Zapier and Teachable

This article explains how to integrate Zapier with your Teachable school.

Overview

Zapier allows you to connect and automate tasks between your Teachable school and many other applications, including:

• Email service providers such as AWeber, Madmimi, Vertical Response, Drip, or even Gmail
• Marketing automation tools such as Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, Intercom, Salesforce, and HubSpot
• Team communication tools such as Slack, Trello, and Hipchat
• Spreadsheet tools such as Google Docs
• And others

Zapier has both free and paid plans. The free plan allows up to 100 actions per month, which generally means up to 100 enrollments for most schools. You can find out more about what Zapier does here. Or explore some of the ready-to-go integrations with Teachable below.

Triggers vs. Actions

There is a difference between what kind of zaps you can set up based on what Teachable plan your school is on. Zaps are comprised of two phases: a trigger step and an action step. Triggers are any event that sets your Zap in motion, while Actions are an event that’s subsequently completed inside a second app automatically.

Schools on the Basic plan can only set up Triggers inside Teachable that set off an Action in another app. An example would be adding a new Teachable sale (Trigger) as a subscriber to a sequence in ConvertKit (Action). The following Teachable triggers are available:

Abandoned Cart* Admission Disabled Course Completed Email ​​Lead Created Lecture Completed New User New Admission New Comment New Graded Quiz Result Tag Added to User

Tag Removed from User Profile Updated Student Resubscribes to Marketing Emails Student Unsubscribes to Marketing Emails Subscription Cancelled Transaction Refunded New Enrollment New Unenrollment New Sale New Transaction

*Abandoned cart data is only sent if potential students have opted-in to receive promotional emails, but did not complete their purchase per GDPR and other privacy regulations.

Schools on the Professional plan and higher can also set up Actions from an outside app that can trigger an action within Teachable. An example would be adding new SumoMe email subscribers (Trigger) as new Teachable users (Action). The following Teachable actions are available:

• Create New User
• Enroll User in Course
• Unenroll Student From Course by User ID
• Unenroll Student From Course by Email
• Find Student

Integrating Zapier With Your Teachable School

Existing Zaps

You can search through Zapier to see if there is already an existing zap that fits your needs. 

Each zap may differ slightly in its setup, but they mostly follow the same cadence. For the purposes of demonstration, in this example we'll be setting up a zap that logs new Teachable sales as new rows on Google Sheets;

1. Sign Up for Zapier, or login using your existing Zapier account.
2. Search through existing Teachable zaps (You can search through zaps directly from this link. Alternatively, you can search through existing zaps by navigating to the Settings > Integrations page of your Teachable school and clicking the Zapier icon.)
3. Find the Zap that you'd like to use. In this demonstration, we'll be using the "Log new Teachable sales as new rows on Google Sheets" Zap.
4. First, you'll have to setup your Trigger (i.e. what needs to happen to prompt an action). To begin, you'll have to sign in to your Teachable account by clicking the Sign  in to Teachable button and entering your account information. If you've already connected your Teachable account, you'll be able to choose it from a dropdown menu.
   
5. Zapier will ask if you want to "Find Data". This will only work if you've already run through this trigger before. In this example, Zapier will be able to find test data if you've had a new sale in Teachable. You can Test & Review, Test & Continue, or Skip Test. 
   
6. Once you've finished setting up your trigger, you'll be asked to specify an action—or what you want to happen once your trigger is activated. You'll be prompted by Zapier to Choose App and Choose Action Event. In this example, since we've chose an existing Zap, these menus will be autofilled to tell Google Sheets to create a new spreadsheet row anytime our trigger is activated.
   
7. Similar to before, you'll then be prompted to log in to your Google Sheets account. 
8. Use the dropdown menus to specify which sheet you want to be working in.
   
9. Similar to before, you can choose to test your action or skip the test altogether.
10. You can choose to turn your Zap on after completion, or turn it on at any other time.

Creating Your Own Zap

You can also create your own custom integrations using Teachable and any other app that is also on Zapier. To begin, follow these steps to setup a Teachable trigger in Zapier:

1. Click Make a Zap! at the top of the page.
2. Type "Teachable" into the search bar and choose the Teachable app. 
   
3. Use the dropdown menu to Choose Trigger Event. A trigger (or event) is something that “triggers” an action. For example, if you want to add all of your new students to a mailing list, New User would be appropriate. Click Continue when finished.
   
4. You'll have to sign in to your Teachable account by clicking the Sign  in to Teachable button and entering your account information. If you've already connected your Teachable account, you'll be able to choose it from a dropdown menu. Click Continue once you finish logging in.
5. Zapier will ask if you want to "Find Data". This will only work if you've already run through this trigger before. In this example, Zapier will be able to find test data if you've had a new sale in Teachable. You can Test & Review, Test & Continue, or Skip Test. 

Once you've finished setting up your trigger, you can choose from any of the listed apps & events and determine the action you want your Zap to automate:

The setup for each action may differ, so we recommend going through the process yourself and referencing Zapier's Help & Support center for further guidance.

Using Zapier Filters

Before creating your trigger’s action, you can choose to set up a filter. Filters are a way to ensure that your actions get carried out only when you want them to. For example, if you only want to add students enrolling in a specific course to your email list, you can set up a filter to do that.

To add a filter to your zap, follow these steps:

1. Click the + icon between the Trigger and Action on the left side of your zap editor and select Filter.
   
2. Now, create your filter by using the drop-downs. In this example, the action will only be carried out if the course is called My Course.

You can add additional filters by clicking + AND (both filters must apply for the action to take place) or +OR (either filter will trigger the zap). Learn more about Zapier filters here.

Find your course, lecture, or user ID

Some zaps will require additional information, including a course, lecture, or user ID number. Each has a unique ID that can be found in the url with your school's admin.

To find a course ID number:

1. Navigate to Courses and click on the specific course.
2. Copy the course ID located in the admin url after /courses. 

To find a lecture ID number:

1. Within the specific course, navigate to the Curriculum tab.
2. Click on the specific lecture.
3. Copy the lecture ID located in the admin url after /lectures.

To find a user ID number:

1. Navigate to Users and search for the specific student.
2. Click on the student's name to open their profile.
3. Copy the student ID located in the url after /users.