Welcome to our FAQ guide! Here, we've put together a collection of commonly asked questions about Absorb LMS. Whether you're new to our services or a seasoned Admin, this guide is designed to provide you with clear and easy-to-understand answers to our most common support questions! Let's dive in and explore the answers you're looking for!

1. How do I access Absorb Academy?

Absorb Academy serves as a comprehensive Administrator training resource that caters to your instructional needs! Its purpose is to enhance overall admin user proficiency of the LMS software and give our clients the assurance they need to effectively harness our platform's capabilities. Absorb Academy has an array of offerings at your disposal: immerse yourself in Absorb Release Demos, navigate through Onboarding Guides, and partake in LMS Administrator trainings. Please reference the video below detailing how you may access Absorb Academy today!

2. How can I gain access to all of the files I've uploaded to the LMS?

At present, there are two avenues for accessing the file directory: the Old File Manager and the New File Manager. The Old File Manager is in play by default, whereas the New File Manager requires activation via toggle. Both interfaces present identical information, albeit with differing visual approaches. Notably, the New File Manager introduces advanced functionalities, including the ability to seamlessly replace an outdated file version with a new iteration across all instances in which it is employed.

Old File Manager:

New File Manager:

How to access the file managers:

3. Is there a report where I can pull the enrollment records for every user? 

The most comprehensive report offered as an Absorb default feature is the Export All Enrollment Data report. Opting to export all enrollment data results in the download of a CSV file that encompasses enrollment records for all active Users and Online Courses within the LMS, conveniently accessible in Excel format.

The Export All Enrollment Data report is extensive, often yielding thousands of entries. A convenient way to locate your desired information is by utilizing Excel's "Sort & Filter" feature. The video below demonstrates an example of how to apply this function to precisely filter enrollment records based on the following criteria:

• Course Name = Photography 101
• Department = Absorb
• Is Enrolled = Yes
• Status = Complete

4. How do I find all courses in a curriculum/bundle? How do I find all curricula/bundles containing a course?

To locate all Online Courses affiliated within a particular Curriculum/Bundle or to identify all curricula/bundles that include a specific Online Course, you may use the Refine button.

Here's an illustrative example of how you can locate all courses within the "Photography Bundle" Online Course Bundle and also determine the Curricula/Bundles to which the "Photography 101" Online Course is affiliated.

5. Why can't I see certain Users, or access greyed-out buttons in my Admin Interface?

The sections of the LMS accessible for viewing or modification by an Administrator are contingent upon the permissions assigned within the Admin's designated role. The scope of these permissions is determined by the User Management section, which defines the specific Group of individuals to whom these permissions are applicable.

Consider Helen Bateman as an example in the illustration below. As we navigate through her profile, it becomes evident that Helen's role is designated as Admin. Directly below, the label Permission Overview is displayed, providing an in-depth breakdown of various facets of the LMS and outlining what Helen, in her capacity as an Admin, has the ability to view or modify within each section.

Located just above the Roles segment is the User Management section. Within this category, you'll find three choices: All, Department, and Group. These configurations define the subset of Users that the Admin's Role Permissions will grant access to for management purposes.

6. I am getting an error when I try to upload my course as a learning object. Why?

If you receive an error message saying the following: "Sorry, something went wrong. If this problem persists, please contact your system administrator.", there could be a variety of factors contributing to this occurrence.

Below is a list of common issues to consider when troubleshooting 3rd party Learning Objects:

• Check the filename for any special characters and remove them. (i.e.: an apostrophe)

• Check that the file type you're trying to upload matches the file type you chose within Absorb.

  (EX: Attempting to upload a SCORM 1.2 file to the SCORM 2004 may prompt issues.)

• Make sure that the zipped folder takes you straight to the course contents and not to another nested zipped folder.

   

7. How can I set up an annual compliance training that automatically re-enrolls users upon certificate expiry?

1.  When configuring the initial Automatic Enrollment rules, ensure that they are targeting the correct group of current and future Users.
   • Consider the example below. The Automatic Enrollments are set so that any User listed within the "Client Success" Department, or is in a sub-department of the "Client Success" Department, will be automatically enrolled into this particular course.
     
