WooCommerce Moodle™ Integration: Sell Moodle Courses in Your WooCommerce Store

With e-Learning Management Systems, you have several options. You have the LMS plugins for WordPress (such as LearnDash, Sensei, WP Courseware, etc), or you have specialized LMS’ like Moodle™.

If you haven’t heard about Moodle, I’d highly recommend taking a look at it. Moodle (or Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is an open-source e-learning platform. Just to make it clear, Moodle is not an LMS plugin for WordPress, it’s a complete system by itself. So you could say it’s parallel to WordPress as a platform. Undoubtedly WordPress has a far bigger reach, in terms of applicability. For example, I understand that using WordPress and a plugin like WooCommerce, is a much better solution to set up an eCommerce store (even if you were to sell only courses). In fact, a lot of businesses are looking to integrate the two, because of the several advantages the integration has to offer.

What are the Advantages of Integrating WooCommerce and Moodle?

1. Sell Courses along with Other Products
2. Add Subscription/Membership Options
3. Add One-Step Enrollment Option
4. Search Engine Optimization

Having a WooCommerce store gives you the flexibility to add course materials, such as books or DVDs, along with the courses you sell. Along with this, you can add an option to automatically enroll registered students for the courses they purchase or allow them to purchase a membership package. The major advantage of using a WordPress site is that you can search engine optimize the content, to increase registration and subscriptions.

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How to Sell Moodle Courses in Your WooCommerce Store?

Since Moodle is a separate system, we can’t install it on a WordPress website. What can be done is, Moodle can be installed on a sub-domain, on a multi-site. For example, your WordPress site could be example.com, and the site with Moodle would be courses.example.com. Once you have installed Moodle, (on courses.example.com), you can add the courses you wish to sell.

Offer Moodle Courses as WooCommerce Products

Step #1: Add Courses in Moodle and create course categories.

Step #2: Automate the process of adding courses to WooCommerce using the WooCommerce-Moodle Solution.

Step #3: Create course packages or subscription products.

Use the Edwiser Bridge WooCommerce-Moodle Integration Solution

To add the courses in your WooCommerce store, you will need the Edwiser Bridge WooCommerce-Moodle Solution, by WisdmLabs (we’ve created the solution as an extension to your WordPress site). The WooCommerce-Moodle solution, offers a one-click option, to add Moodle courses as products in your WooCommerce store. The information you add when creating each course is used to create the WooCommerce Product. For example, the course name is used as the product name, and the course summary is used as the product description. The course categories are also imported, and products are classified under the respective category (as assigned in Moodle).

Upon importing the products, you only have to enter the product price, to allow students to make a purchase. By default, a course is added as a ‘Simple Product’. This means a student can make a one time purchase, to access the course. You can change the product type depending on your requirements.

Add a Course Package

A lot of businesses offer discount packages to students who opt for multiple courses at once. Similarly, you can bundle several courses and sell them at a discounted rate. The Edwiser Bridge WooCommerce-Moodle Solution provides you an option to bundle and sell courses as a single product in your WooCommerce store.

Add Monthly Subscription or Membership Options

Surely all your courses wouldn’t be available for a one-time purchase price. For courses that are available on a timely basis, you can use the WooCommerce Subscriptions Extension, to create subscription products. In this case, a student will have to subscribe to a particular course and will be charged an amount based on the subscription duration. For example, a student will be charged $20 for a 3-week course or $40 for a 2 months course. The student has the option to renew the subscription, if applicable.

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How to Automatically Enroll Students for Purchased Courses?

Every time a student registers on your site, and a WooCommerce account is created, the Edwiser Bridge WooCommerce-Moodle Solution creates a student on your Moodle site. This is a time saver for students since they do not have to re-register on your courses site. The student details, such as the name and email address are auto-filled in the student account.

Another great advantage of using the Edwiser Bridge WooCommerce-Moodle Solution (and one of its main functionality) is that a student is automatically enrolled for the course he purchases. Not only is this vital to improve user experience on your site, but it also reduces any clerical errors.

The student data in both the systems (Moodle and WooCommerce) is always kept in sync, by the solution.

Providing an All-round Learning Experience

To make the student interaction experience seamless, Edwiser Bridge offers a Single Sign-On extension that allows students to simultaneously login to both Moodle and WordPress – students don’t have to remember multiple user names and passwords and can use the entire setup as a single application.

To make things even better, Edwiser Bridge Bundle packages all these extensions – Edwiser Bridge – WooCommerce Moodle Integration, Single Sign-On, Selective Synchronization (pick and choose courses you want to sell on Moodle), and Bulk Purchase (let students purchase multiple copies of a single course at once) – in one high-value package to cover all your management needs.

Moving Forward

The advantage of using a specialized LMS and a dedicated e-Commerce plugin is that you have the best of both worlds. You can make optimal use of all the features to create a great site, as per your needs. And we all know the benefit of having a WordPress website, along with your course site. With WordPress, you can add a blog section, create forums, or can even create a social network for students. There is a lot you can do. So, what do you think? Do you think Moodle+WooCommerce can suit your business needs? Do let me know your thoughts and opinion in the comment section below.