Arlo's powerful registration rules feature allows you to define and add custom rules to some or all of your courses, to block or allow registrations on the course, the course's waiting list, or both.
Rules use the registering person's details to determine whether they should be allowed to register depending on the conditions of the rule. You can create conditions using information such as the contact's personal and organisational attributes, previous registration history, and even custom field information.
Some common registration rules include:
- Restricted access course - Deny all registrations except those from people who belong to a particular group or organisation.
- Member only course - Deny all registrations except those from people who are a member or have a certain membership type.
- Course with prerequisites - Specify prerequisite courses and deny any registrations from people who have not completed the required prerequisites. For example, a previous course/s.
- Prevent duplicate registrations - Deny a person from registering for a free course if they have already registered for the same course on a different date.
- Only allow work email addresses (or personal) - Prevent registrations where contacts are using a personal email address (or a work email address) to ensure you are capturing the one you want.
The following process outlines how to enable registration rules and explains how rules are applied to your courses and course templates.
All Arlo platforms have a default rule which allows all registrations, unless the default rule is edited. This is to reduce the risk of blocking registrations by turning the feature on accidentally.
Course templates and courses created after the registration rules feature is enabled will inherit the default rule (to accept all registrations (unless edited).
Existing courses and templates will not inherit any rules when the feature is enabled (and continue to accept all registrations). You will need to enable these individually at the course template and course levels.
- Open the Settings menu item.

- From the Registrations section, select Registration rules.

- Turn the Global registration rules on or off as required.

If you disable the registration rules feature, it will stop all rules being enforced platform-wide.
Once the feature has been enabled, you can choose to either edit the default rules, which will be applied to all new course templates and courses automatically or create new platform rules and apply these to course templates/courses as required.
You can also create custom rules to be used for individual courses only.
Learn how to create different registration rules to apply to your courses.
You can edit platform level registration rules contained within a registration rule-set at any time. If you edit a rule at a platform level (any), changes will be applied to all courses and templates using the platform-wide rule-set.
You can't edit platform level rules at course template or course level. If you need a specific rule for the template or course, you need to use custom rules.
Learn how to manage your existing registration rules.
There are a number of common use cases for registration rules. These include:
- Restricted access course - Deny all registrations except those from people who belong to a particular group or organisation.
- Member only course - Deny all registrations except those from people who are a member or have a certain membership type.
- Course with prerequisites - Specify prerequisite courses and deny any registrations from people who have not completed the required prerequisites. For example, a previous course/s.
- Prevent duplicate registrations - Deny a person from registering for a free course if they have already registered for the same course on a different date.
- Only allow work email addresses (or personal) - Prevent registrations where contacts are using a personal email address (or a work email address) to ensure you are capturing the one you want.
See some examples of registration rules that you can use as a base for creating your own rules to suit your business requirements.
The Registrations requests (Advanced) report uses a powerful search and filtering engine, allowing you to generate custom XLSX and CSV exports of course registrations and waiting list registrations that have been declined because of registration or waiting list registration rules, based on records that match your conditions.
Learn more about the Registrations requests (Advanced) report.