2. Next, you'll need to activate the Certificates settings within an Online Course. Following this, you can either set a firm expiration date or utilize the Time from Completion option, which could result in the course or curriculum Certificate expiring one year after the User's completion.
   • For instance, in the video below, the Online Course has been configured to expire one year after an individual User finishes it. By activating the Allow Re-enrollment toggle and adjusting the setting to Time before certificate expires for one month, you will be presented with the choice to Re-enroll automatically. With these parameters in play, a User would complete the Online Course, which would then have the Certificate expire in a year. However, Users would be automatically re-enrolled one month before the expiration date.

 

8. How can I create a customized, unique experience for a specific department?

Department Templates provide you with the means to personalize the Learner Experience within the LMS for each individual Department. When you make edits to a Department Template, you can be confident that the modifications will exclusively affect Learners belonging to that particular Department. For example, the images below present two very different Learner Experiences, but they are part of the same LMS:

In the video below, we review how a new Department Template can be added:

Customizing which Online Courses or Curriculum will be visible in a specific Department Template's Course Catalog is done through the enrollment rules. Therefore, Online Courses can be published across Departments, even if they have different Templates, via the Self-Enrollment or Automatic Enrollment rules.

9. How can I reset or change a learner's status for a course or lesson?

You can reset a Learner's status for an Online Course or Lesson by navigating to the User's Transcript. You may access the User's Transcript directly either through the Users report or the Course Enrollments report specific to that Online Course.

10. How can I view, update, and make changes to a User's profile? Can I do this in mass?

Absorb LMS offers both singular and mass actions when using the Users report. These actions are showcased as follows:

To View User History

To access a User's History, you can select the User, click on Edit, and then select View History. This option enables you to review all modifications that have been made to the User's account.

To Mass Update Update User Profiles:

1. Consider the User Field(s) you intend to update for a substantial number of Users, along with the values you wish to assign to those fields. These fields can encompass either the default options within the LMS or Custom Fields established by System Administrators in Portal Settings.
   
2. Prepare a CSV spreadsheet comprising a roster of Users requiring bulk updates. Ensure the spreadsheet contains adequate information to establish connections with corresponding User accounts in the LMS. Incorporate columns for the fields necessitating updates, along with their freshly revised values. In the provided screenshot, the "Highest Degree" column serves as an illustrative field with newly intended values.
3. Please advise that the User Import feature can process mass changes to existing Users in different Departments. However, if you are importing new Users, separate them and the corresponding CSV files by their intended Department.
   
4. After you've identified the Users and fields slated for updates and crafted a CSV spreadsheet outlining the new field values, it's time to employ the User Import feature. This is where you'll proceed to upload the CSV file to Absorb LMS.

11. Why are my users not receiving emails? How can I tell if the email actually went out?

It is possible that your Users are not receiving emails for a few reasons. This section will work through a few potential causes of the concern, and showcase a method to confirm if an email was distributed.

Bcc Email Address

On the Portal Settings page of your LMS, there is a designated section labeled Bcc Email Address. By populating this field with an Email Address, all subsequent system-generated emails will be both recorded and forwarded to the Email Address of your choice. As the volume of emails can accumulate rapidly, it's recommended to establish a dedicated email solely for tracking purposes.

Message Templates

If Learners are reportedly not receiving emails, you may want to double check the Message Templates setting for the specific message that Users are not receiving. In the illustration below, we demonstrate how to navigate to the Message Template settings for Curriculum Enrollment notifications. If you want a Message Template to send, it must have the Send to Learner toggle turned on; additionally you may enable the Send to Administrators or Send to Supervisor toggle depending on your preferred audience.

If Send to Administrators is turned on but Send to Learner is not; the email will not be distributed. Send to Learner is required to be on for the Message Template to successfully distribute an email. This is because Email Addresses targeted by the Send to Administrator or Send to Supervisor toggles are treated as Bcc addresses for the email sent to the Learner. If the email is not sent to the Learner, an Admin or Supervisor will be unable to receive a copy of the email.

Course Email Settings

Another avenue you may want to check is within the actual Online Course settings themselves, housed within the Messages section. Examples of notification settings that you may want to ensure are toggled on are:

• Send enrollment email
• Send completion email
• Send nudge email
• Send failure email

Below is an illustration showcasing how you may access these settings and confirm that they are configured appropriately.

12. What is the difference between re-enrolling a user and un-enrolling a user?

After you've chosen a User from the Course Enrollments report, Administrators who possess the required permissions have the opportunity to select either Re-Enroll User or Un-Enroll User. Historical Enrollment records are impacted differently depending on which method is used. There are a few distinct differences to cover:

Re-Enroll User

When choosing to Re-enroll a User into a particular Online Course or Curriculum, this action will reset their Online Course and Lesson statuses. Any previous Enrollments will be pushed to the Historical Enrollments page for the purpose of recording data.

Un-Enroll User

When choosing to Un-enroll a User from a particular Online Course or Curriculum, this action will completely remove the User from the Enrollment records. Their Enrollment will not be stored within the Historical Enrollments page, and that data will be lost. This feature is commonly used when there is an accidental Enrollment that needs to be removed, rather than for Re-certification or Re-completion.

13. If I change the automatic enrollment rules on a published course, how will previously enrolled users be impacted?

All previous Enrollments will remain in place and Users will not be Un-enrolled or receive a notification of the change. New Users meeting the new Enrollment criteria will be Automatically Enrolled in the Online Course.

14. Why are courses I have created not appearing in the Course Catalog?

Online Courses not appearing within the Course Catalog could occur for a number of reasons. Below are a few troubleshooting tips and settings to check for!

1. Check that your Online Course is Active!

2. In the Enrollment Rules section of an Online Course or Curriculum, you'll find the Self-Enrollment option. This can be set to specific – allowing only a defined subset of Users to access it – or turned Off altogether. Remember, these Self-Enrollment settings directly impact what will appear in the Course Catalog.

3. Within the Manage Template section of the LMS, there's an option called Always Hide Enrolled Courses. When you toggle this ON, any Online Course a User has already enrolled in will be hidden from their view in the Catalog.

4. Within the Manage Template section of the LMS, you have the option to turn on Hide Courses outside Curricula. If you toggle this to ON, any Online Course that's part of a Curriculum won't appear in the Course Catalog. Instead, Learners will only see the Curriculum itself.

15. Why is the "Schedule Report" button greyed out?

The reason you often see the Schedule Report button grayed out is because it's necessary to Save a Custom Report Layout first before scheduling it. To get a clear picture of how to Save and schedule your reports, check out the video below! It'll walk you through the process.

 

 

The Absorb RESTful API has been designed to allow customized interactions with your LMS data, including learners, courses, departments, grades, etc. You can also use it to build specialized interfaces, unique reports, integrations, and so on. The use of the API will require technical web experience on your part, but this guide should serve as a jumping-off point for those interested.

Restful API v1.5 is a significant upgrade from v1, which is being sunset following the Absorb Q3 2023 release. We recommend that all clients onboard directly to the new version described below. RESTful API v1 clients must upgrade to take advantage of new features and capabilities.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

• Is there a limit to the number of users I can set up with API access? No, you can set up as many users as you wish. We recommend creating a user for each unique workflow that is in place.
• Does Absorb provide webhooks? Unfortunately, webhooks are not currently available with RESTful API.
• Is there pagination or limits for API calls? Some endpoints support pagination using the “_limit” and “_offset” parameters. The limit parameter determines how many records will be returned, and the offset parameter determines the page of results (starting with 0) to return. For endpoints that don't support pagination, a useful alternative is to use the ModifiedSince parameter, which is available for most of the larger API calls, to effectively paginate the data (i.e., first return all records modified since 2019-01-01, then 2020-01-01, etc.)
• Can I request a token or carry out API calls from another domain that's not Absorb? This is known as Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS). Absorb's RESTful API does not support CORS. What date formats are supported by Absorb's API? Any date fields will accept a 'plain' date in the yyyy-MM-dd format, e.g. "2021-01-21" or optionally yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fff, e.g. "2021-01-21T18:25:13.000".
• Does Absorb have an API call limit? Yes. The Absorb RESTful API uses a number of safeguards against bursts of incoming traffic to help maximize its stability and reliability. Consumers who send many requests in quick succession might see error responses that show up as status code 429 - Too Many Requests.
  • Requests to the API are limited to 200 calls per second.

