Courses is available in Element Success. See our packages overview for details.
Overview
The Blackboard LMS integration seamlessly syncs real-time academic and enrollment data from Blackboard into Element451. This guide will walk you through the setup process, from configuring Blackboard settings to completing the integration within Element451.
📌 Note: This is a one-way integration. Element451 reads data from Blackboard but does not write back any data.
Overview of the Setup Process
To get started, you'll work through three main steps:
Step 1: 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-e43af1c7edc0Learn User: Select a user 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
Set the following Redirect URI:
https://api.451.io/clients/integrations/blackboard/oauth2
Enable the following permission sets:
Courses
Users
Memberships
Organizations
Grades
🔗 For more detailed instructions, see Blackboard's guide on Registering an Application.
Step 2: 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).
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.