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Congratulations on choosing Disco! Welcome to your end-to-end setup process for new Disco admins that takes your Academy from a blank slate to a live, structured learning experience ready for Members. To start, watch our quick product tour.

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Overview

Disco is an AI-native learning platform where admins build Academies for Members to learn, connect, and ultimately transform to reach their full potential. Your Academy is organized around apps: structured areas for courses, discussions, events, and resources that Members navigate from a shared home page. This guide walks you through each setup phase in order, from defining your audience to launching with confidence. You do not need everything built perfectly before going live. A focused, clean Academy on day one outperforms an incomplete one built for every edge case.
Before you build anything, ground your decisions in who the Academy is for and what they need to accomplish. This clarity shapes every structural and content choice that follows.Answer these two questions:
1

Identify your primary audience

For example: “marketing teams at professional sports clubs” or “new customer success hires in the EMEA region.”
2

Identify top 3 goals for members

List the top three jobs your Members need to do in your Academy, such as learning product basics, getting answers to “How do I…?” questions, and onboarding into a new role or system.
Keep these answers visible as you build. Every app, section, and piece of content should serve at least one of those jobs.
A clean, predictable navigation is the single biggest factor in whether Members return. Aim for five to seven top-level items at most.Navigate to Home page in your Academy admin panel.Add these core apps to your Academy Home:
1

For You

Customize your For You page to be a personalized launch pad for your members to access what matters most to them and jump back into where they left off. Enable Ask AI so Members can ask questions directly from this page.
2

Academy Home

Add a Academy Home custom page (or label it “Community Hub”) with a short welcome message and a “Start Here” call to action.
3

Product Questions Channel

Add a Product Questions discussion channel app. This is a single place where Members ask “How do I…?” and “Can the product do…?” questions about your product or organization.
4

Events

Add an Events app to surface office hours, webinars, and feedback sessions available to all Members.
5

Resources

Add a Resources collections app to store playbooks, guides, and customer stories organized in folders.
6

Create Member Spaces with Sections

Use Sections to group private or segment-specific spaces. Sections act as folders in the navigation. Set access on each app within a section to Public or Private depending on the audience. Common sections to create:
  • An Ambassadors section (private) for your launch group.
  • Segment-specific sections with their own feeds and channels, for example “EMEA Customers” or “Marketing Team.”
A new Member should know exactly what to do within the first five minutes of joining. Two elements make that possible: onboarding questions and a Start Here page.
1

Create Groups

Create Groups to segment your members within the Academy. This could be based on role, department, location, skills, etc. Here’s how to setup your groups:
  1. On the Groups page, click + Group in the top right.
  2. Optionally add a description, image, and/or color tag.
  3. Enter a name for the group.
  4. Choose a Visibility setting (see the section below before proceeding).
  5. Click Create Group.
2

Configure Onboarding Questions and Group Automations

Onboarding questions capture role and segment data you will use later to automate group assignments.
  1. Go to Admin → Members → Onboarding.
  2. Enable the Custom Profile Fields step.
  3. Add single-select fields that capture role and segment. For example: Which area do you work in? (Ticketing, Marketing, Analytics, Support) or Which region are you in?
  4. In Automations, connect each answer to the corresponding Group (you’ll need to set these up first).
  5. Adjust the Access on each App within a Section so Members automatically see the spaces relevant to them.
3

Build a Start Here Page

The Start Here page is the first thing a new Member sees after completing onboarding. It orients them immediately so they are not left guessing.
  1. Create a new Custom Page and title it “Start Here” or “Get Started.”
  2. Add a short, personalized welcome line, three to five numbered steps, and a brief FAQ.
  3. In Onboarding Settings, set the final button (typically labeled Let’s go) to point to this page for first-time visitors. After that first visit, Members land on For You.
A strong first-steps list looks like this:
  1. Complete your profile: photo, role, and organization.
  2. Take the “New Member Training” Program in Learning.
  3. Visit Product Questions and read or ask one question.
  4. Bookmark the Resources collection most relevant to your role.
  5. RSVP to an upcoming office hours event.
Use the Learning tab for structured journeys, not for every piece of content you have. Start with one strong foundational Program rather than trying to migrate everything at once.
  1. Go to Learning → + New Program.
  2. Title it “New Member Training” and add short video lessons or written steps covering the basics of your product, organization, or process.
  3. Enable Auto-add all Members so everyone is enrolled automatically on join.
  4. Within each lesson, add a time estimate in the Time to complete field so Members know what they are committing to.
  5. Keep each lesson focused: break long text into multiple short steps rather than one long page.
  6. Review the Notifications settings inside the Program and disable non-essential alerts such as lesson comment notifications.
POV: We recommend building one tight, high-quality foundational Program before expanding to others. Academies with a single well-structured “New Member Training” Program consistently see higher completion rates than those that launch with five half-finished Programs. Get that first one right, then grow from there.
Resources work best as short, focused playbooks, not as a migrated library of long help articles. Think “micro-resources” rather than comprehensive manuals.
1