 

What You'll Need to Get Started

RESTful Client

For this guide, we will use the Postman app for Chrome as our RESTful client. This article will cover everything you need to know to use with the Absorb LMS RESTful API, but you can visit Postman - Getting Started if you'd like to learn more about this app. While the workflow in this guide may not be step-by-step the exact same as in your software, the concepts discussed should be universal. 

Your API Private Key

If you are an Absorb LMS RESTful API customer, you will have been provided with an API private key that is tied to your LMS portal. This key is used to authenticate prior to any requests via the API. If you do not yet have a key, please contact us to discuss purchasing one. 

The Service Gateway

All RESTful API endpoints will need to go through the service gateway, meaning you’ll put the service gateway URL before all requests in your portal listed in the Swagger document.

Absorb offers region-specific access, which would align with the region where your portal is hosted.

• US – https://rest.myabsorb.com
• CA – https://rest.myabsorb.ca
• EU – https://rest.myabsorb.eu
• AU – https://rest.myabsorb.com.au

To connect to a sandbox environment, you must use one of these four additional endpoints.

Note: A sandbox environment must be created, not all portals contain an active sandbox.  

• US – https://rest.sandbox.myabsorb.com
• CA – https://rest.sandbox.myabsorb.ca
• EU – https://rest.sandbox.myabsorb.eu
• AU – https://rest.sandbox.myabsorb.com.au

Your Admin Credentials

Your LMS admin credentials will be used as part of the authentication process. Similar to the admin interface, your admin role will determine which areas of the LMS you are permitted to access through the API. 

Swagger Documentation

Your system admin will be able to access the Swagger documentation by adding “/v1_5-doc" to your portal domain after subscribing to our API service. The Swagger document contains general API information and lists the resources. Each resource has its own URL that defines the API operations on it. Meanwhile, the Swagger document describes a resource, including its API calls and models. There is one file per resource.

 

Generating an API Token

All requests to the LMS must include an API token as authentication. This token is generated using your API Private Key and your Absorb user account credentials and will be used to verify both client access to the API as well as a specific admin's access to certain LMS data (based on their admin roles set up in the LMS). 

Tokens are only valid for 4 hours after they have been generated or until the same username requests a token, whichever comes first. 

It is important to note that requesting an API token will invalidate any previous token that existed for that user. If you require multiple API workflows we recommend creating one admin user for each workflow to prevent workflows from invalidating each other's tokens. 

To generate a token you'll need to make a POST request to the following request URL:

.../authenticate 

1. Add the service gateway URL of your environment to the beginning of the above string. 
2. Change your request type to “POST”.
3. The POST will contain the authentication data in the body of the request. Before you can do this, you'll need to specify a content-type as a header in the request or from the content-type dropdown.
4. Enter "Content-Type" in the HEADER field and "application/json" in the VALUE field.
5. You will also need to include the “x-api-key" in the https header by adding “x-api-key" as the key in the header type and the value of it is the private API key.
   
6. While on the body tab in Postman click on the content-type dropdown and select JSON (application/json).
   
7. Enter your credentials and privateKey as they are shown below:
   
8. Click SEND.
9. Your API token will be returned in the body of the response below:
   

 

Making a GET Request

GET requests pull data from the LMS and display it in the body of the API response. For example, you could make a request to return a list of all enrollments for a particular user or return information on a particular resource.
In this example, we'll send a GET request to return all the information for a particular user. This request can be made to the following request URL:

.../users/{userId}

1. Add the service gateway URL of your environment to the beginning of the above string.
2. Change your request type to GET.
3. Add your API token as a header to authorize the request. In Postman you can enter this after clicking the HEADERS button in the top-right. Enter "Authorization" in the HEADER field and your API token in the VALUE field. 
   
