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.
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-e43af1c7edc0
Learn 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
).
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 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
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
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
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
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 Brightspace. 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
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:
If a text grade exists:
Save the text to
final_grade_text
Doesn’t match any of the above:
No action is taken
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