons and clicking Learned are recorded in the engagement signal on the user’s profile.
Search — Both bundles are indexed by DB Index Content automatically.
Multilingual — Per-language courses and lessons; pair with the AI assistant for fast translation.
Access Control & Groups — Sensitive courses (e.g. an Executive onboarding programme) can be restricted to specific groups.
Recently Read — The Recently read block shows the last lessons the user opened, so they can resume where they left off.
ECA — no-code workflows — A model can fire on a Lesson Learned flag event to record completion in another system (e.g. write to an external HRIS via HTTP).

Permissions

The recipe relies on standard Drupal node permissions plus the Flag permissions. Common defaults:

Permission	Default role(s)
Create / edit / delete course	Trainer + Administrator
Create / edit / delete course_lesson	Trainer + Administrator
View published course / course_lesson	Authenticated user
Use Lesson Learned flag	Authenticated user
Configure Layout Builder layouts (course / lesson)	Administrator

Installing the recipe

cd web
drush recipe recipes/openintranet_courses
drush cr

After applying:

/node/add/course, /node/add/course_lesson are the creation forms.
/courses (the configured catalogue path) is the catalogue.
A Courses main-menu link is typically added by hand from /admin/structure/menu/manage/main.

Modules behind it

node, datetime, options, text, user, file, image, media, media_library, views, views_ui, block — Drupal core
layout_builder, layout_discovery — Drupal core (the default course / lesson layouts use Layout Builder)
Flag — the Lesson Learned per-user progress flag
Default Content — sample courses and lessons to seed the system

Learn more

Layout Builder & Frontend Editing — the canonical Layout Builder use-case in the platform
Social interactions — same Flag + Comment foundations as bookmarks / reactions
Search — courses and lessons indexed alongside everything else
AI Assistant in CKEditor — draft and translate lesson content fast
Drupal recipes documentation