What’s the New Zenler mobile app?
In June 2022, New Zenler launched their mobile app for all paid users to access!
Of course, your students have been able to access your online programs from their mobile browser before…
But a mobile app allows a much better, native experience to consume that content on the go.
The app is available in the Apple Appstore and Google Play Store for download.
Note here that this means your students will have to download the “New Zenler” app on their phone (even if they might not know that’s what you’re using!).
The app is centralized and Non-Branded so it's not exactly like having your own app with your name on it!
This is fairly common in the online course industry, you can see how this compares to other popular solution in our article here.
The bottom line pro for centralized app is that the platform (New Zenler) takes away the worry of having to keep up to date with App Store’s rules and changes and all of the maintenance that comes with managing a mobile app.
How does the New Zenler app work?
It’s pretty simple.
On your end:
You’ll simply need to go to the Mobile App tab in your New Zenler Site settings and set up a few things:
Branding: this will allow you to change a few things like the thumbnails of your course as it will appear in the app and the primary brand color.
This is pretty much all you can customize. The fact that this is a centralized app means that you don’t really have much control over the design and user experience.
Push Notifications: these are the mobile notifications your students will receive (if they have allowed the app to send them any) and you can manage when they are sent.
The good news here is that you can send these to everyone in any course or course-specific students.
On your students end:
They’ll first need to download New Zenler from their app store.
Then enter their email address, which will find any “school” they are a part of (yours but any other course that uses New Zenler they’re also a student of).
They can then select your school which will load all of the courses they’re enrolled in!
Something to mention here: the New Zenler app is for student’s use only!
You as an admin cannot log in and make changes or check your sales in the back-end.
You’ll still need to use the desktop or mobile browser for this.
What can you do in the New Zenler App?
As mentioned above, you as an admin and creators of the course can’t do anything on the app.
But you students have a lot they can do!
So, of course they’ll be able to watch video and content you have in the online program:
Note that they won’t be able to access this content offline, which other course app sometime allows for.
They will however be able to access Community products and other interactive educational content like assessments, PDF, downloadables,etc.
A handy search function is also available to find content easily!
Lastly, all content progress is saved and students can pick up where they left off when coming back to the app.
That being said, students won’t be able to listen to audio or a video when their phone’s screen is off (like you would for music for example).
New Zenler app FAQ
Of course, the best way to understand how the New Zenler app works and be able to communicate with your students all the benefits they’ll get is to start using it today!
But let’s answer a few more questions you may have before getting your hands dirty:
Can students access the Community?
Yes they can.
They’ll be able to comment, post and even get a push notification when someone’s interacting with their post or replying to their comment.
This is probably of the biggest benefit to using the app for your student and to easily keep up to date with what’s going on with the community you’ve created.
As many membership and community creators know, keeping engagement up can be a struggle!
Can I design the course for app display?
As it is the case for most centralized mobile app, you can’t really change the design of your course within the app.
Of course, the content you upload in the back-end is yours to choose and you can add some cosmetics to it.
But other than that everything else in the app is static.
Can I post new content to my courses?
Unfortunately no.
The app is only for students and there is no way for you to login as an admin and push new content to the platform.
You can still use and interact in the community if you sign yourself up as a student.
What languages are available for the New Zenler App?
Most text’s language within the app is still controlled by you through your content and admin settings.
For other things related to the phone's system text, this will depend on your student’s language setting for their device.
Can students make any purchase from within the app?
Not really.
There is no in-app purchase functionality but you can still link out to a checkout from within your course.
This will take people out of the app and open a mobile browser page where they can make the purchase.
