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RAVEN LMSWordPress AI LMS Plugin
Product Updates

Raven LMS Release Notes

Raven LMS continues to evolve as a secure learning, examination, certification, and learner-management platform for professional training providers, certification organizations, schools, consultants, agencies, and enterprise learning teams.

The current production package is Raven LMS 1.20.47. This release corrects certificate administration placement and final WordPress menu ordering while carrying forward the broader 1.20 release line improvements for administrator guidance, lesson hierarchy, protected video, SCORM 1.2, secure updates, AI-assisted authoring, and controlled learner workflows.

Raven LMS Platform v1.20.47
Raven LMS Theme v1.1.90
AI Course Publisher v1.5.17
Certificate Builder v1.0.33
Messaging Add-on v1.0.15

Latest Commercial Release

Raven LMS 1.20.47 is a focused administrator-navigation and presentation update. It keeps certificate tools together, protects the final Help and Settings positions, and ensures add-ons that register later in the WordPress loading process do not disrupt the intended Raven LMS menu structure.

Commercial Release v1.20.47 Current production release

Certificate Menu Order and Administrator Navigation

The Raven LMS WordPress administration menu now keeps Certificates immediately before Certificate Management. Help and Settings remain the final two menu items, including when licensed add-ons or third-party Raven extensions register their pages after the main menu has already loaded. Documentation remains available through the System and Support workflow without adding a duplicate visible menu entry.

  • Certificates placed directly before Certificate Management
  • Help remains immediately before Settings
  • Settings remains the final Raven LMS menu item
  • Late-loaded add-on pages remain above Help
  • Menu ordering is reapplied after add-on registration
  • Documentation stays available without duplicate navigation
  • Required-lesson actions retain visible hover and focus text
  • Quick Tour and Help access remain available to administrators
  • No course, exam, or certificate relationship is reassigned
  • No learner progress or saved LMS content is deleted

Current Administrator Experience

The current Raven LMS package presents a cleaner administration workflow while retaining the underlying course, exam, certificate, reporting, licensing, and learner-management capabilities.

Enterprise Overview

Clear Daily Administration

The main Raven LMS overview emphasizes Quick Actions, Attention Required, and Recent Activity so administrators can move directly into priority tasks and see current content or audit events.

Administrator Quick Tour

Eight-Step Guided Introduction

New installations include an administrator-only Quick Tour with focused guidance, Back and Next navigation, Skip and Finish controls, keyboard support, mobile presentation, and per-administrator completion status.

Help and Documentation

Support Without Menu Clutter

The Help page includes Quick Tour access, troubleshooting guidance, and the Raven support route. Detailed documentation remains available through System and Support without creating a second visible documentation item.

Settings and Modules

Organized Configuration

Settings are organized into General, Learning and Exams, Communication, Module Control, and Advanced areas. Optional features can be controlled without removing core Shortcodes or destructive database operations.

Professional Hubs

Grouped Administration Areas

Related administration pages are presented through professional hub cards while the original WordPress page registrations remain intact for compatibility, permissions, bookmarks, and direct access.

Payment Administration

Clear Merchant Responsibility

Payment settings explain that Raven LMS does not receive, store, or control customer funds and remind site owners to complete a sandbox purchase before enabling a live payment workflow.

Learning and Authoring Improvements

The current 1.20 release line expands learning-content structure, administrator previews, protected delivery, standards-based content support, AI-assisted publishing, and safer course operations.

Course Workflow Exam Readiness Course-owned requirements

Lesson Requirements Before Exams

Lesson prerequisites for linked exams are managed from the Course editor so the course remains the source of truth. Administrators can require no lessons, every course lesson, all selected lessons, or any one selected lesson before an exam becomes available.

  • Four supported lesson-requirement modes
  • Per-exam lesson selection inside Course Edit
  • Exact learner-facing requirement messages
  • Required-lesson navigation actions
  • Dashboard prerequisite guidance
  • Legacy requirement migration support
Content Structure Sub-Lessons Private nested learning content

Real Sub-Lessons and Smart Continuation

Lessons can contain private Raven sub-lessons with parent relationships, ordering, completion tracking, and required-completion rules. Learners can continue to the next incomplete sub-lesson or lesson, while administrators can convert legacy title-only outlines without deleting the original metadata.

