The Thought Industries integration helps you bring learning content from Thought Industries into Gradual so members can discover it alongside the rest of your community content.
With this integration, you can:
Sync Thought Industries courses into Gradual as external content
Choose which course types to import
Control who can access synced content
Decide whether synced content is published immediately or saved as pending
Keep synced content updated automatically
Award Gradual contributions when a learner completes a mapped Thought Industries course
Award Gradual contributions when a learner earns a mapped Thought Industries certificate
Before you begin
Before setting up the integration, make sure you have:
Your Thought Industries instance URL
A valid Thought Industries API token
Your Thought Industries Notification Secret Key if you want to award contributions for course completions or certificates
Dashboard admin access in Gradual
Set up the Thought Industries integration
To connect Thought Industries to Gradual:
In the admin dashboard, go to Integrations
Find Thought Industries
Click Set Up
In the configuration window, enter your Instance URL
Enter your API Token
If you plan to award contributions for course completions or certificates, enter your Notification Secret Key
Click Connect
Gradual verifies the connection before showing the rest of the setup options.
If the connection cannot be completed, you will see this message: Unable to connect to Thought Industries. Please check your instance URL and API token.
If the Notification Secret Key is invalid, you will see this message: Invalid secret key. Please try again.
Configure course sync settings
After the connection is successful, choose how Thought Industries courses should sync into Gradual.
Default cover image
Upload a default cover image for synced content.
If a course in Thought Industries includes its own image, Gradual uses that image. If it does not, Gradual uses the default cover image you upload here.
Access settings
Choose who can view synced content in Gradual:
Public — visitors can view the content without logging in
All Members — only logged-in members can view the content
Selected Spaces Only — only members in selected spaces can view the content
Default status
Choose the default status for newly synced content:
Published
Pending
Use Pending if you want to review synced content before it appears in your community.
Course types to sync
Choose which Thought Industries course types Gradual should import:
All Course Types
Selected Types Only
If you choose Selected Types Only, you can select the course types you want to include.
Visibility in the content list
Choose how synced content appears in your content list:
Follow the default setting
Always show in the content list
Always hide from the content list
Configure contribution mappings
After the connection is successful, you can also map Thought Industries learning activity to Gradual contributions.
Gradual supports two mapping types:
Course completion to contributions
Use this section to award a Gradual contribution when a learner completes a mapped Thought Industries course.
Click Connect to enable this section. If your Notification Secret Key has not been validated yet, Gradual will ask you to enter it before continuing.
Once connected, add one or more mappings:
Select a Thought Industries course
Select the Gradual custom contribution that should be awarded
Click Add a mapping to create additional rows
Use the remove option on any row to delete a mapping
Thought Industries courses are loaded from your Thought Industries account. Gradual contributions must already exist in Gradual before they can be mapped.
Course certificate to contributions
Use this section to award a Gradual contribution when a learner earns a certificate for a mapped Thought Industries course.
Click Connect to enable this section. If your Notification Secret Key has not been validated yet, Gradual will ask you to enter it before continuing.
Once connected, add one or more mappings:
Select a Thought Industries course
Select the Gradual custom contribution that should be awarded
Click Add a mapping to create additional rows
Use the remove option on any row to delete a mapping
A single contribution can be awarded from multiple mapped courses or certificates. A single course or certificate can also award more than one contribution.
If a contribution is awarded through this integration, the Contribution Logs page shows Thought Industries in the Logged by column.
Information imported from Thought Industries
When Gradual syncs a Thought Industries course, it imports:
Title
Description
URL slug
Gradual uses this information to create an external content item in your community.
What happens during the first sync
When setup is complete, Gradual runs the initial sync and imports all published Thought Industries content that matches your selected course types.
For each synced course, Gradual creates an external content item with:
Title from Thought Industries
External Link built from your Thought Industries instance URL and the course URL slug
Summary from the Thought Industries description
Cover Image from the Thought Industries course image, or your default cover image if no course image is available
Access based on your selected sync settings
Published Time based on the sync time
The item is added to Gradual using the default status you selected during setup.
Automatic updates
After the initial sync, Gradual syncs with Thought Industries every 24 hours.
The integration card also shows the most recent sync time.
If a course is removed or unpublished in Thought Industries, the matching external content in Gradual is archived and removed from member-facing areas and the dashboard.
Manage synced content in Gradual
After a course has been synced, you can continue updating parts of the content item in Gradual.
You can edit:
Summary
Visibility in Content List
Cover Image
Access
Status
Tags
Published Time
You cannot edit:
Title
External Link
This keeps core course information aligned with Thought Industries while still giving you control over how the content appears in Gradual.
View synced items in the External Content list
Synced Thought Industries items appear in the External Content list.
In the Source column, these items are labeled Thought Industries, making them easy to identify.
Disconnect the integration
If you disconnect Thought Industries, Gradual asks what should happen to your synced content.
You can choose one of the following options:
Archive synced articles — archives the synced items and removes them from the dashboard and member-facing areas
Keep synced articles — keeps the synced items in place
Contribution mappings for course completions and certificates can also be disconnected separately from the menu in each section. Disconnecting one of these sections stops future contribution awards from that section only. Contributions that were already awarded are not removed.
If you reconnect Thought Industries later, Gradual can match previously synced items and continue updating them.
Best practices
To keep your integration organized:
Upload a default cover image before your first sync
Review your access settings before publishing synced content
Use Pending if you want to review items before they go live
Use Selected Types Only if you only want part of your Thought Industries catalog to appear in Gradual
Create your custom contributions in Gradual before setting up course completion or certificate mappings
Example
A customer education team uses Thought Industries to host certification courses and uses Gradual as their community platform.
With this integration, they can bring those courses into Gradual as external content, make them discoverable in search, apply the right access settings for members, review synced items before publishing them, and automatically award contributions when learners complete key courses or earn certificates.