Batch import Lessons and Topics to Learndash (for free)

Batch import Lessons and Topics to LearnDash (for free)

By Enrique Zabala - updated july 27, 2022

I will share a method to batch import lessons and topics to an existing course in LearnDash. For this I’ve programmed a couple of LibreOffice Calc spreadsheets (one for lessons and one for topics) that contain all the settings available in the LearnDash backend. Once filled in they are exported to CSV format, and making use of a free WordPress plugin, “WP Import Export Lite” these CSV files are imported into LearnDash. The same procedure can be used to update existing LearnDash lessons and topics.

Importing Lessons

First I will explain how to batch import lessons. We’ll be using an example spreadsheet with 14 lessons that you can download to test this method. Included is also a folder with some materials and featured images:

You will need to install LibreOffice to open the spreadsheet, it’s a free and open-source software similar to Excel, available for both Mac and PC.

Create a course in LearnDash

The first step is to create and publish a new empty course in LearnDash. (WordPress dashboard » LearnDash LMS » Courses » Add New » (give it a name) » Publish)

Fill in the spreadsheet

Open the file “Import-Learndash-LESSONS-v1.0-example.ods” in LibreOffice. It contains 3 tabs or spreadsheets; the first two (general and lessons) are the ones that has to be filled in, and the last one (lessons-save-a-copy-as-cvs) has to be exported to CSV format.

Tab 1: “general” spreadsheet:

Here is where you insert the common info for all lessons. To the right there are texts explaining how to find the Associated Course ID (the course created in step 1) and the Lesson Materials Folder URL.

Tab 2: “lessons” spreadsheet:

Every row (starting from row 3) in the lessons tab spreadsheet corresponds to one lesson. You have to give the lesson a name in the first column “Lesson Title” so it can be imported to wordpress. There is place for up to 49 lessons in total.

Tooltip explanations – Some of the header cells contain a red square in the top right corner. If you hover over the cell with the mouse pointer, a tooltip appears which contains a small explanation about that specific setting. They are all copied from the LearnDash Lesson page. Most of the tooltips also specify if there’s any default value used for that setting. For instance, all cells that can receive “Y” or “N” values (columns J, L, M, N etc.) have a default value of “N” if the cell is left blank. This is to avoid having to fill in so many cells.

Mutually exclusive features – The Video Progression feature (green headers, columns H to P), Assignment uploads feature (blue headers, columns Q to X) and Lesson Timer (red header, column Y) are optional features and can only be used one at a time for a specific lesson (row).

In the example above we use the Video Progression feature for a specific lesson by inserting the video URL in column H. You will see that the cells belonging to Assignment uploads and Lesson Timer in that same row will become gray, indicating no info must be inserted there.

Once the spreadsheet is filled in and ready for exporting, it’s important that all cells with gray background are empty, or the lessons won’t import correctly to LearnDash.

Note: In the the “lessons” tab of the example spreadsheet you will see that the Lesson Content (column B) for lessons 1 to 5 start with a “[featured_image]” shortcode. If you want this shortcode to display the featured image inside the lesson page, you’ll have to add the following PHP code at the end of your functions.php file (WordPress dashboard » Appearance » Theme File Editor » Theme Functions):

add_shortcode('featured_image','my_post_featured_img');

function my_post_featured_img($atts) {
global $post;
return '<img src="' . get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID);
}

Export the CSV file

Select the third tab (lessons-save-a-copy) and from the file menu select save a Copy… » File type: Text CSV » Save

Upload Lesson materials and Featured images

In case you’re making use of lesson materials and/or featured images (specifying the filenames in the lessons tab, columns F and G) you will have to upload the files to the WordPress media library. In the downloadable example files there is a folder with several materials and featured images. To keep things more organized I choose to install Filebird Lite, a free plugin to categorize the media library in (virtual) folders, this way all materials and featured images related to a specific LearnDash course can be put together in one single place.

Note: WordPress organizes the media library in folders by year/month so remember that if you’re updating materials on a different month than the original batch import you’ll have to upload the files again or exclude the previous uploaded materials from the spreadsheet. There are premium plugins available that allows organizing the media library in physical folders, but I haven’t tested them out.

Import the lessons to LearnDash

As mentioned before we make use of the free plugin “WP Import Export Lite” to be able to import our lessons. From the wordpress dashboard select Plugins » Add New. Search for the plugin and install it:

Once activated we have to upload the import presets so the fields from the CSV file gets imported to the correct locations in the database:

Unzip the downloaded file, it contains one preset for lessons and another for topics.
To load the presets: from the wordpress dashboard select WP Imp Exp » Settings » Choose file » (select “import-LD-lessons-settings.txt” from your computer) » Import.

Now we’re ready to make the import.

Select New Import from the “WP Imp Exp” menu and follow these steps:
Step 1: Select the CSV file you just exported from LibreOffice. Press “Continue to step 2”.
Step 2: From the dropdown menu select Lesson. Press “Continue to step 3”.
Step 3: Press “Continue to step 4”.
Step 4: From the Load settings dropdown menu select “import-LD-lessons”. Press “Continue to step 5”.
Step 5: Under the “Update Existing items Fields” tab select “Update All data”. Press “Continue to step 6”.
Step 6: Press “Confirm & Run Import”.

Ready!

Here’s a short video showing the entire process:

Importing Topics

The Topic .ods spreadsheet works exactly the same as the Lessons spreadsheet, only that we need to fill in one additional column with the associated Lesson ID’s, so it’s a bit more work.

We’ll do it simple and import 5 topics each into lessons 1 and 2 created in the previous Lesson batch import.

“topics” spreadsheet:

Follow the same steps as for importing lessons. When making a new import with the “WP Import Export Lite” plugin, in step 2 select Topic from the dropdown menu, and in step 4 select the Topic import preset (remember to upload the “import-LD-topics-settings.txt” first).

Note: Instead of finding the Lesson ID’s one by one, you can use the “WP Import Export Lite” plugin to export them all to a single CSV file:

From the “WP Imp Exp” menu select New Export.
Select Lesson from the dropdown menu.
Under the “Add filtering options” section, copy&paste these values (use the same course ID number as when importing the lessons): Element: course_id Rule: equals Value: (insert the associated course ID number)
Press the “+”.
Press “Export” button.
Download the resulting CSV file and open it in LibreOffice Calc. You will find all Lesson IDs under the “ID” column.

That's it!

And here’s the Topic import video:

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