The course plan, from draft to approval

The course plan is your contract with the client: the course’s goal, its audience, its objectives, its parts and their items, and the texts or questions the client wants exactly as written. Your AI writes and rewrites it; you make versions of it (V1, V2…), send them to the client, and record the one they approved.

Reading the course plan

Open the Course plan view. Three ways to read it, top left:

• Outline: parts and their items, one line each, opening in place. Expand all and Collapse all open or close them all at once.
• Cards: one column of cards per part, handy for reorganising.
• Document: the plan as your client will read it, as it will be exported.

The plan also says what is missing: an item no screen covers, an objective neither practised nor assessed, a run of screens without an activity. To find a word, ⌘F or the magnifier: Search the plan; In the whole course searches the screens too.

Editing the course plan

Click an item: it is edited in Properties (Title, Kind, Part, Sources, Description, its approved text, its voice-over). To reorganise, drag an item or a part, or use ⌥↑ and ⌥↓: the screens that cover it follow.

Most of the time, you will rather ask your AI:

Add a part on common mistakes before the final assessment, with one objective and two items.

The draft your AI wrote

When your AI writes the first plan, it says at the top what it decided by itself (“What Claude decided”) and, if needed, asks one question, just one. Change a decision from its menu (or Something else… to write it yourself), answer the question with Answer…: your answer goes to the AI, which rewrites the plan. These decisions and this question disappear once a version is approved; the client never sees them.

Making a version and sending it

At the top of the plan, a pill says where it stands: Draft, “V1 sent on …”, “V2 approved by … on …”, with the number of changes made since. Clicking the pill opens the Changes · Versions panel.

1. In Versions, Create V1 freezes the plan as it is now. You keep editing it afterwards: V1 itself no longer moves.
2. Export, in the toolbar, offers Word (.docx)… (changes tracked, your notes as comments) or PDF… (changes marked in the text).
3. The export shows the latest version. If you changed the plan since, Elabora says so and offers Export V1 as it is, or Create V2 and export. It never creates a version behind your back.
4. Send the file to your client. Elabora records the sending date on the version.

Recording the client’s approval

Once the client says yes, click Approve… (at the top of the plan, or on the version in Versions). In Approve a version of the plan, choose the version they read, then fill in Approved by, On and, if you like, Reference (an email, a purchase order). Confirm with Approve V2 (or the version chosen). Changes made after that version are not part of it: they stay marked.

After the approval

The plan stays editable, by you and by your AI. What changed since the approved version is marked in place (Added, Reworded, Moved, Changed) and listed under Changes, where each change offers Back to V1 and a Note for the client, which will show in the margin of the next document (as a comment in Word). The next version will show the client exactly what moved.

Texts approved verbatim are the ones the client approved word for word. To correct one, Unlock, edit, then Lock again; it shows in amber, and the client will see it marked in the next version. Your AI cannot change them.

On the screens, text that comes from the plan is flagged in Properties: rewording it on the canvas changes the plan, which marks it until the next version. A verbatim text can only be unlocked in the course plan.

You can deliver a course whose plan changed since the approval: Elabora lets you, and says so in the checks. To go back in time for the whole course, not just the plan, see history.