Connecting Blue Sky Path LMS to Rhythm lets your association exchange course activity between Blue Sky and Rhythm, including registrations, completions, and continuing education credits. This article explains the connection settings you manage in the Console and replaces the earlier Blue Sky eLearn integration guide.
What It Controls
The Blue Sky connection is one record for your entire Rhythm account. It controls:
- Whether the connection is active.
- The account code that identifies your account to Blue Sky’s Path LMS.
- Whether Blue Sky calls use staging or live webhooks.
- Which course types in Certifications register learners in Blue Sky automatically.
- Whether Blue Sky may create a certification in Rhythm when a member completes a course.
- Whether Blue Sky may create a missing course, offering, and registration in Rhythm when it reports activity Rhythm does not already have a record for.
Course activity moves both ways. Rhythm sends course and offering information to Blue Sky so the course can be registered there, and Blue Sky sends registrations, completions, and credits back to Rhythm. On the Rhythm side, the trigger is a qualifying course purchase, not browsing or starting a course. After payment is complete, Rhythm sends the registration to Blue Sky.
When Blue Sky reports a completed course, Rhythm marks the matching course registration as 100% complete, timestamps the record when Blue Sky’s request is received, and writes any continuing education credits included in the payload. If certification creation is on, Rhythm also creates the certification record and stores the certificate Blue Sky sent under that certification’s print-certificate options. Rhythm does not receive separate join or depart activity from Blue Sky. Unless Blue Sky sends its own notifications for those events, the only related value Rhythm has is the completion timestamp, which Rhythm records as the registration’s departure date.
Blue Sky’s member-details calls receive contact-record custom fields only, not organization-level custom field values. If a field you want Blue Sky to see lives on the organization instead of the contact, Blue Sky will not receive it.
Prerequisites
Your association must have the Blue Sky integration enabled. If it is not enabled, Rhythm will not save this connection and shows a message explaining that your account does not have access to enable it.
Where to Find It
Go to System & Security › Integrations › Bluesky eLearn. If your account has not connected Blue Sky before, the page opens as a blank form. After you save, the same page shows your saved settings and lets you update them.
The Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enable Connection | Active, Inactive | Off (until you turn it on) | Turns the connection on or off. In the Console, this is the only way to stop the connection without deleting it |
| Account Code | Any text | None | Required. This code identifies your account in Blue Sky’s Path LMS and appears in Blue Sky’s webhook addresses. It does not need to be unique, and Rhythm does not check whether another account uses the same code |
| Mode | Staging, Live | None selected | Chooses whether Blue Sky calls the staging or live webhooks for your Rhythm account. The whole connection uses one mode, so staging and live cannot run side by side |
| Notes | Any text | None | Free text for your own reference |
| Course Types | Your Certifications course types | None selected | Controls which course types register learners in Blue Sky automatically |
| Enable Certification Creation | Enabled, Disabled | Disabled | When a course is completed, this lets Rhythm create a certification from Blue Sky on your behalf |
| Default Program | Your Certifications programs | None | Shown only while certification creation is enabled. This is the program linked to a certification that Blue Sky triggers |
| Enable Course Creation | Enabled, Disabled | Disabled | When a course does not exist, this lets Rhythm create the course on your behalf |
| Default Course Type | Your Certifications course types | None | Shown only while course creation is enabled. This is the course type Rhythm uses for courses it creates this way |
| Default Training Provider | Your Certifications training providers | None | Shown only while course creation is enabled. This is the training provider Rhythm uses for course offerings it creates this way |
Two additional settings exist on the connection but do not appear in the Console. They control which Rhythm credit type each Blue Sky credit type maps to and what status new credits from Blue Sky receive, such as whether they wait for staff review or count immediately. Both settings are managed through the API only.
Warning
Turning on Enable Certification Creation or Enable Course Creation does not require you to choose a default program, course type, or training provider. You can save either switch on without setting a default. If you want Blue Sky’s automatic creation to place records under specific defaults, set those defaults before you turn the switch on.
Course registration in Blue Sky depends on your courses and offerings already existing in Rhythm. Rhythm is the source of truth for course setup, so create your course types, courses, and offerings in Rhythm first. Then link each one to its Blue Sky record using External Product ID. Blue Sky does not create course records in Rhythm on its own unless you turn on Enable Course Creation, and updates made directly in Blue Sky do not push back to Rhythm. Set External Product ID to the course offering’s fee, not to the offering itself, because the wrong identifier keeps the course from linking correctly to Blue Sky.
A qualifying course purchase in Rhythm is expected to register the learner in Blue Sky and create the learner’s Blue Sky account automatically if one does not already exist. You do not need to set up the learner’s Blue Sky account ahead of time. This has been described inconsistently in the past, so if a purchase does not seem to create access as expected, confirm the current behavior with Support instead of assuming the learner needed a pre-existing account.
