Moodle Zapier integrationAutomate Moodle with Zapier.
The Moodle Zapier integration gives you 2 triggers, 1 action and 1 search. New courses and new enrolments in your Moodle site can start an automation, a search finds a course by name, and an advanced action covers the rest. Moodle needs a paid Zapier plan.
Premium app Zapier reserves this app to its paid plans.
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What the Moodle Zapier integration does for your courses
Moodle is an open-source platform for running online courses: courses, students and enrolments live there. Linked to Zapier, it tells your other apps when a course is created or a student enrols, and lets a Zap find a course by name. Moodle is a premium app on Zapier: every Zap that uses it needs a paid plan or the free trial.
A welcome email for every new student. New Enrolled Student in a Course starts the Zap and your email tool sends the first message, without anyone watching the enrolment list. The trigger watches one course, picked when you set it up.
A team alert for each new course. New Course feeds a chat message, so the team knows a new course exists once Zapier has spotted it on one of its checks.
Course details pulled in on demand. Find a Course looks a course up by name and hands what it found to the next step, when the trigger app only knows the course title.
What Zapier does not do for Moodle: it has no ready-made action to enrol a student or create a course. The only action is API Request (Beta), an advanced step for people who know Moodle's own requests. Both triggers are polling ones, checked on a timer, never instant. Before you pick a tool, see our n8n vs Zapier guide. Every Moodle Zap also needs a paid plan, so count that in from the start.
Zapier words in one minute
Seven words you will see in the editor. If you want to learn Zap building properly, see our Zapier training.
- Zap
- The automation you build on Zapier: one trigger, then one or more actions that run every time the trigger event happens.
- Trigger
- The event in an app that starts the Zap. Once the Zap is on, Zapier waits for it. Moodle has two: a new course and a new enrolment.
- Action
- What the Zap does once it has started: the step that writes, sends or moves something for you.
- Task
- The unit Zapier bills: one action your Zap completes successfully. The count on your plan is a count of those.
- Polling vs instant trigger
- A polling trigger is checked by Zapier at a fixed interval. An instant trigger is reported by the app itself. Moodle's are polling.
- Filter
- A step that lets the Zap go on only when what arrived meets your condition, and stops it there otherwise.
- Search step
- A step that looks up something that already exists in an app, so the steps that follow can use what it found.
- Premium app
- An app Zapier keeps for paid plans and free trials. Moodle is one, so the free plan cannot run a Moodle Zap.
What a Moodle Zap really costs
Moodle is a premium app: it needs a paid plan or the free trial. Within that plan, the triggers never cost a task, however often Zapier checks Moodle; each successful action counts one.
- Moodle triggersNever count as a task
- Each successful action1 task
- Premium appYes, paid plan or free trial
- Free planNot available for Moodle
An action that fails is not counted. A Zap with a search, a filter or more than one action is a multi-step Zap, which a paid plan allows. The grid shows how often Zapier checks a polling trigger on each plan; for Moodle only the paid rows matter, since the free plan cannot run it. Looking for new courses or enrolments costs nothing, however often Zapier checks; only a completed action is billed. Testing a trigger brings back the three most recent items of the account.
Connect Moodle to Zapier in 3 steps
- 01
Open the Apps page
In your Zapier account, open Apps and click + Add connection. A connection is your Moodle account linked once, then reused by every step that uses Moodle.
- 02
Pick Moodle
Search Moodle by name in the dialog, pick it and click Add connection. You need an account on Moodle, plus read or write access on anything you do not own yourself and want the Zap to touch.
- 03
Sign in and grant access
Sign in to Moodle in the tab that opens, then grant Zapier access to the account. Back in the editor, that connection can be picked in any Moodle trigger, search or action.
Your first Zap: a welcome email for each new student
GoalSend a welcome email each time a student enrols in a chosen Moodle course, only when the enrolment meets your condition.
- 01
Build: pick the trigger
Start a new Zap, choose Moodle and New Enrolled Student in a Course, select your connection, then pick the course to watch in the Course field.
- 02
Test the trigger
Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent enrolments of that course, so you map the next steps on a real student. Read what came back first.
- 03
Add a filter
From the plus icon, add Filter and set the field, the rule and the value. A filter makes the Zap multi-step, which needs a paid plan; Moodle already requires one.
- 04
Add the email
Add your email tool as the action and map the student's details and the course into the message. Check at the test which fields the trigger really returns.
- 05
Test, then publish
Test the action once and read the email it produced. Then click Publish to switch the Zap on; from then on each new enrolment that passes the filter gets its welcome.
The 2 Moodle triggers
2 events start a Zap when something happens in Moodle. Zapier checks for them at the interval your plan allows.
New Course
Polling triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a new course is created.”
Starts the Zap when a course is created on your Moodle site. It is the trigger for everything that should follow a new course: an announcement, a catalogue entry, a task in another tool.
New Enrolled Student in a Course
Polling triggerIn Zapier“Triggers when a student enrolls in a course.”
Each time a student enrols in the course you pick at setup, this trigger starts the Zap. The enrolment arrives with the details Moodle sends, ready to map into an email, a contact or a row.
The Moodle action
Moodle gives you 1 action. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.
API Request (Beta)
ActionIn Zapier“This is an advanced action which makes a raw HTTP request that includes this integration's authentication.”
An advanced step that sends a raw request to Moodle using the authentication of your connection, for what the ready-made operations do not cover. You fill in the method and the address yourself.
The Moodle search
1 search step looks for data that already exists in Moodle, so a later step can use it.
A search step does not change anything: it finds a course that already exists and passes it on. Adding one makes your Zap multi-step. Three settings decide what happens when the result is not the one you expected.
Find a Course
SearchIn Zapier“Search for course by name.”
Looks a Moodle course up by its name and hands what it found to the steps that follow, so a Zap started elsewhere can use that course.
The three settings every search exposes
- Successful if no search results are found?Left on its default, a search that finds nothing stops the Zap there and the steps that relied on it are skipped. Switched on, the Zap carries on with nothing found.
- Create X if it doesn't exist yet?This box turns a search into find-or-create. Find a Course has no such variant on Zapier, so the box is not offered here.
- If multiple search results are found?Three ways out when several courses match: keep the first one, which is the default, stop the Zap, or hand all of them on at once.
When a Moodle Zap breaks
Zapier attaches no help article to Moodle, so the cases below are the general limits that apply to every Zap.
Four general limits are worth knowing before you rely on a Moodle Zap. If a run stops and the cause is unclear, see our Zapier troubleshooting guide.
Past enrolments are never picked up
A Zap only reacts to what happens after it is switched on. Students enrolled before that stay out of it; moving that history is a separate job.A Zap that sets itself off
A Zap that writes into the very place its own trigger watches can start itself again and again, and burn through your task count.Bulk enrolments held back
When a trigger suddenly returns a huge batch, after a bulk import or a migration, Zapier's flood protection can hold those runs back.The same student never runs twice
Both Moodle triggers are polling ones, and Zapier keeps track of what it has already seen, so the same item does not start the Zap twice.
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