Create Collections and Folders

Create a space to put evergreen content resources for your members to access.
  1. Navigate to Resources → + New Collection.
  2. Create separate collections for distinct content types: How-to Guides, Customer Stories, and Webinar Replays.
  3. Inside each collection, create folders organized by theme or feature. Keep depth to two or three levels so Members never need more than a few clicks to find what they need.
2

Convert Long Docs into Playbooks

If you are migrating content from a help center like Intercom, Zendesk, or Circle, break each long article into smaller pieces:
  1. Create one short overview resource with a TL;DR and any prerequisites.
  2. Create separate step-by-step resources (Step 1, Step 2, and so on) with screenshots for each action.
For example, instead of one “Segment Automations” article, build a “Segment Automations Playbook” folder with five focused guides, each covering a single part of the workflow.
The feed is for announcements that point Members to content. It is not the place to host that content itself. Treat it like a notification layer, not a knowledge base.Keep feed posts short and clear (one to three sentences), attach or reference the relevant resource or Program, and use consistent thumbnail images. Do not paste step-by-step guides into feed posts. For important announcements, schedule posts close to the relevant moment and re-post rather than relying on pinning.Reserve email delivery from feed posts for truly important moments: launches, major product updates, and quarterly surveys. For everything else, let Members check the feed on their own schedule.
Ask AI lets Members get instant answers from your Academy’s content without leaving the platform. Enabling it on For You turns your resource library into an always-available support tool.
  1. Go to For You → App Settings and enable Ask AI.
  2. Update the subtitle text to something actionable. For example: “Looking for answers? Ask here.”
  3. Decide whether Ask AI should draw from external web sources or only from content inside your Academy. Disable Web Search if you want answers sourced only from your own content.
For Ask AI to give accurate answers, the content it needs to reference must be visible to the audience asking. Ask AI only uses content that a Member already has permission to see. You can import reference-style documents (such as older help articles) into a low-profile folder so Ask AI can use them without surfacing them prominently in the navigation.Teach Members two habits: use Ask AI when they have a question, and use the search bar when they know the name of a specific resource or Program.
Notification fatigue is one of the fastest ways to lose Member trust. Set defaults that are quiet by design and let Members opt in to more.
  1. Inside each Program, review Notification Settings and disable non-essential alerts. Lesson comment notifications are the most common source of noise.
  2. Go to Admin → Automations and review any default welcome emails. Turn off generic messages and rewrite the rest to align directly with your Start Here steps.
  3. Include a brief note in your Start Here page or New Member Training Program explaining how Members can adjust their own notification preferences.
If you currently send newsletters from an external system like HubSpot, consider continuing to do so while Members build the habit of checking Disco. Link into the Academy from those emails rather than trying to replace them on day one.
Before opening to everyone, run a focused soft launch with a small group of trusted Members. Their feedback will surface friction you cannot see as the builder.
1

Set Up Your Ambassador Group

  1. Create a private Ambassadors section with a feed for updates, a discussion channel for feedback, and at least one live event such as an office hours session.
  2. Invite five to fifteen Members who represent your broader audience and are willing to give detailed feedback.
2

Give Ambassadors a Clear Checklist

Send them a specific list of tasks to complete, for example:
  1. Join the Academy and complete onboarding.
  2. Visit Start Here, then complete the New Member Training Program.
  3. Browse Resources and try Ask AI with a real question.
  4. Post at least one question in Product Questions.
  5. Attend a live office hours session and share three pieces of feedback.
Ask them directly: “When you landed, did you know what to do first?” and “Could you find content relevant to your role?” Use their answers to refine navigation labels, reorder content, and fix any unclear onboarding steps before the full launch.
You do not need everything migrated or perfected before going live. A focused, high-quality launch delivers more value than a delayed, complete one.For launch day, prioritize:
  • Clean navigation with For You, Home, Product Questions, Events, Resources, and your key segment sections.
  • One strong foundational Program (New Member Training).
  • A small set of focused playbooks covering your top features or use cases.
  • A handful of evergreen resources inside a collections app.
  • A clear Start Here experience and quiet notification defaults.
After launch, schedule monthly or quarterly reviews to add content, refine structure, and tune Ask AI based on what Members actually ask and do.

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FAQ

Yes. Use Automations under Admin to connect single-select profile field answers to custom groups. Members are added to the corresponding private section automatically when they complete onboarding.
No. Start with one foundational Program and a small set of high-impact playbooks. A clean, focused Academy on day one outperforms an overcrowded one. Add and migrate content iteratively after launch.
Yes. Ask AI only surfaces content that the asking Member has permission to see. To use reference material without cluttering the main navigation, store it in a private or low-profile folder. You can also disable Web Search to limit responses to your own Academy content only.
Continue sending communications from your existing system and link into your Disco Academy from those messages. This bridges the gap while Members build the habit of going to Disco first. Gradually shift the primary experience over time.
Yes. In Onboarding Settings, set the final button destination to your Start Here custom page so new Members land there on their first visit. After that, the default landing page is For You.