Scheduled System Maintenance

Sometimes we need to schedule downtime for routine maintenance to make sure our Thinkific platform is running optimally! Learn what happens to your course site and other services that connect to it when Thinkific isn't available.

General FAQ

How do I know when Thinkific is going to perform routine maintenance?

We will always provide notice for routine maintenance that disrupts our service. You will receive an email with details to your Site Owner email address. We also send one final notice on the day of the service interruption.

You can check and subscribe for real-time status updates of the Thinkific application here: Thinkific Status page.

If the maintenance requires full system downtime for an extended period of time, you and your site visitors will see an unbranded message explaining that your site is undergoing maintenance and will be available again shortly.

How often does Thinkific maintenance require scheduled downtime?

This is rare, as only fundamental system updates require a period of downtime. Though it’s crucial to make sure our product stays best-in-class, we understand that this may inconvenience you. That’s why we’ll make sure to tell you as far in advance as possible.

How long will the maintenance last?

The maintenance period will be specified in the message we send to you. Look out for that message in your inbox. It's best to check our status page for real-time updates about when the maintenance is completed or if there are any unplanned delays.

Do you inform my students about the downtime for me?

No, we don’t notify your users about the interruption of service. However, we will let you know about the required maintenance as soon as possible so you can prepare a notification for your students if you would like.

Will I be able to access my site?

You will not have access to your course site during routine maintenance. If we are performing routine maintenance on a specific service and only certain areas will be impacted, we will include this in the message we send to you.

Will my students be able to use the mobile app during the maintenance?

Your students will not be able to use the Thinkific mobile app or your Branded mobile app during the maintenance window.

Service and Feature Availability During Maintenance

Thinkific Features

Feature	Availability During Maintenance	Will there be automatic retries?	Additional Details
Thinkific Communities	Unavailable	N/A
Thinkific Mobile app	Unavailable	N/A	When your site is down, your learners will not be able to access your learning products through a mobile app.
Branded Mobile apps	Unavailable	N/A	When your site is down, your learners will not be able to access your learning products through a mobile app.
Thinkific Checkout - new free orders or orders through Thinkific Payments, Stripe, or Paypal	Unavailable	No	When your site is down, your checkout will not be available. New students will need to sign up for your course or purchase your products after the routine maintenance.
Stripe - Recurring payments	Available for existing recurring payments	Yes	Existing subscriptions and payment plans will continue to process during the maintenance but will be reflected in Thinkific after the maintenance.
Thinkific Payments - Recurring payments	Available for existing recurring payments	Yes	Existing subscriptions and payment plans will continue to process during the maintenance but will be reflected in Thinkific after the maintenance.
Video processing	Available	N/A	If a video has been completely uploaded before maintenance and is currently being processed, your video will complete processing in the background and will be accessible in your Video Library. If your video has not been fully uploaded when maintenance starts, you will need to upload it again later.
Thinkific Certificates	Unavailable	N/A	Thinkific Certificates will not be available. This includes the public facing certificate page.
Bulk Emails	Unavailable	No	If you send out a bulk email and it reaches our servers before maintenance begins, it will be sent as expected. To avoid possible interruptions when sending near the maintenance window, we recommend waiting until after maintenance to send any bulk emails.
Brillium Exams	Available, however action is required after maintenance	No	If a student opens your exam before downtime begins, there is a chance they will complete it while the system is unavailable. You will need to manually resend the results from Brillium to Thinkific when we are back online.

Thinkific App Store and Apps

Apps	Availability During Maintenance	Will there be automatic retries?	Additional Details
App Store	Available for browsing only	N/A	The App Store will only be available for browsing as a visitor. If you are logged into the App Store, you will see the maintenance message included above.
Apps	Unavailable	No	Apps in general will not be available during maintenance. See below for specific exceptions. If you are using a third-party app that you log in to outside of Thinkific, you will still have access as this is a separate service.
Shopify - Purchases	Partially available	Yes	If you are an existing Shopify customer and students purchase your course during maintenance, the user creation and/or enrollment will not process immediately. New users and enrollments will be created once maintenance is complete.
Shopify - Creating a new course from Thinkific App in Shopify	No	N/A	Although you will be able to access the Thinkific App from your Shopify account, you cannot make any changes to existing courses or create a new course. You will see a message in the app indicating that it is unavailable.
Zapier Actions	Unavailable	Yes	Zapier will not be available, but actions will automatically retry when we are back online. You will not need to manually retry failed zaps.
Zapier - Create and edit zaps	Unavailable	N/A	You will not be able to create new zaps or edit existing zaps connected to Thinkific during downtime.

Partners and Developers

Service/Feature	Availability During Maintenance	Will there be automatic retries?	Additional Details
Partner Portal	Partially available	N/A	You will be able to access partner.thinkific.com, however not all services will be available. For example, you will not be able to log into a client's site.
Webhooks	Unavailable	Yes	Webhooks will continue to send until the maximum retry limit is hit — any events that were still retrying when maintenance occurs will continue to retry as normal. No new events will fire once the maintenance begins.
Public API	Unavailable	No	All API actions will be unavailable. Thinkific will return a 503 error message.
SSO	Unavailable	No	If a student logs in via SSO during the downtime and a new user needs to be created in Thinkific, the user will not be created. The student will need to try again when we the maintenance is complete.

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