How-to

Manage lesson comments

Alva Courses adds a discussion under every lesson. Students ask questions and answer each other, you reply as the teacher, and each course’s Comments page shows which conversations are still waiting for you.

Turn comments on or off

Alva Courses switches comments on or off for a whole course, not for single lessons. New courses have comments on: the Comments card on the new-course form starts with Enable selected.

1. In Alva Courses, open Courses and choose a course.
2. Select Settings, then the Learning tab.
3. In the Student Interaction card, choose Enable Comments or Disable Comments.
4. Select Save.

Turning comments off hides the discussion from students and stops new posts. Existing comments are kept and still appear on the Comments page.

Open the Comments page

Each course has its own Comments page. Open Courses, choose the course, and select Comments at the top of the page. The table lists every comment and reply in the course, newest first, 20 per page.

Each row shows the comment, its author, the lesson and the date. A reply also says who it answers, for example “Reply to Sam”. Select view to open the lesson on your storefront in a new tab.

Find conversations that need a reply

Type in Search comments... to find words in comment text, or filter by Lesson or Author. The Author list includes your teacher name and every student who has commented.

Turn on the Needs reply filter to see only conversations where a student posted last. That covers a new comment nobody has answered and a student’s answer to your reply. Each conversation appears once, as its newest message, with an Awaiting reply badge. After you reply, it leaves the list.

The badge also shows when the filter is off. On a course with a very large number of comments, a banner explains that Needs reply only checks the most recent conversations.

Reply in a conversation

1. On a comment’s row, select reply. The whole conversation opens in a window titled “Conversation in” and the lesson name.
2. Check the Replying to line above the reply box. It starts with the message you clicked. Select reply under another message to answer that one, or Reply to latest instead to answer the newest message.
3. Type in Your reply. A preview of your teacher badge sits under the box.
4. Select Post Reply. The window stays open so you can keep going. If posting fails, an error appears and your text is kept.

In the window, View lesson opens the lesson on your storefront, and student names link to their member profile.

How threads work

A conversation starts with a top-level comment. You and your students can reply to any message in it, including another student’s comment, and the back-and-forth can run as long as it needs to.

All replies sit at one indent under the first comment, in the order they were posted. A reply to anything other than the first comment shows “Replying to” and the person it answers. On the storefront, students also see a short quote of that message.

Edit and delete comments

You can edit your own replies. Select edit on the row or inside the conversation, change the text, then select Save. Students’ comments can’t be edited from the admin.

Select delete to remove any comment, yours or a student’s. Deleting happens straight away, with no confirmation and no undo, and also deletes the comment’s images. Replies to a deleted message stay in the conversation. If you delete the first comment, each direct reply starts a new conversation of its own.

Students can edit or delete their own comments from the ⋮ menu on the storefront, if they are signed in to their account or opened the course from the link in their email. An edited comment shows “(edited)” to students and “Edited” with the date on the Comments page.

Each student’s comments also appear on their member profile under Members, with View and Delete buttons.

Moderation options

Alva Courses publishes a comment as soon as a student posts it. There is no approval queue, and comments can’t be pinned or hidden. To moderate a discussion:

• delete the comment;
• remove one image and keep the text (see Links and images in comments);
• turn comments off for the course;
• end the student’s course access, because only students with access can post or edit comments.

Set how your replies look

The Teacher Identity card at the bottom of the Comments page sets how you appear. Display Name is shown on your replies; leave it blank to use your shop name on the storefront. Badge Text is the label beside your name, such as Teacher or Instructor, up to 20 characters. Select Save after changing either.

On the storefront, your replies carry your badge and are highlighted with a coloured border in the course colour.

What students see

Comments appear under each lesson, headed “Comments” with a count. The 20 most recent conversations show first, and Show more comments reveals older ones. Students answer any message with Reply and start a new conversation in the box at the bottom.

Students who aren’t logged in see “Please log in to post comments.” Students can only comment on lessons they can open, and comments are turned off in course previews. A comment can be up to 10,000 characters.

Notifications and automations

Alva Courses emails you when a student comments, and the email says when it is a reply in an existing conversation. See Set up comment notifications.

Students are not emailed when you reply. To let them know, use the Shopify Flow workflow in Email students when you reply to their comment. You can also post new lesson comments to Slack.

See also

Let students share links and images in comments, see how students learn in the storefront course player, or add a private contact form to a lesson.

Last updated 2026-10-08