Online Training SaaS, for Trainers and Participants

Tradr · Case study · Fullstack web development · PHP · MySQL · JavaScript

Digitizing training on both sides of the screen

A training provider selling coaching and video courses has to manage two very different experiences in parallel: on the trainer side, producing and organizing content, tracking every participant, running live sessions; on the participant side, tracking progress, accessing resources, testing knowledge and catching up on missed sessions. Managing both needs with disparate tools (video storage, a tracking spreadsheet, a separate video-call tool) ends up fragmenting the experience and adding load to the teaching team.

Tradr is the SaaS platform I built to bring these two use cases together in a single product: a trainer space to build and run courses, a participant space to follow them start to finish, all connected to the same progress, quiz and live-session data.

The needs: a platform designed for two roles, not a generic LMS

Scoping defined distinct but interdependent needs depending on the user's role:

• Course creation and management: structuring a course into chapters and video episodes, attaching supplementary content, with no dependence on a separate editing or hosting tool outside the site.
• Participant management: assigning a participant to a course, tracking their progress episode by episode, managing roles and access levels rather than administering everything manually by email.
• Live support: organizing individual or group live coaching sessions, with a time-slot booking system on the participant side.
• Self-directed tracking for participants: picking a course back up where it was left off, downloading associated documents, taking quizzes to validate learning, and rewatching past live sessions as replays.
• A multi-organization platform: the same tool needed to host multiple partner training providers, each with its own space and its own branding, rather than a single instance reserved for one client.

The difficulty was making these two experiences coexist on a shared database, so that an action on the trainer side (publishing a chapter, scheduling a live session) is reflected immediately on the participant side, with no manual sync between two separate tools.

The features: two spaces, one platform

Trainer side: course management

Every course is built as chapters and video episodes, with a summary attached to each episode and supplementary content linked to it. The resulting catalog appears on the participant side as themed carousels, with direct access to the episode currently being watched.

Trainer side: participant and role management

Each participant is assigned to one or more courses, with progress tracked episode by episode, along with completed quizzes and earned certificates. Role management distinguishes access levels between trainers, coaches and participants.

Live support

Individual or group coaching sessions are booked by time slot, with a countdown before the session starts on the participant's side. Every past session remains available in a history, along with its topic and level, and automatically switches to a replay for those who couldn't attend live.

Course tracking and documents (participant side)

Participants pick their course back up exactly where they left off, download the documents attached to their course from a resource library organized into folders, and check a personal dashboard summarizing their progress: courses in progress, completed courses, quizzes taken, certificates earned.

Quiz-based assessment

Knowledge-validation quizzes are offered by level, with supplementary content unlocking as progress advances, to reinforce learning rather than leaving video viewing as the only proof of learning.

Replays and live sessions

Scheduled live sessions are announced in advance and joinable with one click on the day. Every session is automatically archived as a replay, viewable from a dedicated space, so an absent participant is never penalized.

The process: building the platform around the participant journey

Development followed the logic of the learning journey rather than a list of isolated features, so each building block naturally connects to the next.

1. Modeling trainers, participants and courses

The first step was modeling the relationships between trainer, participant, course, chapter and episode, along with the associated roles and access levels, so permission management stayed consistent across the whole platform from the database design stage onward.

2. Video player and progress tracking

The built-in video player handles playback, volume and fullscreen, while recording the participant's progress episode by episode, feeding both automatic resumption and the statistics shown on their dashboard.

3. Live coaching and slot booking

The support module combines a time-slot booking system, an automatic switch of completed sessions into a history, and archiving as replays, so individual follow-up doesn't depend on an external video-call tool or calendar.

4. Dashboard and progress tracking

The participant dashboard aggregates course, quiz and coaching-session data into a single screen, with goals to complete and visible progress, giving an immediate overview without navigating between multiple pages.

5. Trainer back office

The admin space brings together user management, live sessions, replays, quizzes and coaching support in a single interface, so the teaching team runs the whole platform without depending on multiple tools.

The tech stack

The technical choice favored a classic, robust and fast-to-evolve PHP stack, rather than a decoupled frontend/backend architecture, for a product that needed to stay maintainable solo while supporting several training providers in parallel.

Backend

• Native PHP for the entire application logic (courses, participants, roles, bookings, quizzes)
• MySQL as the relational database for courses, participant progress and session history

Frontend

• JavaScript for dynamic interactions: video player, course carousels, live-session countdown, dashboard statistics updates
• Custom CSS for the interface, with a fixed navigation sidebar and a dashboard personalized per user

SaaS operation

• Multi-organization architecture, each partner with its own space and its own branding on the platform
• Access segmented by subscription tier, with content reserved for higher-level plans

The result: a single platform to run training end to end

Tradr now lets a training provider manage its entire teaching operation from a single tool: producing and organizing content, tracking every participant, running live sessions, while giving participants an independent space to learn at their own pace, test themselves and catch up on what they missed.

This project was an opportunity to design a complete teaching SaaS, from the data model to the interface, handling both the business complexity of training and the technical constraints of video, live sessions and real-time progress tracking.

Fullstack developer · SaaS platforms for online training