In any educational program, timing is everything. Whether it’s a live workshop, a mentorship session, or an assignment deadline, learners need quick, reliable access to the events that matter most. That’s why LMS event integration is more than just a nice-to-have, it’s critical to a great user experience.
When we partnered with Anzisha, a leadership and entrepreneurship program for young African changemakers, we realized that because they run multiple cohorts (with different start dates, mentors, and activities) one of the first things they needed was a way to share cohort-specific events to students enrolled in programs. Not just a global calendar, but a personalized, real-time schedule embedded directly into each user’s dashboard.
Out of the box, most WordPress LMS plugins (even the best ones like LearnDash) don’t offer event scheduling tools that are flexible enough for cohort-based programs. You might be able to list general dates where live events appear within a blended LearnDash course, but customizing the experience for different groups of students or cohorts often requires workarounds like duplicating courses for each cohort, or else the resulting display isn’t personalized so the user experience suffers.
For the best possible end-user experience, learner’s dashboards should clearly show what events are coming up, tailored to their specific cohort. For the best possible management experience, instead of manually managing events (emailing Zoom links or maintaining multiple calendars), the Anzisha team should be able to update cohort events in one place, and each learner should see what is relevant to them.
How We Solved It for Anzisha
We knew that the solution needed to be scalable, easy to use, and easy to maintain. It shouldn’t require a developer every time someone wants to update course content or to add events to the cohort. We needed to consider how we would collect the event data, manage it, and deliver it for viewing.
With a limited budget to meet these complex needs, we decided to use existing WordPress technology (such as custom post types and fields) instead of custom coding from scratch would allow us to build a maintainable and flexible tool without extending the budget. Advanced Custom Fields Pro is a popular and well-tested plugin for creating custom field UIs within WordPress, allowing us to add controls for managing event data (like Zoom links, dates, and session details) on the group post type that represents the student cohort. We set up a section within the group editing screen that allows Anzisha’s administrators to easily add events (and important details) to that cohort (LearnDash group).
Because each learner at Anzisha is part of a specific cohort or group, by attaching custom event data directly to the group (instead of the course), we can make sure that students only see the events that apply to their cohort, even when courses are shared by many cohorts going through the same program.
Empowered with a UI for capturing event data to postmeta, the next challenge was figuring out how Anzisha’s content specialists could control where within LearnDash courses events appear.
The project budget couldn’t support much custom development, so we used our Loops & Logic plugin to query the relevant event data display it. This template could then be inserted anywhere in the course experience—lessons or topics—using a custom universal placeholder block.
Blocks are a well-established part of the WordPress ecosystem, and made it easy for the Anzisha team to place the event display wherever they needed. A few custom shortcodes packaged efficient LearnDash functions for fetching the correct LearnDash group context to pull events from.
// Get intersection of course + user groups
function tt_learndash_get_user_course_groups($user_id = null, $course_id = null) {
// Set default course_id to the current global $post ID if course_id is not provided
if (is_null($course_id) && get_post_type() === 'sfwd-courses') {
global $post;
if (isset($post->ID)) {
$course_id = $post->ID;
}
} elseif ( learndash_get_course_id() ) {
$course_id = learndash_get_course_id();
}
// Set default user_id to the current user ID if user_id is not provided and user is logged in
if (is_null($user_id) && is_user_logged_in()) {
$current_user = wp_get_current_user();
if ($current_user->ID) {
$user_id = $current_user->ID;
}
}
// Return nothing if either $user_id or $course_id is still null after defaults are attempted
if (is_null($user_id) || is_null($course_id)) {
return;
}
// Fetch course groups and user groups
$course_access_group_ids = learndash_get_course_groups($course_id);
$user_group_ids = learndash_get_users_group_ids($user_id);
// Find intersection of course groups and user groups
$course_user_access_group_ids = array_intersect($course_access_group_ids, $user_group_ids);
return $course_user_access_group_ids;
}
// Add shortcode for invoking tt_learndash_get_user_course_groups
add_shortcode('user_course_groups', function($atts) {
// Extract shortcode attributes with defaults set to null
$atts = shortcode_atts(
array(
'user_id' => null,
'course_id' => null,
),
$atts,
'user_course_groups'
);
// Call the main function with the extracted attributes
$group_ids = tt_learndash_get_user_course_groups($atts['user_id'], $atts['course_id']);
if (empty($group_ids)) {
return '';
}
// Convert the group IDs to a string for use in L&L markup
return implode(', ', $group_ids);
});
Since the custom blocks fetches context from the post it’s placed on, the user viewing it, and the event data on the cohort, all the Anzisha content team needs to do to place event content within LearnDash course steps is place the block, and the correct events will appear.
Learners see a clear, visually appealing and informative list of upcoming events that are specifically tailored to them, complete with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Microsoft Office “add to calendar” links for upcoming events, join links for active events, and links to recordings when they exist.
An added bonus of building the events solution in this way meant that all the pieces were also ready to be used again (even in a slightly different manner). We were easily able to implement Syndicated Event Feeds for individual learner and cohort dashboards, which show all upcoming events without forcing users to look through course content.
This keeps things simple for admins — they manage the schedule once per group — and makes the experience personalized for students, who only see what’s relevant to them. Meanwhile the benefit for students is clear. Instead of cluttering up the course with every possible event, the LMS pulls in a live-updating list of upcoming sessions, mentorship calls, and deadlines — all driven by custom fields and logic tied to their user profile and cohort.
Why This Matters
When you integrate event scheduling directly into your LMS dashboard, you remove friction and build trust. Learners feel guided. Program staff spend less time answering logistical questions. It also opens the door for deeper engagement, better attendance, and smoother program operations.
Whether you’re managing a small online course or a multi-year educational initiative, having a calendar system that works for your learners makes a big difference.
Want Something Like This?
At Team Tangible, we build LMS experiences that go beyond the basics. If you’re running an educational program and your current platform isn’t cutting it, we can help. From custom cohort logic to real-time event displays, we make WordPress LMS sites work the way you need them to.
Let’s talk about how your learners could benefit from smarter dashboards.
