Documentation & Support Guides

Udemy Business - Improving lives through learning

Access Udemy’s learning engine and deliver professional development content across your networks and ecosystems through the scale of connectivity solutions and best version Apps, whichengage people with your online platforms and services, and Udemy learning services. 

Udemy Business features thousands of courses created and updated at the speed of market change (i.e., the Learning Engine).  From coding to business skills to personal development and much more, Udemy features high-quality, in-demand online courses that help individuals achieve their professional goals and business outcomes.

With a purpose-built integration to Udemy Business, your Services will offer users Search and Discovery of top rated Udemy Business courses (and learning paths) natively from your Platform, with the ability to launch to a dedicated Udemy Business site for the full course experience.  

Table of contents:

Use Case 1: Content Integration

Key benefits of Content Integrations:

Use Case 2: User Progress & Analytics

Key benefits of Tracking and Analytics:

Integration Timeline & Milestones

High Level Reference Architecture

A Udemy Business integration enables the following two core use cases: 

Use case 1: Content integration

Content integrations extend access to Udemy Business online learning (i.e., courses and learning paths) and amplifies your core online Service offerings.  With Udemy Business Content Integration, Partners can offer Searchable and Discoverable access to Udemy Business online courses and learning paths (structured learning goals) directly on Partner Native Web and/or Native Mobile Apps.  Your users will discover and engage curated Udemy content (or Learning Paths) in a familiar native experience.  Integrated Udemy Business content benefits users (and Partners) by offering a seamless engagement interface with Partner Site and Services.  The Content Integration is enabled via modern Web Services (i.e., APIs) that connect to a powerful online Learning Engine.  Udemy supports Partners through scope and design of the Content Integration Connector, including guidance on build, test, deployment and lifecycle management of the Connector in support of Partners native Web (or Mobile) App experience. 

Key benefits:

• Access the latest online learning content for professional and personal development directly from your Web and native mobile Apps
• Increase engagement with current content through seamless automatic syncing
• Navigate content easily with an intuitive search and discovery experience
• Monitor learning progress near real-time and support employee development
• Easy and secure access through single sign on (SSO) services
• Take learning into your Native Mobile and Mobile App for on on-the-go learning experience

Use case 2: User progress & analytics

Gain insight into your users learning needs by integrating Udemy Business learner data. By incorporating user course engagement, progress and completions into your analytics, you can continuously personalize and develop guided experiences acknowledging individual needs and key concepts (e.g., purpose-built learning paths).  Learning Analytics leverages a rich data set of user engagement signals, enabling our Partners to build composite learning patterns of their users across unique data sets to continuously improve user learning experience. 

Key benefits:

• Develop composite learning analytics to uncover key signals in the learning needs of your users
• Use learning insights to tailor Udemy Business content to your audience
• Amplify your Service Offerings with machine intilligence to identify the unique  needs and interests of your Users
• Continuously measure and develop a comprehensive learning experience that promotes a holistic learning experience and bundled Service

Built with Udemy Business Services and powerful Udemy Learning Engine, explore the Udemy Partner ecosystem 

Integration timeline & milestones

On average, we see Partners spend 4 weeks in the design, development and deployment of an API-based Connector in support of the above use cases.  Udemy Business dedicates a Partner Lead and Solution Engineer through the Connector development project to guide and advise Partners on best practices to optimize an integration with Udemy APIs.  

High level reference architecture

The basic components of the Integration are depicted below.  The data synchronization is powered by the Udemy Business APIs, and orchestrated by the Partner-built Connector.  Search and Discovery of Udemy courses and learning paths are enabled via the Connector directly on Partner native Web and Mobile Apps.  

With optional single sign-on, users are seamlessly connected to a Udemy Business site directly from Partners  learning platform. 

A quick-start guide for your integration

We want your integration to go live quickly, so we can both open up new markets for our mutual-customers. 