  • Private sub-lesson content type
  • Course and parent-lesson relationships
  • Required sub-lesson completion gates
  • Complete and Continue navigation
  • Legacy outline conversion controls
  • Native import and export support
Media Delivery Protected Video Lessons and sub-lessons

Privacy-Aware Video Support

Lessons and sub-lessons can use privacy-enhanced YouTube embeds or validated self-hosted MP4, M4V, and WebM files. Local videos are copied into Raven protected storage and delivered inline with byte-range support instead of exposing the original WordPress media URL.

  • Privacy-enhanced YouTube embedding
  • Responsive 16:9 presentation
  • MP4, M4V, and WebM allowlist
  • Video signature validation
  • Protected private-file delivery
  • No forced autoplay
Standards Support SCORM 1.2 Optional controlled module

Secure SCORM Import, Runtime, and Reporting

Raven LMS includes an optional SCORM 1.2 module with guarded ZIP inspection, protected extraction, signed launch tokens, isolated runtime delivery, controlled Raven completion mapping, reporting, filtered CSV export, attempt management, diagnostics, cleanup, resume visibility, and learner recovery controls.

  • SCORM 1.2 manifest validation
  • ZIP traversal and archive-bomb protection
  • Signed four-hour launch tokens
  • Sandboxed runtime presentation
  • Protected byte-range file delivery
  • Reports, CSV export, reset, and diagnostics
Administrator Tools Safe Preview Presentation-only review

Lesson, Sub-Lesson, and SCORM Preview

Authorized administrators can preview lessons, sub-lessons, protected learning materials, and SCORM presentation before learner release. Preview mode is presentation-only and does not save lesson completion, sub-lesson completion, knowledge-check attempts, or SCORM progress.

  • Edit-post capability checks
  • Nonce-protected preview requests
  • Protected material preview context
  • SCORM progress remains unsaved
  • No completion record is written
  • No learner attempt is created
AI Authoring v1.5.17 Complete course hierarchy

Course, Lesson, and Sub-Lesson Generation

AI Course Publisher 1.5.17 can prepare an editable course outline and create a complete Raven course hierarchy containing lessons and sub-lessons. New hierarchy content is created as Draft, uses controlled item limits, and rolls back the newly created records when a safe complete publish cannot be achieved.

  • Editable hierarchy outline preparation
  • Complete Raven course creation
  • Lessons and sub-lessons supported
  • Draft-first content workflow
  • Controlled hierarchy size limits
  • Safe rollback on incomplete creation
Learner Operations Full Reset Explicit course unassignment

Controlled Course Unassignment

When an administrator chooses the permanent course-reset workflow, Raven can remove direct assignment, free enrollment, lesson progress, exam attempt and retry data, certificate records, reviews, and course gamification records for the selected learner and course. The action requires confirmation and is audit logged.

  • Direct assignment and enrollment removal
  • Lesson and sub-lesson progress reset
  • Exam attempt and retry reset
  • Certificate record cleanup
  • Review and gamification cleanup
  • Administrator confirmation and audit event
Update Security Verified Delivery Commercial package protection

Tokenized HTTPS Updates and Checksum Verification

Licensed Raven LMS updates use product-aware site activation state, opaque download tokens, approved HTTPS hosts, and SHA-256 package verification before an update is installed. Sensitive license keys and site URLs are rejected from legacy update query strings.

  • Opaque tokenized download URLs
  • HTTPS and approved-host enforcement
  • SHA-256 package verification
  • Safe hash comparison
  • Product and activation identity checks
  • Failed remote deactivation fails closed

Trial and License Behavior

The current Raven LMS license model separates permanent LMS content from temporary commercial entitlements. Trial expiration does not remove customer-created training content or standard authoring access.

During the 7-Day Trial

Full Professional Evaluation

Trial customers can evaluate Raven LMS Professional features, bundled premium add-ons, AI-assisted publishing, licensed updates, certificate tools, messaging, analytics, notifications, and unrestricted standard LMS authoring on the licensed site.

After Trial Expiration

Content and Authoring Preserved

Courses, lessons, sub-lessons, exams, questions, assignments, learners, certificates, progress records, payment records, settings, and learning materials remain available without a trial content limit.

Premium Entitlements

Add-ons and AI Paused

Premium add-ons are disabled automatically after an expired trial and cannot be reactivated without an eligible paid license. AI authoring, premium installation, protected update delivery, and licensed services are paused.

Data Protection

No Customer Content Deleted

Trial expiration does not delete or overwrite courses, lessons, sub-lessons, exams, learner records, certificates, files, progress data, payment history, settings, or premium add-on data created during evaluation.

Release Line Milestones

These grouped milestones summarize the principal improvements carried by the current Raven LMS package without assigning newer cumulative features to an unsupported individual patch number.

v1.20.24–v1.20.47

Administration, Content Hierarchy, and Runtime Expansion

Expanded the current administrator experience, Help workflow, optional modules, course-owned exam prerequisites, sub-lessons, smart continuation, protected lesson video, SCORM 1.2, safe preview, secure updates, and complete AI-generated course hierarchies.

v1.20.20–v1.20.23

Course, Dashboard, and Branding Refinement

Improved Certificate Builder precedence, safe exam linking, full-width learner dashboards, associated-exam presentation, site-aware course labels, LinkedIn issuer naming, dashboard icons, and exam status chips.

v1.20.17–v1.20.19

AI Authoring and Migration Controls

Added native Raven exam-question generation, strict CSV validation, simplified provider settings, structured help, separate export modes, a Raven-specific LearnDash Migration Bridge, dry-run reporting, and reversible import batches.

v1.20.0–v1.20.6

Certificate Lifecycle and Portable Learning Content

Established completion-time certificate records, read-only public verification, enrolment types, Trash-aware relationship cleanup, secure import and export, five native question types, cross-site migration support, and improved exam answer-row layout.

v1.19.286–v1.19.292

Payments, Privacy, Files, and Credential Security

Strengthened client-owned Stripe and PayPal workflows, private learning-file delivery, authenticated secret storage, privacy export and erasure, retention controls, licensing documentation, system health reporting, and salt-independent Raven credential encryption.

Earlier 1.19 Releases

Core LMS and Learner Experience Foundation

Established course, lesson, exam, assignment, learner dashboard, transcript, reporting, notification, review, payment, certificate, registration, role, enterprise governance, protected content, and administration capabilities supporting the current platform.

Current Bundled Add-ons

The commercial Raven LMS package includes licensed companion products that remain separate from Raven LMS Core while extending presentation, authoring, certificate design, and private communication.

Raven LMS Theme v1.1.90

Professional LMS Presentation

Provides Raven-focused layouts, responsive interface refinements, Customizer controls, course presentation, dashboard styling, footer integration, webmaster verification controls, and visual enhancements without becoming a dependency for core LMS behavior.

AI Course Publisher v1.5.17

AI-Assisted Raven Authoring

Supports structured course drafting, complete course hierarchies, lessons, sub-lessons, exam-question generation, lesson-to-quiz authoring, strict CSV validation, provider-neutral AI configuration, secure credentials, conservative limits, and administrator review.

Certificate Builder v1.0.33

Professional Certificate Design

Supports editable certificate layouts, course assignment, real-learner previews, certificate output, print-friendly presentation, verification links, LinkedIn sharing, and Raven certificate identity workflows.

Messaging Add-on v1.0.15

Private Learner Communication

Provides private learner and instructor messaging, course-related communication, WordPress privacy export and erasure support, and configurable retention for stored conversations.

Current product direction

Raven LMS is being developed as a secure, commercially supported learning and certification platform for organizations that need structured courses, nested learning content, learner management, controlled exams, verified certificates, professional reporting, protected learning materials, standards-based content, privacy tools, licensed add-ons, and customer-managed payment connections inside WordPress.

Future releases will continue to focus on secure update delivery, operational resilience, performance, accessibility, enterprise deployment controls, release verification, licensing reliability, learning-content portability, administrator usability, and practical improvements requested by Raven LMS customers.

Requires WordPress 6.0 or later
Requires PHP 7.4 or later
Core Tested Up To WordPress 7.0.2
Current Release Raven LMS 1.20.47