Organizing your training content is easier when you understand how files are structured in Mindsmith. The dashboard gives you a clear hierarchy so you always know where lessons, courses, and folders live—and how to manage them.
This guide covers the core terms, how to create and organize files, and the tools available to manage your content.
Key Terms to Know
Mindsmith’s file system is built on a few simple but powerful building blocks:
Folders: Folders act as containers to group related content together. They do not hold lesson material themselves, but they give you a way to structure your content by topic, department, or project. For example, you might have a folder for “Onboarding,” with multiple courses and lessons inside.
Courses: A course is a collection of lessons that belong together under a single training program. A “Customer Success Enablement” course might include lessons on product knowledge, client communication, and troubleshooting.
Lessons: Lessons are the core unit of delivery in Mindsmith. A lesson is what your learners actually take, and it is made up of pages and tiles. Lessons can stand alone or be part of a larger course.
Storyboards: When you start drafting a new lesson but haven’t generated it yet, it will appear in your dashboard as a storyboard. This is your planning environment before the full lesson is created.
Creating New Content
All new content is created from the Create button in the top-right corner of your dashboard. This is the central hub for building in Mindsmith.
To create a new item:
Navigate to your Dashboard.
Click the Create button.
Choose Lesson, Course, or Folder depending on what you want to add.
If you are beginning to structure a large training program, you might start with a folder called “Leadership Training,” then create a course called “Leading Effective Teams,” and then build lessons within that course, such as “Coaching Conversations” or “Delegation Skills.”
Navigating the Dashboard
The dashboard is the home base for all your training content. The hierarchy appears in layers to keep things organized:
Folders always appear at the top, so you can quickly jump into major groupings.
Courses and Lessons follow beneath the folders.
Storyboards appear when a draft has been started but not yet published as a lesson.
You can scroll through this list or use the left-hand sidebar to move between items. Over time, as your library grows, consistent use of folders and naming conventions will make navigation much easier.
Favoriting Content
If you regularly return to the same folders or lessons, you can save time by marking them as favorites. Favoriting pins items to your left-hand sidebar so they are always one click away.
To favorite an item:
Hover over a folder or lesson and click the star icon.
The item will immediately appear in your sidebar under Favorites.
To remove a favorite, click the star again, either from the dashboard tile or directly from the sidebar.
This feature is particularly useful for authors and admins who work on a set of lessons daily, or for instructors who need to frequently reference specific courses.
Moving and Managing Content
Every item in your dashboard has a kebab menu (three dots) that appears when you hover over it. This menu gives you file management options that change depending on the type of content.
Lessons: You can move lessons into a different folder or course, preview them, duplicate for reuse, or move to the trash.
Courses: Courses can be moved too, including moving lessons into and out of courses.
Folders: You can move the folder, convert it into a course, or move it to the trash (from within the folder itself).
You can also nest folders within other folders, creating deeper levels of organization. For organizations with multiple teams, you can move lessons, courses, and folders across workspaces as well.
Practical example: If your “Onboarding” folder becomes crowded, you might create subfolders such as “HR Policies,” “Tools Training,” and “Culture.” You can then move existing lessons into the right subfolder using the kebab menu.
Permissions and File Management
Not every user in Mindsmith has the same level of control over file management. Permissions are tied to roles:
Admins and Authors currently share the same permissions for creating and managing lessons, courses, and folders.
The only difference is that Admins can change people’s roles and add or remove users from the workspace.
Viewers are restricted to viewing content only and cannot move, duplicate, or delete files.
To see the role of each member in your workspace:
Go to Settings → Members in the left-hand menu.
Click on Members.
Review the list of users and their assigned roles.
This allows you to confirm who has the ability to make structural changes in your workspace.
Key Takeaways
Use folders to keep content structured, courses to group related lessons, and lessons as the main unit of delivery.
Rely on favorites to quickly access important folders and lessons from your sidebar.
The kebab menu is the control center for moving, duplicating, previewing, or deleting items.
File management permissions vary by role, so always confirm who in your team has control.
Good file management ensures that as your content library grows, it stays navigable and efficient for both creators and learners.