Building a Flexible Learning Management System
with Core dna

Most businesses exploring learning management systems or online course software find commercial products bloated and too complex for their needs. 

If your goal is to launch a lean online courses platform with author content, deliver assessments, track progress, and issue certificates, Core dna’s composable architecture lets you click together exactly the features you need.

Here’s how we built a full Learning management system POC in just 2 weeks, with no third-party plugins or custom servers. It was simply a tailored assembly of content modules that already existed in our CMS. 

Why Most Learning Management Systems are Just Composable Content

At their heart a Learning Management System is simply a set of content modules—courses, lessons, videos, quizzes and assessments—wired together with a bit of logic for enrollment, progress-tracking and certification. 

Composable CMS platforms like Core dna already give you: 

• Modular entities, basically create what you need (Pages, Products, Users, Courses, Questions and more)
• Flexible relations (n:m course–lesson, course–question, user–enrollment) 
• No-code automations (trigger on purchase → create enrollment → score quiz → award certificate) 

When you stitch those pieces together, you get a full-blown LMS, without ever writing bespoke software. 

At Core dna, the flexibility of our platform allows us to treat every solution as a new puzzle: content, commerce and automation are the pieces that simply need the right arrangement to click together.

By unleashing our API-first CMS as the authoring engine, plus custom entities and serverless automations, you can assemble a fully featured online courses platform without a single monolithic LMS license. 

In practice, our process mirrors that composable philosophy. 

We kick off each project with collaborative discovery workshops—mapping out pages, modules and integrations as discrete tasks, marking them off in real time. 

For the LMS build we work on for Save a Life, we repurposed the Books module for course chapters, spun up Course/Enrollment/Test entities in minutes, and wired grading and certificate issuance via low-code automations. 

The result: a tailored, scalable LMS POC delivered in 2 weeks, with clear milestones, built-in reuse, and no plugins. 

How Core dna's LMS Works in Practice

When we scoped out our Learning Management System build, the team broke it down visually into two layers—standard, reusable entities on the left and the custom LMS pieces on the right. This whiteboard captures our end-to-end reasoning:

Here’s a step-by-step look at what users see and the Core dna mechanics powering each feature for Save a Life Learning Management System.

1. Courses as Bundles

Think of each course as a folder: it contains chapters (your existing pages or “books/pdf”), a set of quiz questions, and settings like “how many questions” or “what’s the passing score.”

Under the hood this is what happens:

• What you see: A “Course” record type with fields for title, description, linked book series, linked Test Bank, exam settings (shuffle on/off, max questions, pass score, expiry).
• How it works: It uses Core dna’s custom entities feature to model “Course” alongside your standard “Page” and “Product” types.
  

2. Quizzes & Question Pools

Store your questions in shared libraries so you can pull a random subset for each learner, no more manual copying.

Under the hood this is what happens:

• What you see: A shared question library where you tag correct answers and group them into banks.
• How it works: Define a Question entity (with Answer sub-entities) and a many-to-many relation to Test Bank.

3. Sign-Ups & Progress Tracking

When someone buys or signs up, the system creates their enrolment record and watches their progress through videos, readings and quizzes, and marks them “passed” when they hit your threshold.

Under the hood this is what happens:

• What you see: For each user, an enrollment record shows start date, progress %, attempts, pass/fail.
• How it works:Tie Course to Product via n:m relations; reuse your existing Product and Order entities to grant access.
  

4. Certificates & Rewards

As soon as they pass, they get an on-screen badge or downloadable certificate automatically. 

Under the hood this is what happens:

• What you see: Learners get instant feedback, progress bars and certificate links.
• How it works: Synchronous hooks act as micro-services on quiz submission they calculate scores, update the Enrollment record, flip the “passed” flag, and trigger a PDF-gen workflow.

5. Purchase + Learning = One Flow

A single checkout experience grants course access. Behind the scenes, the same product and order logic you use for e-commerce powers course enrollments.

Under the hood this is what happens:

• What you see: Buying a course works just like buying any product in your store.
• How it works: A custom “Enrollment” entity is automatically created via a synchronous hook when a Purchase (or manual signup) occurs

6. Zero Custom Code Servers

All of the above is wired together with simple click-and-configure workflows—no separate servers or plug-ins to maintain..

Under the hood this is what happens:

• What you see: No-code interface to link “Course → Test Bank → Question” and schedule logic.
• How it works: Use Core dna’s parent/child and n:m relations plus event/HTTP/cron-based automation triggers to orchestrate everything without writing custom servers.

Core dna’s Automation Engine: The Glue to it All

At its core, Core dna’s Automation Engine is a visual, low-code workflow builder built right into your platform.  Think of it as a native Zapier embedded alongside your CMS and Commerce: you visually assemble business logic, connect data sources, and deploy micro-services, all from one intuitive interface.

Core Automations : The Glue for any Project

Think of a automations as a tiny, purpose-built micro-services you configure in minutes. Each automation is composed of three parts: a trigger that tells it when to run (for example, an entity event, a webhook call, or a scheduled cron job), a logic layer that performs decisions and data transformations, and one or more actions that carry out tasks—from updating records to calling external APIs or sending notifications.

Triggers, Logic and action

Triggers let you catch everything from “a page was published” to “a form was submitted” or “it’s 2am every night.” 

Once the automation fires, its logic takes over: you can write simple “if/else” tests to apply discounts to big orders, loop through each item in a shopping cart to adjust shipping based on weight, or assemble complex data structures by mapping, concatenating, or formatting fields. 

For truly custom needs, you even drop in an inline JavaScript snippets to shuffle exam questions or calculate personalized pricing.

When that logic is done, actions turn your decisions into results. Choose from built-in steps to create or update any CMS or commerce record, post a message to Slack, invoke a third-party API like Salesforce or SAP, or fire off an email or SMS. 

If you need something extra, we can create a JS plug-in and plug it in alongside the defaults.

Synchronous (micro-services) and Asynchronous automations. 

Core dna gives you the best of both worlds with synchronous and asynchronous Hooks. 

• Synchronous automations act like on-page micro-services, returning results immediately so you can grade a test or inject personalized banners.
• Asynchronous automations queue up in the background for heavier lifting—nightly inventory syncs, batch reports, or large data migrations—without slowing down your live site.

Because everything lives in Core dna, there’s zero infrastructure to manage. Every execution is logged, retry logic is built in, and you can replay failed workflows with a click. Debugging becomes as simple as browsing an execution history, tweaking a parameter, and hitting “Run again.”

Putting it all together in an Learning Management System

For the online courses software we built for Save a Life, when a student clicks “Start practice test,” an asynchronous Hook runs behind the scenes, randomly selecting 10 of 20 practice questions, persisting their session. 

When they finish the final exam and hit “Submit,” a synchronous Hook springs to life to grades questions on the spot, saves the score, generates a unique certificate link, and returns the result instantly. 

That same visual workflow builder can handle everything from simple form-to-CRM integrations to multi-step B2B order routing through SAP. 

By orchestrating your entire project(content updates, commerce events, and complex automations), in one place, Core dna lets you deliver powerful, end-to-end solutions faster, with far less boilerplate code or server provisioning.

How built in automation makes a difference

With Core dna’s Automation Engine, you can orchestrate every piece of your project, from content publishing to B2B order routing to online course assessments, through one unified, highly-visual interface. It gives you: 

• Speed: Spin up complex workflows in minutes, not weeks.
• Flexibility: Tweak logic or swap integrations without touching code.
• Scalability: Hooks run on Core dna’s managed infrastructure, scaling from ten users to millions.
• Maintainability: Micro-service style keeps each workflow simple and self-contained.

Core dna as a Unified Content, LMS, and eCommerce Platform

As a unified platform Core dna brings content, learning management system, and eCommerce together in one seamless platform. Each can be used separately or as one system to make everyday management operations easy and straightforward. 

When used as a unified platform which is the case for Save a Life, the Learning Management System and e-commerce engine share the same database, user profiles, and workflows. No more stitching together separate tools or wrestling with plugins.

Single Source of Truth for Courses

Every course you create lives in the same catalog as your physical products, digital downloads, and subscription offerings. Treat each Learning Management System module as a SKU—bundle course access, assessment fees, and bonus materials into a single offering. When you update pricing, inventory or descriptions, those changes flow instantly across your entire site and user dashboards.

Seamless Checkout & Instant Enrollment

Payments flow through tokenized Stripe or Braintree integrations for out-of-the-box, PCI-compliant security—without storing a single credit card on your servers. The moment “Payment Complete” fires, a Core dna Hook springs into action:

1. It enrolls the student in the appropriate course
2. Provisions access rights and welcome emails
3. Updates their “My Courses” dashboard

All of this happens automatically in the Core dna platform. No manual handoffs, no extra hosting, no Zapier workarounds.

Dynamic, Data-Driven Course Pages

Because your commerce catalog and content modules live under one roof, you can drop commerce-aware components straight into any page:

• Featured Courses Carousel: Point our Product Listing component at your course category—see real-time pricing, images and “students also bought” suggestions.
• Upsell Syllabus Blocks: Embed a content block alongside live availability, bundle deals or countdown timers to drive urgency.
• Contextual Recommendations: Mix rich media, instructor bios and related modules with dynamic course data, all in a single editable layout.

Rather than building static pages and then wiring in commerce, Core dna lets you author once and power every channel—web, mobile, kiosks—with accurate, up-to-the-minute course information.

By unifying content and commerce, Core dna transforms your online courses software from a patchwork of tools into a single, composable platform—streamlining enrollment, boosting conversions, and keeping every student interaction perfectly in sync.

Scale Your LMS, and Every Digital Experience—Effortlessly

The same composable flexibility that let us deliver a full learning management system in just a few weeks, complete with custom Course and Test entities, practice- and final-exam hooks, and certificate workflows, also powers your ability to scale infinitely. When your CMS, commerce and automations live in one unified platform, you experience:

• Rapid Feature roll-out: Need a new quiz type, language version, or AI-driven recommendation? Spin it up by configuring entities and hooks—no lengthy build cycles.
• Effortless growth: Adding hundreds of courses, onboarding thousands of learners, or launching portals for new markets is as simple as duplicating templates and adjusting metadata.
• Future-ready for AI search: Structured course content becomes immediately discoverable by generative-AI assistants, so your LMS stays on top of evolving search behaviors without retroactive rework.

In an era where generative AI is quickly becoming the new search paradigm, the ability to scale and adapt your digital experience hinges on one thing above all: a truly flexible CMS. 

As users increasingly turn to AI assistants and conversational interfaces for answers, your content must be perfectly structured, richly tagged, and instantly available—across web, mobile, voice and beyond.

As businesses race to optimize for AI-powered discovery, the winners will be those who treat their digital experiences as living, modular ecosystems—not static brochure sites. 

By unifying content, commerce and automations in a single, API-first hub, Core dna empowers you to meet every new AI search opportunity head-on: dynamically generate personalized answers, recommend the perfect course, or upsell the ideal product—all driven by structured, composable content that scales with your ambition.