Udemy Business Integrations Page, pictured below

Prerequisite steps

• Legal agreements signed
• Udemy provisions environment for Udemy Business
• Udemy login invitation

If any of these items are missing, please refer to the (Getting Started Guide) to complete them first

Partner integration use cases: If you would like to review the high level use-cases that these integration steps support.  If not, let's move into development.

Development steps

Our recommended best practice is to mitigate technical risk, by connecting to all Udemy APIs first, and then begin software development after all endpoints are confirmed working.

• Connect to Courses API, return at least 10 courses
• Connect to Course API, return 1 course
• Log into your Udemy Business site and enroll in a course, watch a lecture for at least 1 minute (you can increase the speed of playback)
• Connect to Reporting API (user-activity)
• Connect to Reporting API (user-course-activity)
• Connect to Reporting API (learning-activity-attempt)
• Log into your Udemy Business site and create a Learning Path (documentation), open a course and add that course to the learning path you just created
• Connect to the Learning Path API, return the learning path you created

Configurations

With the majority of the APIs all working, you can move to configuration steps.

• Single Sign On (SSO) configuration is done directly inside the your Udemy Business Settings page.  You will need to have administrator credentials to access these settings.  Setup out-of-the-box SSO with one of our many providers.  Or create a custom connection with SAML 2.0.  (link to SSO documentation)
• OPTIONAL Setup xAPI - Udemy’s webhook for reporting data of the learner’s progress and completion events (documentation).  You will add parameters into the Udemy admin settings page.  Once setup, watch a short lecture at maximum playback speed and see if you received the progress data.

Core software development

With all of the Udemy credentials working, all APIs connected to, and additional configurations setup, the technical risk has been removed.  Most partners will next move to planning or head right into development.  One way to get started is to take a list of user stories or supported use-cases and map the Udemy APIs needed for each use-case.  Best of luck to your software engineering from here!  

Error handling, exceptions, and best practices

Harden your software by incorporating error handling, exceptions, and edge-cases.  To handle unexpected IT issues, we have a variety of error-handling recommendations.  

Udemy Business API Best Practices

• Log error responses returned by APIs
• Add re-try logic to API calls
• Handle rate limits by using page_size best practices
• Implement other best practices contained in the document

For additional support, feedback, or upon completion of your new integration, please contact us at partnersupport@udemy.com.  We are looking forward to opening new markets together with our new mutual functionality.

Udemy Business technology partners leverage Platform APIs to enable automatic syncing of the UB content collection and learner activity data into the partner platform. Integrations are available for mutual customers only. Ready to start building an integration with Udemy Business? Find documentation below to help you get started.

• API Reference
• API Best Practices
• Partner Integration Use Cases
• Integration Steps for Techonology Partners

The guide included below was created by Udemy as a best practice reference on supporting integration builds using Udemy Business’ APIs. We recommend following the tips in the guide to ensure the best experience for your end users. 

Udemy’s Sales & Solutions Engineering team is available to answer any questions that arise during the build process. 

Please note that the guide referenced and linked below is published in the Udemy Business Help Center.

• Udemy Business API Best Practices

Udemy Business (UB) provides three RESTful APIs - courses, learning paths, and reporting - that enable developers to programmatically retrieve their Udemy Business course catalog, public learning paths, and user progress activity data. You can use these three APIs to integrate with a third-party application such as a Learning Management System (LMS). 

Please note: 

• APIs are only available to Enterprise customers.
• Availability of these APIs does not automatically enable integration with an LMS/LXP.
• In order to consume the data with the LMS/LXP, a connector needs to be built using these APIs. If you're interested in learning more, please contact your Customer Success or LMS/LXP representative.
• API documentation is only available in English.
• In addition to the below documentation, please review our Udemy Business API Best Practices document for helpful information.

1. Udemy Business API Documentation - RESTful APIs

1. 1. Course API
   2. Learning paths API
   3. Reporting API

2. Udemy Business xAPI Documentation

1. 1. xAPI supports real-time reporting of learner progress and completions against courses.