Courses is available in Element Success. See our packages overview for details.

Overview

The Blackboard LMS integration seamlessly syncs academic and enrollment data from Blackboard Learn into Element451. This guide will walk you through the setup process, from configuring Blackboard Learn settings to completing the integration within Element451.

📌 Note: This is a one-way integration. Element451 reads data from Blackboard Learn but does not write back any data.

Overview of the Setup Process

To get started, you'll work through three steps outlined below in detail.

Configure Learn User (Service Account) Permissions
Set Up OAuth Authentication in Blackboard
Provide Credentials to Element451
Authenticate the Integration

Step 1: Configure Learn User (Service Account) Permissions

The Learn User, often called a service account, is a dedicated Blackboard user account that an integration uses to authenticate against the Learn REST APIs. When you register a REST Application in Blackboard, you must associate it with a specific Learn User. That user’s permissions determine what the Element451 integration can see and do inside Blackboard.

You can use an existing Learn User, but we recommend having a dedicated service account for your Element451 integration.

Why set it up?

Security & least privilege: Using a service account allows you to grant only the exact privileges the integration needs (e.g., read access to Courses, Users, Memberships, and Grades) without exposing an administrator’s full rights.
Reliability: The service account is not tied to a real person’s login. This means the integration won’t break if someone leaves the institution, changes roles, or has their personal account disabled.
Auditability: All API activity is clearly logged as coming from the service account, making it easier to track and monitor integration behavior.
Maintainability: Credentials and permissions for integrations can be rotated or adjusted independently of staff accounts, simplifying support.

Required User Permissions

Courses
- Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) → View Enrollments
- Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) → View Course Settings
Users
- System User Management → Users → View
Memberships
- Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) → View Enrollments
Orgnaizations
- Organization Control Panel → View Enrollments
- Organization Control Panel → View Settings
Grades
- Course/Organization Control Panel (Grade Center) → View Grades
Roles
- System Administration → Courses/Organizations → Course/Organization Roles → View

Step 2: Set Up OAuth Authentication in Blackboard

To allow secure communication between Blackboard and Element451, you'll first need to register a REST API application in Blackboard. This generates a Client ID and Client Secret you'll use later in the setup.

Log in to your Blackboard account as a System Administrator.
Navigate to System Admin > Integrations > REST API Integrations.
Click Create Integration.
Fill in the required information:
- Application ID: f7835300-48bb-4051-b8a8-e43af1c7edc0
- Learn User: Select a user (service) account with sufficient read permissions (usually an admin-level service account)
- End User Access: Set to No
- Authorized To Act As User?: Set to No
Click Submit to Proceed

🔗 For more detailed instructions, see Blackboard's guide on Registering an Application.

Step 3: Authenticate the Integration in Element451

Once you have registered your application in Blackboard, you'll need to authorize Element451 to access your Blackboard data using OAuth.

🚨 Important: The user performing the authentication must be a Blackboard System Administrator and have read access to: Courses, Users, Memberships, Organizations, and Grades.

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 Blackboard LMS.
Click the Authenticate button and follow the prompts.

You'll need your Blackboard Instance URL (typically something like https://youruniversity.blackboard.com).

Step 4: 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

Courses¹: Import course information from Blackboard, including course name, code, department, and other relevant details.
Sections¹: Import individual course section information from Blackboard, including dates, instructor names, etc.
Enrollments: Import student enrollment records from Blackboard, 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 Blackboard, such as name and email

¹Setting is required and cannot be disabled.

²Setting is required when Enrollments is enabled.

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: Blackboard supports multiple roles for teachers. Select the roles you use for teachers in your Blackboard instance.
Target Student Roles: Blackboard supports multiple roles for students. Select the roles you use for students in your Blackboard instance.

Next Steps

Once authentication is complete, Element451 will begin syncing data from Blackboard. 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

Element451 Field	Blackboard Object	Blackboard Field
Institution ID	course	id
Name	course	name
Description	course	description
Code	course	courseId
Status¹	course	availability->available
Term²	course	termId
Subject	-	Not available
Number	-	Not available
Credits	-	Not available
Version	-	Not available
Total Students	-	Not available
Departments	-	Not available
Grading	-	Not available
Type	-	Not available
Timezone	-	Not available

Section

Element451 Field	Blackboard Object	Blackboard Field
Institution ID	course	id
Code	course	code
Status¹	course	status
Instruction Mode¹	course	type
Term²	course	termId
Instructor¹	user	name->given + name->family
Instructor Email	user	contact->email
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
Start Date	-	Not available
End Date	-	Not available
Times	-	Not available

Enrollment

Element451 Field	Blackboard Object	Blackboard Field
Institution ID	enrollment	id
Final Grade (Text)	-	Calculated³
Final Grade (Number)	-	Calculated³
Last LMS Activity	enrollment	lastAccessed
Enrollment Status	-	Not available
Current Grade (Text)	-	Not available
Current Grade (Number)	-	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 Calculated automatically by Element451 (see Calculation Logic below for details)

Blackboard Grade Calculation Logic

This logic handles how a student’s final grade is saved based on the type of grading scale used in Blackboard. The system supports multiple grading types, including Percent, Score, Letter, Tabular, Text, and Complete/Incomplete. Note: This logic applies only to final grades.

Grade Logic Explained

Step 1: Pull grade data

The system attempts to retrieve:

Score: the numeric value the student earned
Possible: the total possible points
Text: a grade label like “A” or “Complete”
Scale type: defines how to interpret the grade

Step 2: Process based on the grading scale type

Percent:

If a score exists and the possible points are greater than 0:
- Calculate a percentage: (score / possible) * 100
- Save this to final_grade_number (rounded to 2 decimals)
- Save the formatted version (e.g., “87.50%”) to final_grade_text

Score:

If a score exists:
- Save the numeric score to final_grade_number (rounded to 2 decimals)
- Save the same number (e.g., “87.50”) as text in final_grade_text

Letter:

If a text grade exists:
- Save the text (e.g., “A” or “B+”) to final_grade_text

Tabular:

If a score and possible points are available:
- Calculate and save the percentage to final_grade_number
If a text grade is available:
- Save the text to final_grade_text

Text or Complete/Incomplete: