Courses is available in Element Success. See our packages overview for details.
Overview
The Brightspace LMS integration seamlessly syncs real-time academic and enrollment data from Brightspace into Element451. This guide will walk you through the setup process, from configuring Brightspace settings to completing the integration within Element451.
📌 Note: This is a one-way integration. Element451 reads data from Brightspace but does not write back any data.
Overview of the Setup Process
To get started, there are two main steps outlined in detail below.
Step 1: Set Up Authentication in Brightspace
To allow Element451 to securely connect to your Brightspace environment, you’ll need to register a new OAuth 2.0 application.
🚨 Important: You must be a Brightspace admin with access to manage the extensibility tool in order to complete this step.
How to register an Application on Brightspace:
Log in to your Brightspace admin account.
Navigate to Manage Extensibility > OAuth 2.0 tab.
Click Register an app.
Enter a name, the redirect URI, and the scope for the application. You can find these details in the table below.
After saving, Brightspace will generate your Client ID and Client Secret. Copy them and keep them somewhere safe—you’ll need to share them with your Element451 team in the next step.
Application Settings:
Detail | What to Enter | Purpose |
Name | Element451 Integration (or your preferred label) | Identifier |
Redirect URI |
| Allows secure communication between Brightspace and Element451
|
Scope | 'organizations:organization:read' 'users:userdata:read' 'role:detail:read' 'enrollment:orgunit:read' 'orgunits:course:read' 'sections:section:read' 'enrollment:orgunit:read'
Note: Element451 only needs read permissions. No data will be written back to Brightspace. | Determines the actions that Element451 can perform
|
For detailed instructions on registering an OAuth2 Application, refer to the official Brightspace guide: Registering an Application.
Step 2: Authenticate the Integration in Element451
Once you have registered your application in Brightspace, you'll need to authorize Element451 to access your Brightspace data using OAuth.
Click on your avatar/profile picture in the top right corner of the orange navigation menu.
Navigate to Settings > Integrations.
From the left-hand menu, select Brightspace LMS.
Click the Authenticate button and follow the prompts.
You'll need your Client ID
and Client Secret
.
Step 3: Configure Preferences
Once you've authenticated your integration, you can access the LMS integration settings.
To review and adjust your preferences, click the pencil icon in the top right corner of your LMS integration card.
Data Sync Preferences
Data Sync Preferences
Courses¹: Import course information from Brightspace, including course name, code, department, and other relevant details.
Sections¹: Import individual course section information from Brightspace, including dates, instructor names, etc.
Enrollments: Import student enrollment records from Brightspace, including student grades
Match Student Contacts²: Add enrollments for students already in the Element451 database
Insert Student Contacts: Create new contacts for students previously not found in Element451, and add their enrollments
Update Student Contacts: Overwrite existing contact data with data found in Brightspace, such as name and email
¹Setting is required and cannot be disabled.
²Setting is required when Enrollments is enabled.
Settings
Settings
Target Semesters: Only data from courses with a section within the selected semesters will be imported.
Auto Import Semesters: When enabled, Element451 will automatically sync the selected resources (courses, sections, or enrollments) for new semesters that are added to the LMS.
Target Teacher Roles: Brightspace supports multiple roles for teachers. Select the roles you use for teachers in your Brightspace instance.
Target Student Roles: Brightspace supports multiple roles for students. Select the roles you use for students in your Brightspace instance.
Next Steps
Once your Brightspace integration is authenticated, Element451 will automatically start syncing academic data. This data lives in Courses (Data + Automation > Courses), where you can view course records from your LMS.
Now that your course data is flowing into Element, you can begin using it to:
Build targeted segments
Trigger workflows + communications
Assign tasks or academic support resources
Personalize student experiences in StudentHub
To explore how to make the most of your LMS data, check out our Getting Started with Courses article.
Field Mapping
Once your LMS integration is active, Element451 automatically syncs data from your system into organized, consistent fields. This eliminates manual data entry while ensuring all information flows seamlessly between platforms.
Element451 automatically creates data sources for your course data directly from your LMS. No manual setup required—everything is generated automatically during the integration process.
The tables below show exactly which LMS fields map to which Element451 fields:
Course
Course
Element451 Field | Brightspace Object | Brightspace Field |
Institution ID | template | Identifier |
Name | template | Name |
Code | template | Code |
Departments¹ -Institution ID -Name | course course course | Multiple values supported -Department->Identifier -Department->Name |
Term² | course | Semester->Code |
Description | - | Not available |
Subject | - | Not available |
Number | - | Not available |
Credits | - | Not available |
Version | - | Not available |
Total Students | - | Not available |
Grading | - | Not available |
Status | - | Not available |
Type | - | Not available |
Timezone | - | Not available |
Section
Section
Element451 Field | Brightspace Object | Brightspace Field |
Institution ID | se|co³ | Identifier |
Code | se|co³ | Code |
Status¹ | course | IsActive |
Term² | course | Semester->Code |
Instructor¹ | user | FirstName + LastName |
Instructor Email | user | ExternalEmail |
Start Date | course | StartDate |
End Date | course | EndDate |
Instruction Mode | - | Not available |
School | - | Not available |
Section Type | - | Not available |
Version | - | Not available |
Campus | - | Not available |
Total Meetings | - | Not available |
Max Enrollment | - | Not available |
Current Enrollments | - | Not available |
Timezone | - | Not available |
Times | - | Not available |
Enrollment
Enrollment
Element451 Field | Brightspace Object | Brightspace Field |
Enrollment Status¹ | enrollment | IsActive |
Current Grade (Text) | - | Calculated⁴ |
Current Grade (Number) | - | Calculated⁴ |
Final Grade (Text) | - | Calculated⁴ |
Final Grade (Number) | - | Calculated⁴ |
Last LMS Activity | enrollment | LastAccessed |
Institution ID | - | Not available |
Last Attended Date | - | Not available |
Total Active Time | - | Not available |
Total Absences | - | Not available |
¹ Automatically creates a data source in Element451
² Matched against existing terms in Element451 using term code
³ Uses section data if available, otherwise falls back to course data
⁴ Calculated automatically by Element451 (see Calculation Logic below for details)
Brightspace Grade Calculation Logic
Element451 retrieves both calculated and adjusted grades from Brightspace for each user’s course section. Based on the section’s status and the type of grade available, the system determines where to store the grade values.
Grade Logic Explained
Grade Logic Explained
Step 1: Check if the section is open or closed
A section is considered open if:
Its status is active, and
Today’s date falls between the section’s start and end dates.
If either condition is not met, the section is considered closed.
Step 2: Determine which grade to save and where
If the section is open:
If an adjusted grade is available → save it to the
current_grade
field.If no adjusted grade but a calculated grade is available → save it to the
current_grade
fields.Save to:
current_grade_text
if the grade is textcurrent_grade_number
if the grade is numeric
If the section is closed:
If an adjusted grade is available → save it to the
final_grade
fields.If no adjusted grade but a calculated grade is available → save it to the
final_grade
fields.Save to:
final_grade_text
if the grade is textfinal_grade_number
if the grade is numeric
Reviewing Imported Semesters
To review your imported semester data, navigate to Settings > Integrations and click on your LMS from the left-hand menu.
On the Imported Semesters card, you'll see:
Semester
Status
Added At
Started At
Last Sync Completed At
🚨 Important: Brightspace does not support real-time syncing. Data will update once daily during an overnight sync.