Reminders that go out without anyone sending them
Email rules watch for learners who never started, stalled halfway, stopped signing in or are close to a deadline. Course events post to Slack or Teams, and webhooks keep your other systems up to date.
At a glance
- Behavior-based email rules
- Templates in your brand
- Slack and Microsoft Teams
- Signed webhooks
- In-app and push
Most LMS admins we meet keep a spreadsheet of who is overdue and send reminders from their own inbox on a Friday afternoon. It works until the list gets long or the person who owns it goes on leave.
LMS Advisor runs a set of email automation rules every hour. Each rule looks for one situation, such as enrolled but never started, or a certificate that expires in 30 days, and sends a branded email from a template you control. Alongside the email rules, course events can post to Slack or Microsoft Teams channels, appear as in-app notifications, and fire signed webhooks to your HR, CRM or data tools.
Where training admin eats the week
Chasing by hand
Pulling an overdue report and emailing each person takes a morning every week, and the reminders still go out late.
Certificates that lapse quietly
An expired forklift or first-aid certificate usually turns up at audit time, not a month before it runs out.
Managers hear last
Completions and failed quizzes stay inside the LMS, while the people who care about them spend their day in Slack or Teams.
Other systems out of step
HR and CRM records still say someone is untrained because nothing told them the course was finished.
Three audiences, three channels
Automation in LMS Advisor is split by audience: email rules for learners, channel alerts for the team, and webhooks for your other software.
Behavior-based email rules
No Progress, Stuck Mid-Course, No Login and Certificate Expiring, each with its own day threshold and email template.
Templates in your brand
Write subject and body with placeholders like {{student_name}} and {{course_url}}. Emails carry your logo, brand color, an unsubscribe link and your postal address.
Slack and Microsoft Teams
Post enrollments, completions, quiz passes and fails, certificates and new registrations to a channel, for every course or just one.
Signed webhooks
Send enrollment and completion events as JSON to your endpoint, signed with HMAC-SHA256, with a delivery log and a test button.
In-app and push
Course completions and new webinars land in the learner’s notification bell, and on their devices through Firebase push if you connect it.
Rule analytics
See sent and failed counts, open and click rates per rule, and run every rule on demand to check what it would send.
How the rules, templates and webhooks behave
The starter rules
A new install ships with six rules, all switched off until you enable them: a no-progress nudge after 3 days, deadline warnings at 7 days and 1 day, a stuck-mid-course nudge after 7 days, a 14-day re-engagement email and a 30-day certificate expiry reminder. Rename them, change the day counts, swap templates and turn on what you need. A cron job checks active rules hourly, and Run Now tests them on demand.
- No Progress: enrolled at least N days ago and still at 0 percent.
- Stuck Mid-Course: started, then no lesson activity for N days. The email can name the course instructor and include their address.
- No Login / Re-engagement: no sign-in for N days. The email can say how many courses are still open.
- Certificate Expiring: a certificate expires in N days.
Nudge rules send once per learner and enrollment, certificate reminders once per certificate cycle (so a renewed certificate qualifies again next time), and anyone who has unsubscribed is skipped.
Writing the emails
Templates use double-brace placeholders such as {{student_name}}, {{course_title}}, {{course_url}}, {{days_stuck}}, {{deadline_date}}, {{expiry_date}} and {{instructor_name}}. The layout adds your logo, brand color, an unsubscribe link and the postal address from your compliance settings. Send yourself a test before switching a rule on. If you enable the optional AI Email Writer, each rule email is personalized from the learner’s progress using your chosen AI provider, and your template is used whenever the AI call fails.
Transactional mail runs through the same system: enrollment confirmations, completion and certificate emails, quiz results, exam invitations and verification codes. It leaves through your SMTP provider via a queue that retries a failed send up to three times.
Slack and Teams
Under Integrations, add a Slack or Microsoft Teams incoming-webhook URL, tick the events you want and optionally limit it to one course. Slack messages list the learner, course, quiz and score with a View Course button, and Teams receives an Adaptive Card with the same facts. Each integration has a test button and its own log.
Webhooks for your own systems
Webhooks send enrollment and course completion events as JSON with an X-LMS-Signature header, an HMAC-SHA256 of the body made with the webhook’s secret, so the receiver can prove the message came from you. Secrets can be rotated. Every delivery is logged with response code, duration and response body. A hook that fails five times in a row stops firing until a successful test delivery resets it.
See Automation & Notifications in a live demo
We will show it with your own scenario, answer the security questions and send a written quote after the call.
Setting up your first reminders
Connect your mail server
Enter SMTP details in Settings and send a test email, so you know delivery works before any rule runs.
Rewrite the templates
Put the nudge templates in your own voice and keep the placeholders you need.
Switch on the starter rules
Adjust day thresholds, enable the rules you want and press Run Now to check the result.
Add channel alerts
Connect a Slack or Teams incoming webhook for events managers care about, like certificates issued.
Wire up your systems
Create a webhook for enrollment and completion, verify the signature on your side, and watch the delivery log.
What teams automate first
Assigned compliance training
Enrollment due dates drive a warning a week out and another the day before, with no report to pull.
Certification renewals
People whose certificates are about to expire get a reminder 30 days ahead, once per certificate cycle, with a link back to the course.
Onboarding cohorts
New starters who haven’t opened their first course after three days get a friendly nudge, and the team channel sees each completion.
HR and CRM updates
A completion webhook updates the employee or customer record in your own system, so training status matches everywhere.
What you stop doing by hand
- Overdue and inactive learners contacted without a weekly spreadsheet
- Certificate renewals raised before they lapse, not at audit
- Managers see completions and failed quizzes where they already work
- Other systems updated from signed, logged events
- Every automated email carries your branding and a working unsubscribe link