How To Use LearnDash With BuddyBoss

LearnDash is a Learning Management System (LMS) that works through WordPress, allowing people to organize and deliver online courses to students all around the world.

On the hand, BuddyBoss is a platform (also built on WordPress) that allows you to create online communities of any sort, which also makes it a fantastic foundation for hosting online courses, with access to discussion forums, documents, and more. 

While you might think that LearnDash and BuddyBoss are two opposing forces, each offering a platform for you to host and manage online educational courses for students, they can actually be used together! In fact, it’s heavily encouraged.

This is partly because BuddyBoss offers a service called BuddyBoss, which helps people easily turn their websites into social networking platforms, allowing private messages, create groups, and active template for the users.

However, an addition called BuddyBoss Theme then makes it all look fantastic. Since LearnDash is one of the most popular LMS’s out there, it only makes sense that you can integrate the two for fantastic results.

But how do you use LearnDash with BuddyBoss? The short answer is that you install both plugins to the same WordPress site, then activate the two on your WordPress website.

However, you’ll then want to assign the correct template pack to work with BuddyBoss Theme, activate the template, save it, and create your course.

There’s plenty more you need to learn about how to do this process, though, and we’ve got all the answers in our handy guide below! Read on for a complete explanation of how to use LearnDash with BuddyBoss.

What Is LearnDash?

Before we get into the process of how to use LearnDash with BuddyBoss, it’s worth looking in-depth at what each of these services is, as well as breaking down what they offer. Read our comprehensive LearnDash LMS Review.

As we touched on in the introduction, LearnDash is one of the most popular Learning Management Systems available.

This means that it’s a platform that helps people easily manage and deliver online courses to people over the internet. However, it’s worth noting that it does this through WordPress only, so you will need a WordPress account to use it.

There are many different kinds of people that use LearnDash. The first that you think of will probably be teachers or experts looking to host online courses in their niche subjects.

Before the internet, education was limited to places that were near the student, and only places they could afford to attend on top of that.

However, the internet now allows anybody (almost) anywhere in the world to be able to access education. Even better, the ease of access allows a far wider range of subjects, so you’ll always be able to find your preferred course.

However, it isn’t just these types of teachers that use LearnDash to provide them with some income.

It’s a platform that’s also used by companies to help train their staff, training organizations, entrepreneurs to deliver specialized courses, and even universities to help make their learning even more accessible.

What Is BuddyBoss And BuddyBoss Theme?

BuddyBoss is also a plugin for WordPress, but one that’s typically more focused on letting you create online communities. It’s all about connecting people together over the internet and delivering them something – but what that “something” is can differ.

One of the most popular uses for BuddyBoss is similar to LearnDash, in that it’s used to sell courses to communities of people.

It’ll allow you to let the students connect with one another, chatting in groups and sending private messages, helping to share their learning and expand their knowledge.

However, BuddyBoss also allows people to sell memberships to things, launch a mobile app of their own, and even create a hub to help train employees. All these things can be done within the workings of the platform, and they make it more than an LMS.

On the other hand, however, there is also the platform of BuddyBoss Theme.

While the main BuddyBoss plugin will allow you to create an online community and powers the social network features of your WordPress site, the BuddyBoss Theme is a special type of WordPress theme.

Basically, it styles all of the functionality of the main BuddyBoss platform, making your social community look fantastic. 

Appearance is very important on the internet, and it also makes it easier for people to use a site, so BuddyBoss Theme is a great extension to help you get the most out of BuddyBoss. However, it also helps to make your LearnDash website look brilliant too.

How To Use LearnDash With BuddyBoss

It’s time to explain how you can use LearnDash with BuddyBoss! 

It isn’t too difficult a process, thankfully, but there are a few steps involved, so you’ll need to follow our instructions closely.

With that being said, some of the key steps simply revolve around adding and installing the plugins themselves anyway, which are obviously unavoidable steps needed for using the platforms in the first place. 

Installing LearnDash LMS To Your WordPress

To begin with, we’re going to explain how you can install LearnDash for your WordPress site. 

Step One: Subscribe And Download

First, you’ll need to purchase a LearnDash subscription from their website. They offer three different tiers of a license, each with different prices.

The cheaper tier will allow you to use LearnDash with one website, while the next one will allow you to use it with 10 different websites, and the most expensive tier will allow you to install LearnDash with unlimited membership sites. 

Once you’ve bought the subscription you want, download the ZIP file when the chance is offered. 

Step Two: Add Plugin Or Extract The Zip File

There are two different ways to do this next part, so you can pick the one that works best for you.

The first method involves you logging into your WordPress and going to the Dashboard. After that, find the Plugins section in the column on the left-hand side of the screen.

Click on it, then select the option to “Add New”. You’ll now have the choice to “Upload Plugin”, so select it and browse through the file window that opens. 

Locate the location of your downloaded LearnDash ZIP file (it should be named “sfwd-lms.zip”) and install it.

On the other hand, you can unzip the file straight into the folder for WordPress plugins folder. To do this, extract the zip file by right-clicking on it and choosing “Extract All”, then following the instruction screens that appear.

