AI for the Workplace with Claude (Self-Paced)

This course takes you from your first Claude conversation to a fully operational AI workflow with custom Projects, connected tools, role-specific Plugins, and automated tasks. You'll master prompting across five use cases, set up Projects with persistent instructions and knowledge bases, personalize Claude with Artifacts, Skills, and Memory, and apply advanced techniques like chain-of-thought reasoning and the "You Ask Me" method.

You'll then learn Claude Cowork, Anthropic's desktop agent that works directly with your files and tools. You'll build a context system, configure guardrails, connect workplace integrations, install Plugins, and set up recurring automations. The course ends with a capstone where you build a complete Claude system around your own job and produce a real deliverable. Coverage spans Claude.ai, Cowork, Plugins, and Office Add-Ins, with all exercises built around your own work files. Enrollment includes a certificate of completion and a free retake within one year.

What You Will Learn

• Write structured prompts for writing, analysis, summarization, and research
• Set up Projects, Artifacts, Skills, and Memory for a personalized workflow
• Configure Claude Cowork with guardrails, permissions, and context files
• Connect Claude to Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Install role-specific Plugins and set up Scheduled Tasks
• Build a complete Claude system for your job through a guided capstone

Course Outline

Module 1: Getting Started with Claude AI

• Describe what Claude is, who builds it, and why it is not a search engine
• Understand the context window, how a conversation fills it, and when to start a new one
• Choose between the models and set how much effort goes into an answer
• Compare the plans, and identify where Claude can be reached: browser, desktop app, Chrome, Microsoft 365, and mobile
• Set instructions and turn on Memory, the two cheapest things you can do on day one

Module 2: Prompting Fundamentals and Working with Files

• Apply the five-part prompt: context, task, format, constraints, and examples
• Compare a weak prompt against a strong one and explain why the strong one works
• Work with images, PDFs, spreadsheets, and documents directly in a conversation
• Bring in current information with web search, and know what it does and does not settle
• Recognize the five prompting mistakes that account for most disappointing results

Module 3: Projects: Organizing Ongoing Work

• Explain the problem Projects solve compared with a regular conversation
• Set up a Project using its Instructions and Context panels
• Write Project instructions using a repeatable framework
• Build a knowledge base the Project draws on automatically

Module 4: Artifacts, Skills, and Memory

• Create and edit Artifacts, and know which kinds of output become one
• Build a Skill that carries your voice or a repeatable task, and know when a Skill beats an instruction
• Configure Memory, and understand how it differs from Project context
• Manage your usage so a plan goes further

Module 5: Intermediate Prompting and Advanced Features

• Ask for reasoning you can check, and read it rather than collapsing it
• Break a large task into steps Claude can follow in sequence
• Talk to Claude instead of typing, and know when dictation is the better input
• Let Claude interview you with the "You Ask Me" technique instead of writing the perfect prompt

Module 6: Claude vs. Other AI Tools

• Compare Claude against other major AI tools on the capabilities that matter for professional work
• Apply a practical framework for choosing the right tool for a given task
• Follow the basic rules for protecting sensitive information in any AI tool

Module 7: Claude Cowork

• Place Cowork as one of three ways to work in the app you already have, rather than a separate product to install
• Describe the kind of work Cowork is for, and how it differs from Chat
• Explain where a Cowork session actually runs, and what the desktop app is still needed for
• Run a first Cowork task that reads and writes real files

Module 8: Building Your Context System

• Name the layers of context Cowork draws on, and what each one covers
• Write instructions that apply to every session, and Project instructions that apply to one
• Make "ask me clarifying questions first" a standing default rather than something you retype

Module 9: Guardrails, Permissions, and Safe Use

• Explain what Cowork can and cannot reach, based on the folder you point it at
• Choose an approval mode, and configure network egress settings for a given task
• Recognize prompt injection and apply the practical defenses against it
• Apply the data privacy and compliance rules that govern regulated work

Module 10: Connectors, Chrome, and Microsoft 365

• Set up and use a Connector through MCP
• Work safely in the browser, the highest-risk surface, using the Chrome side panel
• Run Claude inside Excel, PowerPoint and Word, where it sees the live file and edits in place
• Move a workflow across two Office applications in a single conversation

Module 11: Plugins and Scheduled Tasks

• Explain what a Plugin bundles and how slash commands trigger it
• Install a Plugin from a marketplace and use it on real work
• Set up a recurring Scheduled Task, and know what it can still reach when your computer is asleep

Module 12: Judging What You Get Back

• Explain why a confident answer and a correct answer are different properties
• Apply three checks to any output before you use it: is it true, is it complete, is it yours
• Identify the failure that leaves no trace on the page, which is the one people miss
• Audit something you built earlier in the course and fix what the checks find

Module 13: Capstone: Build Your Personal Claude System

• Audit your own week and identify the work worth handing over
• Ask Claude what it needs from you, and write the answer into your instructions
• Connect the tools your top tasks depend on, and schedule the work that recurs
• Run one real task end to end using everything built across the two days

Module 14: Wrap-Up and Next Steps

• Recap the full arc of skills and system components built across both days
• Understand the honest, current limitations, including what depends on your plan and your device
• Leave with a concrete plan for the first week of applying what was learned

This course is available for 30 days. You can choose when to start your access period. Once you activate, you will have 30 days to complete it (access the course materials, quizzes, projects and videos). You may request one extension of seven (7) days. Other extension requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Videos are not downloadable.