If you have students on a Google Sheet that you would like enrolled, you can use Zapier to automate this process.
This process works great if you are automating enrollments. Alternatively, for one time imports or enrollments, we recommend using our Student Import and Bulk Enroll features.
There are a few different instances where you may want to create your own import sheet. Perhaps you want students enrolled on your own schedule, rather than doing a Thinkific import, you're selling B2B or generally are a Zapier whiz and want to automate the enrollment process if you anticipate a lot of manual enrollments!
Keep in mind that custom fields cannot be parsed from an external platform (like Google Sheets) into Thinkific. Please also ensure that you trust anyone you share the enrollment Google Sheet with. These instructions will completely bypass the payment gateway and mean that those with access to this Google Sheet could create an infinite of students without paying through Thinkific.
How to Enroll Students Using Google Sheets
- You'll first want to create the Google Sheet you want to act as an import file. It should look something like this (depending on what fields are relevant for you):
- Set Google Sheets as your Trigger App:
- Then select New Spreadsheet Row, Save and Continue
- You could also select 'new or update spreadsheet row', depending on how you plan to use the sheet and if you think you'll regularly update the sheet with new details.
- Connect and select your Google Sheets account, Save and Continue:
- Select the Spreadsheet you want to house the import information, and the specific sheet you want used:
- You will then need to populate that sheet with headings and an example student to test with this zap.
- Then Continue.
- For the Action App, select Formatter:
- Create > Utilities, Save and Continue:
- Under Transform, select Lookup Table.
- Under Lookup Key, select the column that corresponds to your course name.
- Under Lookup Table, enter the course name in the first field and course ID in the second. Select '+' to enter in the course names and course IDs for all of your courses if you have more than one.
- Leave the Fallback Value field empty.
- Select Continue.
- Ensure you have all the relevant information in the right fields. Send a test to Zapier and ensure that comes back successful.
- For the next Action App, set Thinkific.
- For the Action, under Create, select Enroll User.
- Connect and select your Thinkific account:
- For the template, pull in the corresponding fields from the excel sheet and the previous steps.
- Under Products, select Use a Custom Value (advanced). Set as the output from the previous utilities step.
- Add in the first name, last name and email fields captured in the Google Sheet:
- And in any other fields as needed (expiration fields, passwords etc.), likely pulling them from the relevant column in Google Sheets, then Continue:
- Test this step in Zapier and ensure it returns as successful:
- Then Finish.
- Rename, file and turn the zap on:
- Search for the test user you just created in Thinkific to ensure it has been set up correctly:
