Would you like Thrive Apprentice to tag a student, notify another app, or unlock your next course when they enroll or finish a lesson?
This guide walks you through setting up Triggers in Thrive Apprentice, from picking the event to checking that each automation ran.
- Choosing a Trigger
- Adding an Automation
- Configuring the Action
- Adding a Delay or a Condition
- Saving and Managing Automations
- Checking the Activity Log
- Connecting Other Plugins and Apps
- Frequently Asked Questions
Before you get started, make sure Thrive Apprentice is installed and activated on your site.
Requirements: The Triggers page needs WordPress 6.6 or newer. The email tag action needs a connected email service that supports tags, and the Ultimatum action needs Thrive Ultimatum installed.
Choosing a Trigger
Every automation starts with a trigger, which is the event that makes it run. To get started, we’ll open the Triggers page.
From your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Thrive Dashboard » Thrive Apprentice and open Settings. In the settings menu, click Triggers.
The Triggers page shows one card for each event, with the number of active automations set up for it:
- When a student receives access runs when a student gains access to a product. It runs the same way for a purchase, a form, a webhook, or a manual grant.
- When access is revoked runs when a student loses access to a product: when you remove it by hand, when a form or webhook removes it, or when a WooCommerce order is refunded or cancelled.
- When a student completes content runs when a student completes a course, a module, or a lesson.
- When drip content unlocks runs when a drip campaign opens a lesson, module, or chapter for a student.
Pick the event that matches the moment you want to act on. For a welcome tag, use the access card. To unlock a follow-up course when a student finishes the first one, use the completion card.
Note: Triggers run an action after an event. To control who can open your content, use the access restriction rules instead.
When you’ve chosen an event, click its card to open the list of automations for that trigger. In this example, we’ll click When a student receives access.
With the trigger open, you’re ready to add an automation to it.
Adding an Automation
An automation links the trigger to one product or one piece of content, and to one action. On the trigger’s page, click Add automation.
The New automation screen opens. You pick the content and the action on this one screen.
Picking the Content to Watch
First, tell Thrive Apprentice which product or content this automation is for. The question depends on the trigger you chose.
- The access triggers ask which Apprentice product to watch. The automation only runs for that product.
- The completion trigger first asks for the completion level: Course, Module, or Lesson. Then you pick the exact course, module, or lesson.
- The drip trigger asks for a course, then the module, chapter, or lesson that its drip campaign unlocks.
For an access trigger, select the product in the Apprentice product dropdown.
For the completion trigger, choose the completion level first.
The completion level decides how often the automation runs. With Course, the action runs once when a student finishes everything. With Lesson, it runs at a specific point inside the course. A course also counts as complete when its last item is a manually graded assessment.
Note: The drip trigger lists only courses whose drip campaign unlocks content for each student, after purchase or after the first lesson. It also lists only the modules, chapters, and lessons that the campaign actually unlocks. Campaigns that unlock on fixed dates don’t appear in the list.
Next, you’ll pick what happens when the trigger runs.
Picking an Action
Below the content question, the What should happen? section offers 4 actions. Each product or piece of content can have one of each type:
- Apply email tag adds one or more tags to the student in your connected email service.
- Send webhook sends the student and event details to any URL, such as Zapier, Make, or your CRM.
- Start or stop an Ultimatum campaign runs a Thrive Ultimatum countdown for the student, or ends one that is running.
- Grant Apprentice access unlocks a different Apprentice product, for example your next course.
Apply email tag and Send webhook share one slot, so a product or piece of content can use only one of them. Grant Apprentice access isn’t offered on the revoked-access trigger. Actions you’ve already added for the same content show an Added label.
Next, click the action you want. In this example, we’ll pick Send webhook.
The preview line at the bottom of the screen sums up your choice. When it looks right, click Continue.
The next screen opens with a summary of your choices. To pick a different product or action, click Change next to it.
Below the summary, Thrive Apprentice shows the settings for the action you picked.
Configuring the Action
Each action has its own settings. Below, we cover each one in turn, so jump to the action you picked.
Applying an Email Tag
Tags let your email service start the right sequence for the student, such as a welcome series or a course-completion offer. First, choose your connected service under Email service provider, then pick the list.
In the Tags field, type a tag and press Enter or a comma to add it. Repeat this for each tag you need. Existing tags from your email service appear as suggestions while you type, and new tags are created when the action runs.
Your tags are now set. If the action card shows Connect an email service that supports tags, connect one first under Thrive Dashboard » API Connections.
Sending a Webhook
A webhook sends the student’s details to another app each time the trigger runs. Paste your endpoint into the Webhook URL field. It has to start with https://.
Below the URL, Request type and Request format default to POST and JSON. Most automation tools accept these, so change them only if your endpoint asks for something else.
The Fields list comes filled in with the student’s email and name, the product, the event, and the source. You can rename, remove, or add fields, and use the {·} button in a value to insert other details. If your endpoint asks for an API key or other header, turn on Custom headers and add it there.
Before you save, click Send test request to confirm your endpoint receives the data. A success message then shows the status code and response time. To see what your endpoint returned, click View response.
Once the test succeeds, your webhook is ready to save.
Starting or Stopping an Ultimatum Campaign
This action pairs a countdown with the event, for example a limited-time upsell when a student finishes a course. First, choose Start campaign or Stop campaign.
Start is preselected on most triggers, and Stop is preselected on the revoked-access trigger. You can switch either one. Next, select the campaign in the Ultimatum campaign dropdown, which lists the campaigns set up in Thrive Ultimatum.
Each time the automation runs, the countdown starts or stops for that student.
Granting Access to Another Product
This action is the “finish one course, unlock the next” pattern. In the Apprentice product to grant dropdown, select the product to unlock.
The product has to be different from the one that fired the trigger. Thrive Apprentice blocks the same product, since granting it would start the trigger again in a loop.
Adding a Delay or a Condition
Every action fires right away unless you add a delay or a condition. Both are optional. To find them, click Advanced settings below the action’s settings.
A delay is useful when the action works better later, such as a follow-up offer a few days after a student enrolls. Turn on Time delay, enter a number, and choose the unit, from minutes to months after the event.
A condition limits the action to events that match a value. Turn on Add a condition, then pick a field, an operator, and a value. For the access triggers, the fields are Student email, Student ID, Source, Product name, and Product ID.
The operators are equals, does not equal, and contains. Matching ignores capitalization and extra spaces at the start or end. Thrive Apprentice checks the condition when the event happens, so a delayed action that fails its condition is never scheduled.
The preview line at the bottom of the screen updates with your delay and condition, so it always shows what the automation will do.
Saving and Managing Automations
When the preview reads the way you want, click Save & activate.
The automation starts running right away and appears on the trigger’s page. Automations are grouped by product for the access triggers and by course for the completion and drip triggers. Each group shows how many of its automations are active.
Each automation row has 3 icon buttons. Hover over an icon to see its name:
- Edit reopens the setup screen so you can change the content, action, delay, or condition.
- Disable pauses the automation without deleting it. The button then reads Enable, so you can turn it back on later.
- Remove deletes the automation after you confirm. An undo option stays on screen for 5 seconds.
Disabling, editing, or removing an automation also cancels any delayed actions still waiting to run. To add another action for the same product or course, use Add another for this product (or course) in that group’s header. When a group already has every action type it can take, the header says so instead.
Checking the Activity Log
The Activity Log shows every time an automation ran, so you can confirm it works or find out why it didn’t. On the trigger’s page, click All logs.
Each entry shows the student, the event, the action, and one of 4 outcomes:
- Scheduled means the action is waiting for its delay to pass.
- Fired means the action ran.
- Skipped means the action didn’t run, for example because its condition wasn’t met or the automation was removed before a delayed action fired.
- Failed means the action ran into an error. To see the reason, click the entry. Reasons include a webhook URL that couldn’t be reached.
You can filter the log by outcome, by product or course, or search by student email or name. Entries for an automation you removed stay in the log, marked (removed). Failed actions aren’t retried automatically, so after you fix the cause, apply the missed step for that student by hand. The log keeps the last 100 entries per automation and trims older ones automatically.
Connecting Other Plugins and Apps
Triggers cover the most common course automations. Thrive Automator is being retired, so for other plugins and apps, use Uncanny Automator, our automation plugin. It also works with Thrive Apprentice.
For moving from Thrive Automator, see Transitioning from Thrive Automator to Uncanny Automator.
That’s it! You now know how to set up Triggers in Thrive Apprentice and check that they run. Next, see How to Get Started with Drip Content in Thrive Apprentice to set up the drip campaigns the drip trigger works with.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below, we’ve answered some of the most common questions about Triggers in Thrive Apprentice.
Does a trigger run when I grant access to a student manually?
Yes. The access triggers run the same way however the student got access. That includes a manual grant from the admin, a purchase, a form, a webhook, or the API.
Why don’t I see my course in the drip trigger’s course list?
The drip trigger lists only courses whose drip campaign unlocks content for each student, after purchase or after the first lesson. A campaign that unlocks content on fixed dates for everyone doesn’t appear. If you change or remove the drip schedule after saving an automation, its content shows (no longer scheduled) when you edit it. Pick a module, chapter, or lesson that is still scheduled before you save it again.
Why can’t I pick the Apply email tag action?
The card is locked until an email service that supports tags is connected in Thrive Dashboard. It also shows as taken when the same content already has a Send webhook action, because the two share one slot.
What happens to delayed actions if I disable an automation?
They’re cancelled. Disabling, editing, or removing an automation cancels any actions still waiting for their delay, and a disabled automation doesn’t run.
Does a completion trigger run again if a student retakes a course?
No. Each automation runs at most once per student for the same course, module, or lesson, even if the student’s progress is reset.