A cohort is different from a standard self-paced course: it has a start date, an end date, a live session cadence, and a group of students moving through the material together. This article covers setting one up end to end.

Step 1: Create the Cohort

1. Go to Cohorts → New Cohort and set a name, start date, end date, and session frequency (for example, weekly).
2. Attach a curriculum — either link an existing course or write cohort-specific curriculum notes.
3. Assign a lead instructor, and any co-instructors if applicable.

Step 2: Connect Community and Sessions

1. Link a community channel to the cohort — this scopes discussion to that specific batch rather than mixing with your general student base.
2. Confirm your Zoom connection is active; each scheduled session in the cohort will auto-generate a gated meeting link.

Step 3: Publish and Enroll

1. Every cohort gets an automatically generated public landing page at a dedicated URL, which you can share directly for enrollment.
2. Set the price and payment gateway the same way you would for a standalone course.
3. As students enroll, they're automatically added to the cohort's community channel.

Running the Live Sessions

Each scheduled session's Zoom link generates automatically and is visible only to enrolled cohort members. After each session ends, attendance logs populate from Zoom's webhook data — you don't need to take manual roll call.

Closing a Cohort

At the cohort's end date, it remains in your dashboard with its full attendance and completion history intact. To run the next batch of the same program, create a new cohort instance — this keeps each batch's community, attendance, and enrollment cleanly separate rather than merging cohorts together.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I run multiple cohorts of the same program simultaneously?

Yes — each cohort is a separate entity with its own dates, enrollment, and community channel, even if built from the same underlying curriculum or course.

What happens if a student misses a live session?

Attendance is logged per session, but WeMakeSuccess doesn't automatically restrict access based on attendance — whether a missed session blocks progress is a policy you set and communicate yourself, not a platform-enforced rule.