If you have included a Google Doc, a Google Sheet, Google Slides, or a Google Form in Multimedia lesson and are receiving an error, make sure that it is iframe compatible!
To add various types of Google documents directly into your Thinkific course using the Multimedia lesson type, first you need to make sure that you have the correct settings for the document on Google Drive, and are using the correct URL.
When creating a Multimedia lesson, if you do not have the correct settings on Google Docs, you'll see a message in the bottom of the screen stating "Google Docs supports iFraming, but you need to make sure that you've set it up correctly."
Follow the instructions below to ensure that the Google Doc can be iframed in your Multimedia lesson.
How to configure a Google Doc, a Google Sheet, or Google Slides to allow iframing
- Open up the Google Doc, the Google Sheet, or Google Slides you want to include in your lesson
-
While viewing your doc, select the Share button in the top right of the page:
- In the General access section, select the Anyone with the link option in the dropdown menu.
- This will update the permissions and show an additional option to assign a role to those viewing via a link. You can allow your learners to only view the document (the Viewer role), view and leave comments (the Commenter role), or view, comment, and edit the document (the Editor role). Select a role that fits the purpose of the document the most.
- For additional permission settings, click on the cog icon in the top right.
- Click Copy link to copy the link to the document; you'll use this to actually include it in the Multimedia lesson.
- Click Done to return to the document.
If you are looking to embed a document without a toolbar, you can do so by publishing it to web. Note that this might make your document searchable via search engines and visible to everyone on the web. Make sure that you are not sharing any sensitive information. To learn more, check out a Google help centre article here: Make Google Docs, Sheets, Slides & Forms public.
How to configure a Google Form to allow iframing
- Open up the Google Form you want to include in your lesson
- Go to Settings and open up the Responses section
- Set the Restrict to users in Thinkific and its trusted organizations setting to off
-
Select the Send button in the top right of the page
- Select an Embed option (marked as <>) and click Copy.
- Paste the embed code in a text editor and copy only the link that is included after src= and between the quotes. This is the link that you will need to add to a Multimedia lesson!
Due to Google limitations, Google forms that use the File Upload question type cannot be embedded into a Multimedia lesson. If you need to collect files from your learners, we recommend using our Assignments Lesson.
Linking the Document from a Multimedia Lesson
Now that your sharing permissions are set correctly, you can create a new Multimedia lesson and paste the link you copied in the steps above into the URL field.