Platform access level: Everyone. Written for learners on the receiving end; if you deliver courses, nudges, or surveys, this is what your learners experience.
Your training comes to you. Arist sends it as short messages in a tool you already use, whether that is text message, WhatsApp, email, Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Arist Messenger. Arist can send you a course, a survey, or a nudge. This guide is for learners, and it covers all three from the first message to the last.
Note: If the app name includes (Legacy), you are in Arist's older app rather than the current one, so switch apps before you continue.
1. Telling a course, a survey, and a nudge apart
All three arrive as messages in the same conversation.
What separates them is what each one asks of you.
What Arist sends | What arrives | What you do |
Course | A welcome message first, then lessons one at a time on a schedule. A question usually closes the lesson. | Read each lesson and reply with your answer, a few minutes at a time. |
Survey | A set of questions and nothing else, with no lessons in between. | Answer each question as it arrives. An answer can enroll you in a course automatically. |
Nudge | One message, sometimes carrying a picture or a video. | Read it. A nudge asks for no reply and has nothing to complete. |
Courses reach every delivery method Arist supports. Surveys and nudges reach all of them except WhatsApp.
2. Answering the questions a course or a survey asks
Your answer goes back in the same conversation the question arrived in.
A survey's questions work exactly like a lesson's. Reply to a multiple choice question with the letter beside your answer, to a rating question with a number in the range it gives, and to an open question in your own words. If Arist cannot read your answer, it asks again and tells you what to send.
Multiple choice answers arrive as a lettered list, and the letter is the whole reply. Send just A or just B, not the words printed beside it. Sending one letter on its own is what a multiple choice question wants unless it asks you to list more than one.
Some multiple choice questions accept more than one answer, and those ask you to list all your choices. Reply with every letter that applies, separated by commas, like A, B. A question that does not ask for a list wants a single letter, so a list of letters is not accepted there.
Course conversations stay on the course itself. The messages are pre-approved course content, so Arist keeps to the lesson rather than holding a free conversation, and it points you to SUPPORT whenever you need help.
Some courses hold the next lesson until you have answered the current question, and some send you a friendly reminder when a question has been sitting unanswered. A reminder never means trouble; replying picks the course right back up where it left off.
Tip: Lessons are built to take only a few minutes. Answering while the message is in front of you is the easiest way to finish a course without setting aside study time.
You can also steer your own delivery by replying with a single word. PAUSE stops the messages, START or RESUME brings them back, and SUPPORT or HELP answers with your enrollment details. Using System Keywords lists every keyword Arist recognizes, including the one that opts you out.
3. Taking more than one course or survey at once
You can be enrolled in any number of courses and surveys. How many of them run at the same time depends on where your messages arrive:
Where your messages arrive | How many run at once |
SMS and WhatsApp | All of them. Each course messages you from its own number, so conversations never mix. |
All of them. Each course arrives as its own email thread. | |
Microsoft Teams | All of them. Each course is its own item on your enrollments page in the Arist app. |
Slack | Usually one at a time, because your lessons share a single Arist conversation, so a new course waits until your current one ends. If your organization gives each course its own Slack channel, your courses run alongside each other instead. |
Arist Messenger | All of them, inside the Arist Messenger app. |
A survey runs and waits under exactly the same rules as a course, on every delivery method.
Two other rules can put a course in line, and both apply whatever delivery method you are on:
Courses sent under the same named sender take turns: One sender runs one course at a time, so its lessons never talk over each other, even on a delivery method where courses otherwise run side by side.
Your organization can cap you at three active courses: Where that cap is switched on, a fourth course waits its turn and shows as Up next until one of your three finishes.
Note: A nudge never waits in line and does not count toward any cap, so one can reach you in the middle of a course.
4. Waiting for a queued course to start
When a new course cannot start yet, it waits in line instead of interrupting the one you are in. Whatever is waiting starts in the order you were enrolled. The next one begins on its own the moment your current course ends, whether you completed it, opted out, or it was canceled. You do not need to do anything.
What you see while a course waits depends on how you got enrolled:
You enrolled yourself: Arist sends you a short system message right away, telling you the new course begins after your current one ends and linking you to your enrollment.
Your organization enrolled you: The waiting course stays quiet. The first thing you hear from it is its own welcome message, the moment it starts.
Pausing your current course does not skip the line. A paused course keeps its place, and everything behind it keeps waiting until you resume and finish or an admin steps in. If a waiting course's schedule has already ended by the time its turn comes, that enrollment is canceled rather than started late.
A course can also stop on its own, without you doing anything to end it. Arist closes a course once it has been open for more than a year and nothing has happened in it for 90 days, so a course you are still working through keeps going. A course waiting behind a closed course works differently. It closes once it is more than three months old, even when you have been keeping up with your other courses.
The clock runs from the day you were enrolled, not from the day your lessons started, and Arist does not message you when a course closes this way. So if a course you were expecting has stopped arriving, or never arrived at all, ask whoever runs your training to enroll you again.
Note: If you deliver courses, the enroll flow's Review step labels these learners Will be queued, and they show as Up next in the delivery tracker afterward (see Understanding Enrollment Statuses). Each learner's waiting courses are listed on the Queues tab of their learner profile, where you can reorder the line or prioritize an enrollment. See Viewing and Managing Learners.
Your organization can also connect courses on purpose, automatically enrolling you in a follow-up course when you finish one. An answer you give in a survey can enroll you the same way. Those enrollments follow the same rules on this page, so they start right away where courses run in parallel and join the line where courses take turns.
5. Finishing a course or a survey
Many courses close by asking a few short questions about the experience itself. They might ask how confident you feel now compared to when you started, how satisfied you are, or whether you would recommend the course. Each takes seconds to answer, and Arist thanks you and congratulates you on completing the course as you send them.
A survey ends the moment you answer its last question. After the last message, you are done, with nothing left to submit.
If you reply to a course after it has ended, Arist lets you know that enrollment is complete. If another course is waiting, watch for its welcome message next.
6. Checking why a reply is not accepted
When your answer does not move the course forward, check each of these.
The course is paused: A paused enrollment holds your lessons, whether you replied PAUSE or your organization paused it. Reply START or RESUME to pick them back up where you left off.
You opted out: Replying STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE ends your delivery. Starting again is yours to do, so reply START when you want your lessons back.
The enrollment has already ended: A course that finished, or that your organization stopped early, sends no more lessons. Ask whoever runs your training to enroll you again if you still need the course.
The keyword was part of a longer message: A keyword works only when it is the whole reply, typed on its own in any capitalization. Send PAUSE by itself rather than a sentence asking to pause.
A nudge is not asking you anything: A nudge arrives as a single message with nothing to answer, so no question is waiting on your reply.
Microsoft Teams carries two Arist apps: Only the course app takes replies, and the other one carries the alerts telling you a lesson is ready. Using Arist on Microsoft Teams shows which is which.
Where your answer goes depends on how your lessons arrive, so each delivery method has its own guide to answering, including Using Arist on SMS for lessons that arrive as text messages.
7. Going back to an earlier lesson
A course runs forward one lesson at a time. Arist does not move you back to a lesson your course has passed, and a single lesson cannot be sent again on its own.
A lesson you missed is still in the conversation it first arrived in, so you can read it there rather than have it sent again.
There are two ways to cover a lesson you have not done. The first is to carry on to the end of the course, answering the lessons still to come. The second is to start the whole course again from the beginning, which covers every lesson rather than the one you missed. Ask whoever runs your training to arrange a fresh start, since it is theirs to set up.
8. Getting your course in a different language
Your organization sets the language your lessons arrive in. A course can reach you only in a language it has been built or translated into. Ask whoever runs your training when you want a different one, and they can tell you which languages your course is available in.
When you take a course in Arist Messenger or in the Arist app for Microsoft Teams, open the course's Manage enrollment page and pick a language in the Language field. The field appears on a course that runs in more than one language, where your organization lets learners manage their own enrollments. Your choice applies from your next message, and messages already sent keep the language they arrived in.
Arist's own buttons and menus are in English whatever language your lessons arrive in. Supported Languages lists every language Arist supports.
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Note: Need help at any point? Reach out to your Arist Customer Success contact, or email [email protected].