This article reviews how to set up and manage the Circle integration with your Teachable school.
CAUTION: Third-party tools exist outside the scope of Teachable Support. This means that we cannot assist with maintenance, customization, or troubleshooting within the tools themselves. Moreover, with any changes made within the tools, we cannot ensure functionality or full compatibility with current or future versions of Teachable.
Overview
Circle is a third-party platform where creators can manage a space for their customers or clients. On Teachable, you can integrate your school with Circle so your students and clients can login and access your Circle space(s) with a single sign-on.
Set up the Circle integration
To set up the Circle integration with Teachable, follow these steps:
- From your Teachable school, navigate to the Settings > Apps page and click the Circle SSO icon. This will open up a popup modal.
- In a separate tab or window, login to your Circle account.
- Navigate to the Settings > Single Sign-On menu from your Circle account. Turn on the Enable SSO toggle.
- In the OAuth Provider section, select Teachable from the drop-down menu.
- Copy the Callback URL from your Circle account and paste it in the Circle Callback URL field on the Teachable Circle SSO popup.
- Enter “Teachable” in the Provider Name field on Circle.
- From your Teachable Circle SSO popup, copy the Client ID by clicking copy text. Paste it in the Client ID field on Circle.
- Copy the Secret Key from Teachable and paste it in the Secret Key field on Circle.
- Copy the Teachable School URL field from Teachable and paste it in the Teachable URL field on Circle.
- Click the Save changes button in Circle.
- Click the Close button on the Circle popup modal in Teachable.
NOTE: Any time you update your school with a new Teachable subdomain or a custom domain, the configuration must be updated with the new Teachable School URL as outlined in Step 9 above.
Existing Circle accounts
If you already have a Circle space prior to integrating with Teachable, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:
- After setting up the integration, any new users who you would like to join your space will be required to have a Teachable account to do so. (A purchase isn’t required, but they will need an account in your school as they will use those login credentials to access your Circle space).
- In your Circle Settings > Single Sign On menu, there is an Allow members with a Circle account to sign in toggle.
If enabled, users who previously had an account in your Circle space will have the option on the sign in page to obtain access either using their Teachable account or by signing in with their existing Circle email and password. If disabled, users will only be able to sign in via their Teachable login credentials.
- Once the integration has been set up, any logged out users who navigate directly to your Circle URL will now be navigated to the Teachable school’s login page by default.
Add invitation link in a lesson block
One of the most common ways to invite your Teachable students or clients to join and access your Circle space is through the use of invitation links. To do so:
- In your Circle admin account, click the Members icon in the top right corner, then click the Invitation Links tab from the left-side menu.
- Fill out the Name, Spaces, and Space groups fields according to your preferences. For more information on spaces and space groups, check out Circle’s support documentation here.
- Then, click Create. Upon creation, a link URL will be created that can be copied. These URLs will continue to exist unless you choose to edit or delete them.
- You can then copy the invitation link and paste it onto any specific page, email, course lesson, or coaching space across your school.
Alternatively, you can embed a specific space directly into your school's lesson page as detailed below.
Embed a space within a lesson block
To embed a space into one of your lessons, do the following:
- In Circle, go to Settings > Embed and scroll down to Space widget:
- Copy the code in the Space widget.
- Create a new lesson or click the existing lesson you’d like to add your space to, then choose Add Custom Code from the sidebar at left.
- In the Custom code box, paste the code you copied in step 2. Click Add custom code.
Next, you need to get the space slug from Circle. A space slug is the name of the space you created in Circle that gets appended to the space’s URL. This helps Teachable find the space you want to share in your lesson.
For example, if you called your space “homebase”, the URL would look like https://your-school-name.circle.so/c/homebase.
- Go back to Circle. Next to the Spaces menu option, click the ellipse … and choose Edit space group.
- In the Visibility section, find the Custom URL slug and copy the name.
- Go back to the Teachable Admin and in the Custom code box, find [SPACE_SLUG_GOES_HERE] and replace with the custom URL slug you copied in the previous step. Only replace the [SPACE_SLUG_GOES_HERE] section of the code.
- Click Add custom code, then click the Preview button. Your space is now embedded in the lesson you chose.
Embedding multiple spaces
If you have more than one space for different lessons or cohorts, you can find the Custom URL slug for the space you want to embed by doing the following:
- Go to your Circle account.
- Click on the space you want to embed.
- Click the Settings icon and choose Edit space.
- Look for the Custom URL slug and copy it.
- Go back to the Teachable admin. Paste the name into the Custom code box as described in the steps above. Make sure you’re in the lesson you want to add the space to.
- Click Save and Preview.
The student experience
If a user does not yet have an account in your Circle, they will be prompted to set up their profile details the first time they click on your Circle link.
Clicking your Circle link will lead the student to the Teachable login page (if they are not logged in already). After successful login, it will navigate to the Teachable <> Circle authorization page, where they will have to click Authorize to access the space.
It’s important to note that users who do not have an account in your Teachable school will also be directed to the Teachable login page when clicking your Circle link. If you would like to provide an option for students to create an account in your Teachable school directly on the Teachable login page, you can toggle on the Sign Up button from your Teachable Site > Navigation > Navigation Bar menu. Once they’ve created an account on Teachable, the student will be redirected to your Circle space with an action to authorize Teachable to be used for Circle.
If you prefer to limit access to those with course enrollments, you can keep the Sign Up button toggled off from your Teachable Site > Navigation settings.
Once they have set up their profile in your Circle, any time they click your Circle link they will be prompted to login via their Teachable account credentials (if they are not currently logged in). Once they login via their Teachable credentials, they will be redirected to your Circle spaces homepage.
NOTE: If you have users that created their account in your Circle prior to integrating with Teachable, they can still login with their existing Circle account details if you enable the Allow members with a Circle account to sign in setting. Otherwise, they will be prompted to login via Teachable. More information on this setting can be found above.
Disconnect the Circle integration
To disconnect the integration between your Teachable school and Circle:
- Log in to your Circle account.
- Navigate to the Settings > Single Sign-On menu.
- Turn off the Enable SSO toggle.
Once disconnected, students can no longer login to your Circle spaces with their Teachable login credentials. Instead, they will need to create and/or sign in with Circle credentials.
For more information or support on logging in directly through Circle, contact their support team at support@circle.so.