LearnDash + Zoom : Quick and Easy

Want to easily connect LearnDash and Zoom? In this article you will see how to integrate LearnDash and Zoom using free and paid Zoom integration WordPress plugins and automate the process using Zapier.

LearnDash enables course creators across the globe to simplify the process of creating and selling courses online. As a WordPress LMS, LearnDash is the most preferred option chosen by Fortune 500 companies, universities, and entrepreneurs worldwide.

During this time of COVID-19 crisis, since schools are closed in many countries school children are taught by online classes and by homeschooling. Many K 12 educators are using LearnDash LMS for webinars and homeschool programs.

Using LearnDash for Webinar

A common question people ask about setting up a webinar with their LearnDash courses. It is quite obvious as well, given the rising importance of video conferencing during the pandemic times. Specifically, they ask about the right platform to use and steps to integrate LearnDash with the platforms.

Scheduling a webinar and uploading the session videos to a LearnDash course page is the ultimate requirement. Alongside this, it is crucial to choose the right platform for the same. With so many webinar platforms available in the market, realizing which one would be the best for your course is a tough nut to crack unless you go into the depth of the features you would need in a platform to get started.

Also See: How to integrate LearnDash and WooCommerce

What Factors Should You Consider for a LearnDash Webinar Platform?

The right selection of a webinar platform should be based on some crucial factors specific to your course-related needs. Here are a few of them:

1. Free or Premium

While looking for a webinar platform, you may find lesser free options than the paid versions. You can make an informed choice by considering your experience in presenting things over the webinars. If you are just starting, you can select a free platform with which you refine your presentation skills while growing the course. You can then switch to a paid version later.

2. Number of Attendees

Free webinar platforms offer limited course sizes than the paid ones. It means you need to choose a premium option in case you are expecting more than 20-30 attendees. Make sure you check the specific details of allowed attendees in a webinar while selecting the platform.

3. Facility to Share Screen

This is crucial when you have plans to demonstrate a live project or want to offer live training to the attendees. In most cases, you will find screen-sharing to be one of the essential features available with a webinar platform. In case you need some additional features as well, like highlighting tools for presentation, choose the platform accordingly.

4. Screen Recording

Being a standard feature for webinars, screen recording is available with most of the webinar platforms. However, you may find some platforms that do not allow screen recording for their free versions. Alongside this, you should check if this feature helps create automated transcripts of a webinar.

5. Reporting Tools

For every webinar host, there is so much information available within the reporting details. These include the total number of attendees to a webinar, their engagement level, and those who left before it finished. So, you can check if a webinar platform offers such tools.

Which Webinar Platform is Suitable for LearnDash?

As said above, webinar platforms are available with a range of features, according to which their pricing plans vary. Although some platforms allow more than a hundred attendees on a webinar in a free version, the chances are high that presentation quality would not be as good as expected.

Here, we will consider the 2 most popular webinar options:

LearnDash-Zoom

Zoom is a highly recommended webinar platform that comes with plenty of features even in its free version (though the session length will be of 40 minutes only). Its premium version is reasonably priced and offers features like advanced admin controls, cloud storage for webinar videos, and reporting options.

With the help of Zoom API, you can easily integrate the platform with your LearnDash courses.

 

LearnDash-GoToWebinar

GoTOWebinar is yet another full-featured webinar platform, a sister platform of GoToMeeting that matches all the industry standards for webinars. It is a good fit for any sizable organization that would need to host several webinars in a day with hundreds of participants.

 

How to Integrate Webinar Platforms with LearnDash

After the selection of a webinar platform, the next big thing is to share the webinar with your prospects to entice them to your courses. There are 3 ways to integrate the platform in an online course:

1. Manual Integration

You can create a webinar via a platform of your choice and promote your course page through it or by sending reminder emails to the attendees. Although it is a time-consuming task to set up and send email reminders for each session, this method requires the least backend set-up.

2. Custom Development

For particular needs related to webinar integration, custom development will result in the most seamless course-to-webinar integration.

3. Using Special Integration Tools

There are special tools that help to integrate webinar platforms such as Zoom and GoToWebinar. We will see how to use these tools in detail.

Also See: the best WordPress LearnDash themes

Zapier Automations with LearnDash

The integration of a webinar platform with LearnDash can also be done using Zapier automation, which will take care of the administrative tasks. You must know that not every webinar platform is compatible with such integrations.