When you can choose where to unzip the files, pick the WordPress plugins folder on your computer. The pathway for this will be “yourhostname/wordpress/wp-content/plugins”. 

Step Three: Activating LearnDash On Your WordPress

Now that it’s been added, you need to activate the LearnDash LMS plugin. To do this, go back to your WordPress Dashboard, then go to the Plugins sections.

You’ll now find “LearnDash LMS” on your list of plugins, and you’ll see the options “Activate” and “Delete” under it. Click “Activate”.

Step Four: Add Your License Key

Finally, you’ll need to add your license key details into WordPress, so that your LearnDash will work properly and you’ll be able to integrate it with BuddyBoss.

To do this, you’ll need to select the “LearnDash LMS” option from the left-hand column on the WordPress dashboard. After that, click on the “LMS License” subheading.

In the boxes provided, enter the email address that you registered to LearnDash with. Then, below that, copy and paste the unique license key you received when you signed up for LearnDash. At last, click “Update License”.

Installing BuddyBoss To Your WordPress

With LearnDash LMS installed, it’s now time to install the BuddyBoss plugin.

Step One: Purchase And Download BuddyBoss

First, you’ll obviously need to purchase a subscription to BuddyBoss. 

Like LearnDash, BuddyBoss offers three different subscription tiers, but the features of each are different.

The cheapest yearly subscription will allow you to use BuddyBoss with 1 website, while the next subscription tier allows you to use it with 5 different WordPress websites.

The most expensive tier, however, allows you to use BuddyBoss with 10 different sites. Unfortunately, there is no tier for unlimited sites. However, you do get BuddyBoss Theme with every tier.

When you’ve subscribed and paid for your year’s access to BuddyBoss, download the zip file that they prompt you to get.

Step Two: Adding The BuddyBoss Plugin

Next up, you need to log in to the relevant WordPress website and go to the Admin Dashboard. In the column on the left-hand side, you’ll see the option for “Plugins”. Click on it. You’ll see a page with your downloaded plugins, which should include LearnDash.

Find the “Add New” option towards the top of the screen, then select it. You’ll be taken to a page for “Add Plugins”, where you should click the “Upload Plugin” option.

From the window that opens, attach the relevant BuddyBoss zip file, then upload it and hit the “Install Now” button.

Step Three: Activating BuddyBoss On Your WordPress

Finally, go back to the “Plugins” section of your WordPress dashboard. You should now see that BuddyBoss has been added to the list, alongside LearnDash from earlier. 

Click the “Activate” option underneath BuddyBoss. 

Integrating LearnDash With BuddyBoss

Now that you’ve got both plugins installed and activated, it’s time to integrate them.

Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you don’t have to!

While it used to be the case that you had to install a further plugin to get the plugins to integrate with each other, Buddy Boss should now be able to get the pair of services working together without you needing to do more.

Why Should You Use LearnDash With BuddyBoss?

Integrating LearnDash and BuddyBoss will allow you to add a community aspect to your online learning platform, which will help to strengthen the learning of your students and foster a sense of interested, engaged community. 

For example, when you tie a specific course title to a group, then all of the course actions can be optionally added to the activity stream of the group members, with admins deciding which actions are shared and which are now.

This means that actions such as a student starting a single course page, creating a lesson, passing a quiz, completing a course, and much more can all be shared with the other students – encouraging them. 

Community is a big part of learning, which is why so much education is done as a class, rather than as remote one-on-one teaching. Students share ideas with each other in the upcoming classes, talk things out, and encourage each other.

With the addition of BuddyBoss’ online community builder, your LearnDash-enable learning platform will become a better place for learning.

Using BuddyBoss Theme

Another key benefit of using LearnDash with BuddyBoss, however, is the presence of BuddyBoss Theme. This is a WordPress theme that helps to bring a beautiful new design and sense of style to the BuddyBoss content, and therefore it’s a great way to stylize your LearnDash course.

In order to use BuddyBoss Theme, you will need to be using LearnDash 3.0 or later. It will not work with any older, Legacy versions of LearnDash.

Step One: Setting Templates

To get LearnDash working with BuddyBoss Theme, first, go to the “LearnDash LMS” section of the WordPress Dashboard. After that, click on the “General” subheading at the top of the page.

Then, under “Design & Content Elements”, you’ll find “Active Templates”. Click on its drop-down menu, select “LearnDash 3.0”, then hit “Save”.

Step Two: Publish A Course 

After that, you’ll be able to create a new course for your website that can be made more visually appealing by BuddyBoss Theme.

Simply go to the “Courses” subheading of “LearnDash LMS”, then select “Add New”. Build your course and start making it beautiful with BuddyBoss Theme!

Further reading: Buddyboss Vs LearnDash

Final Thoughts

LearnDash allows users to turn WordPress websites into online learning courses, while the BuddyBoss site will allow you to build an online community out of the learning platform. Integrating the two WordPress plugins is easy, just follow the instructions in our guide!