4. You will also need to include the “x-api-key" in the https header by adding “x-api-key" as the key in the header type and the value of it is the private API key.
5. Fill in the Absorb userId for the user you are returning data for. This can be found in the Id column in Absorb's Users report, or alternatively returned via the API in other GET requests.
6. Click SEND.
7. A list of learner data will be returned in the body of the response:
   

 

Making a POST Request

POST requests add new data to the LMS and display a confirmation in the body of the API response. For example, you could add a new department or enroll a user in a course.
In this example, we'll send a POST request to add a new user to our LMS. This request can be made to the following request URL:

.../create-absorb-account

1. Add the service gateway URL of your environment to the beginning of the above string
2. Change your request type to POST
3. Add your API token as a header to authorize the request. In Postman you can enter this after clicking the HEADERS tab just below the address bar. Select "Authorization" in the KEY field and your API token in the VALUE field.
4. Similar to the authentication, select content-type for the KEY field and the Value to application/json.
5. You will also need to include the “x-api-key" in the https header by adding “x-api-key" as the key in the header type and the value of it is the private API key.
6. Please refer to our Swagger documentation for a full list of body parameters that can be sent with this request, but to create a new Absorb user we only need a handful of required parameters. The departmentId can be found in the ID column in Absorb's DEPARTMENTS report, or alternatively returned via the API in other GET requests. The rest of these parameters will be the data you are entering for this user.

   {
   "departmentId": "613048f5-87c9-442a-915e-edf63cf517b2",
   "firstName": "Sample First Name",
   "lastName": "Sample Last Name",
   "username": "Sample.user",
   "password": "Absorb2022!"
   } 

7. A confirmation will be returned in the body of the response containing the ID of the newly created user, as well as their username. You can verify that this user has been added by checking the USERS report in the admin interface.
   
   

These are some commonly seen HTTP status codes for the API calls:

HTTP Status Code	Description
200 OK	This means that the call was successful.
201 Created	This means a post to create a User, Online Course or etc., was successful.
401 Unauthorized	This means that the User has not been authorized, e.g., the Token is expired or invalid.
403 Forbidden	This means the User is authorized; however, the User does not have the correct permission to access the requested content in LMS.
422 Unprocessable Entity	The server understands the content type of the request entity, and the syntax of the request entity is correct, but it was unable to process the contained instructions
429 Too Many Requests	This means that the caller has exceeded the API rate limit and should slow its traffic.
500 Internal Server Error	This means that there is an error on our end; please contact support if you see this. Note: Please note that re-enrollment API Endpoints will not send enrollment emails.

 

How to Use Swagger Documentation for RESTful API

Our Swagger documentation lists every API request we currently have in our system, as well as detailed information on all request and response parameters. This page is divided up based on different areas of functionality. For example, all course related API requests are contained in the Courses section. In each section, you'll find a list of available request URLs as well as a description.

• You can find the list of the functional areas on the left navigation and each one of them has its own section.
  
• Each functional area has a list of the endpoints underneath it. Select the top-level section in the documentation and you will be presented with all related endpoints.
  
• Clicking each one of the endpoints directs you to the location of the endpoint in the page. The endpoint path and sample responses will display on the right side of the page
• The query parameters, header parameters, body schema and attributes needed are shown in the center of the page.

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Error Messages

Error messages for Restful API V1 endpoints will include a message so that you know what action is needed to resolve the problem. The following is an example of an error message:

 

Absorb's New Ideas Portal is Here!

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our new Absorb Ideas Portal. If you have a new feature request or enhancement idea, this new client portal is your way to submit those ideas directly to the Absorb Product Team.

Visit our new Absorb Ideas Portal to:

• Submit new feature/design requests to Absorb
• Engage directly with members of our Product team
• Discover and vote on ideas submitted by your peers
• Track the progress of your submitted ideas

We announced the launch of this new client portal at our Absorb Summit in September, and we've been overwhelmed with the response. 229 of your peers have already signed up and have added 264 ideas! To register and add your voice to the mix, click below.

Click Here to Visit the Absorb Ideas Portal

Want to know more about how to use the Absorb Ideas Portal? Click here to visit our FAQs page. We look forward to seeing you there!