Both Zoom and GoToWebinar have integrations with LearnDash through Zapier. Here, we will discuss the integration of these platforms with LearnDash in detail.

Integrating LearnDash and Zoom Using Zapier

LearnDash-Zoom integration to add webinars to an online course is possible without writing even a single line of code.
Follow these steps to connect Zoom with LearnDash via Zapier:

 

1. Sign up with Zapier here

2. In the next step, you need to authenticate LearnDash-Zoom integration.

3. Pick any of the two apps as a trigger to kick off the automation. In LearnDash, these triggers can be:

  • Course completed
  • Essay submitted
  • Quiz completed
  • New meeting
  • New registration
  • Topic completed
  • Lesson completed and many others

4. Select the resulting action in the other app, which can be:

  • Create a meeting
  • Add to Group
  • Enroll in a course
  • Remove from a course etc.

5. In the last, select the data that you want to send from one app to the other.

Related Content: How to create an employee training portal with LearnDash

Integrating LearnDash and GoToWebinar Using Zapier

The process of integration LearnDash with GoToWebinar using Zapier is similar to the Zoom-LearnDash integration explained above. But the GoToWebniar integration is more powerful and feature-rich than Zoom integration. You can create custom workflows such as:

 

1. Enrolling registrants from GoToWebinar to LearnDash courses

2. After the students complete the LearnDash courses you can add then automatically as GoToWebinar registrant for a webinar sessions

Here’s how to connect GoToWebinar with LearnDash using Zapier:

  1. Sign up with a Zapier account here
  2. In the next step, authenticate LearnDash-GoToWebinar integration
  3. Pick any of the two apps as a trigger to kick off the automation such as Enrolled to a course, New Webinar Attendee, etc,. In LearnDash, these triggers will be the same as defined above
  4. Select the resulting action in the other app
  5. Select data to be sent from one app to the other

LearnDash and Zoom Integration with Video Conferencing with Zoom

Video Conferencing with Zoom is a free plugin to manage Zoom Meetings and Webinars from your WordPress site. Using this plugin you can join via browser directly without having to use the Zoom App.

You can see the full video tutorial on how to integrate LearnDash and Zoom with the free plugin.

LearnDash and Zoom Integration with Zoom WordPress Plugin

Using the Zoom WordPress plugin, you can easily create Zoom meetings and webinars right from the WordPress dashboard by using the Zoom API with a simple shortcode. You can also add a post as a meeting to allow the learners to join it directly.

 

How can the Zoom WordPress plugin help you?

With this plugin, you can manage all the Zoom meetings from your WordPress dashboard. You could even End or Resume meetings from the dashboard. With the shortcode, you can conduct the meeting on any WordPress page/post or custom post type including your LearnDash course page

 

This plugin can be installed like any other WordPress plugin. Here are the steps to be followed:

  1. Search for ‘Video Conferencing with Zoom’ in the WordPress plugins library.
  2. Install the plugin or
  3. Download and extract the plugin.
  4. Copy the Zoom folder into the wp-content/plugins directory.
  5. Activate the plugin.

It also comes with premium add-ons such as Recurring Meetings add-on that helps you to set up recurring Zoom meetings right from the WordPress dashboard and Instructor Role add-on enables users with Wisdmlabs Instructor role for LearnDash to create their Zoom meetings from the dashboard.

Integrating LearnDash and GoToWebinar using WordPress Plugin

 

There is no dedicated WordPress plugin to integrate LearnDash and GoToWebinar but you can use the general GoToMeeting WordPress Integration plugin that you can use with your LearnDash site. You can create webinar sessions in GoToWebinar and paste the link in your WordPress site in a table, calendar, or widget using shortcodes. You could also allow students to enroll in webinars from your LearnDash site using this plugin.

Also See: How to enhance your LearnDash site with Uncanny LearnDash Toolkit

Integrating LearnDash with Zoom & GoToMeeting Using Uncanny Automator Plugin

Uncanny Automator Plugin makes it possible to easily integrate Zoom and GoToMeeting with LearnDash using multiple triggers and actions. Automator gives many triggers for LearnDash such as User registers to a course, User completes a lesson, quiz, or a course. In Zoom and GoToMeeting you can do 2 actions,  Add or Remove a user from a meeting. With this plugin, you can do automation like, when the user completes a course and fills out a registration form from LearnDash you can automatically register them for a webinar in Zoom and GoToMeeting.

 

Hope you found the right tool to connect LearnDash with your webinar platform.

Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments section.

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