A course purchased on behalf of another contact through the shopping cart may not provision that contact’s access in Blue Sky, even though the usual automatic-registration behavior applies to a learner’s own purchases.
Certification creation depends on Blue Sky sending a certificate URL with the completion. Rhythm first tries to identify the certification program from the completed course. If Rhythm cannot identify it that way, it uses the Default Program you set here.
Dependencies and Precedence
The Course Types, Default Program, Default Course Type, and Default Training Provider lists all come from your Certifications setup. Create the course types, programs, and training providers you want to use there first. The Course Types list controls which learners register in Blue Sky automatically, while Default Course Type controls the course type used when Blue Sky creates a new course. The default course type does not have to appear in the selected Course Types list.
Change Impact and How to Revert
- Turning Enable Connection off stops the connection without losing your other settings. Turn it back on to resume with the same account code, mode, and selections.
- Turning off Enable Certification Creation or Enable Course Creation hides the matching default fields, but Rhythm keeps the values you set and sends them again the next time you save, even while they are hidden. If you remove the program, course type, or training provider record from Certifications while it is still set as a hidden default here, Rhythm cannot delete that record while this connection still names it.
- Changing Course Types does not remove anyone already registered under a course type you deselect. It only changes registrations going forward.
- Marking an application requirement as Not Applicable does not affect this connection or what is sent to Blue Sky. To reverse it, clear the setting and save again to return the requirement to Unfulfilled.
Permissions
Any signed-in staff member of your Rhythm account can view and change the Blue Sky connection settings if your account has the integration enabled. There is no separate permission for this page.
Validation and Errors
| Situation | What you see |
|---|---|
| The account code is left blank | The save is blocked, and the form marks the field as needing a value |
| Your account’s permission profile does not allow this integration | The save is refused with a message explaining that your account does not have access to enable it; the Console shows "Unable to save settings" |
| Mode is set to anything other than Staging or Live | Rhythm rejects the value before it can be saved |
| The settings fail to load | "Unable to load Canvas settings" — the message names the wrong integration, so do not be confused if you see it while working on Blue Sky |
Troubleshooting Course Access and Registration
If a learner can sign in to the portal but still cannot reach their course in Blue Sky, check where the sign-in started. When the failure happens only after someone starts from Blue Sky’s own catalog or login page, signs in through the portal, and is sent back to Blue Sky, the problem points to the return step of that exchange. Portal sign-in itself can still be working correctly.
Blue Sky sign-in also depends on your identity provider returning an email address. If the authentication profile Blue Sky receives has no email, a learner can complete a purchase but still be unable to sign in to Blue Sky or have that access mapped to their course.
A mismatched sign-in identity can also create a second Blue Sky account instead of failing outright. This can happen when a learner signs in once through Rhythm and again through a different identity, such as Google or another Auth0 login, and ends up with two separate Blue Sky records instead of one. Signs that the real problem is a duplicate account, not a missing account, include the newer account showing as Non-member regardless of the learner’s actual status, no inherited course enrollments, a first login and registration recorded on the same day, or profile fields that look shifted or combined, such as an identifier appearing inside the email field. If your association uses more than one sign-in link or button for Blue Sky, check that they all point to the same current authentication path. An older link pointed at a legacy login URL can send some learners through a different flow than everyone else.
If a course purchased in Rhythm does not appear in Blue Sky, ask whether Rhythm actually sent the registration and what Blue Sky returned before assuming the setup is wrong. Support can check whether the send happened and what came back. If the registration went through but access still has not appeared after some time, compare when Rhythm completed the purchase with when the course became available in Blue Sky. Logs or the payload from Blue Sky can help show whether the delay happened in Rhythm or downstream in Blue Sky. If everything in Rhythm looks configured correctly and there is no sign of a block on this side, check with Blue Sky next, because the lag can happen after Rhythm completes the transaction and before Blue Sky finishes processing the learner’s access.
A few workarounds can restore access while you investigate, though none of them replace fixing the underlying cause. Reopening and resaving the course registration record in Console can cause Rhythm to resend it to Blue Sky. Manually creating the learner’s account directly in Blue Sky and having them log in can let a later sync pick up the course, because access has been seen to complete this way after the learner’s first login triggers a sync. If a delegated purchase does not provision access automatically, staff can manually add the order or enrollment in Blue Sky as an interim step. Automatic profile syncing after single sign-on is not something you can turn on from Rhythm; Blue Sky would need to add it in its own experience.
If you want learners returned to Blue Sky automatically after completing a purchase in Rhythm, that redirect needs to be configured for your Rhythm account. Contact Support to set up the return page.