Using Open edX Events in the LMS service

Live example

For a complete and detailed example you can see the openedx-events-2-zapier plugin. This is a fully functional plugin that connects to STUDENT_REGISTRATION_COMPLETED and COURSE_ENROLLMENT_CREATED and sends the relevant information to zapier.com using a webhook.

Let’s see it working!

Setup your environment

This tutorial assumes you’re using Tutor > 13.x and its default services are already provisioned.

Installation

For this tutorial to work, you’ll need a openedx image with the following package installed:

• openedx-events-2-zapier

You can use your preferred method for installing new packages in Tutor.

Configuration

The package we just installed is a Django plugin, which adds additional configurations to our working environment thanks to the extension mechanisms put in place. Now, signal receivers are listening to the registration and enrollment events sent within the LMS service.

The following is the implementation for the signal receiver listening for the event STUDENT_REGISTRATION_COMPLETED:

# File openedx_events_2_zapier/receivers.py
class OpenedxEventsSamplesConfig(AppConfig):
"""
Configuration for the openedx_events_2_zapier Django application.
"""

name = "openedx_events_2_zapier"

plugin_app = {
    "settings_config": {},
    "signals_config": {
        "lms.djangoapp": {
            "relative_path": "receivers",
            "receivers": [
                {
                    "receiver_func_name": "send_user_data_to_webhook",
                    "signal_path": "openedx_events.learning.signals.STUDENT_REGISTRATION_COMPLETED",
                },
            ],
        }
    },
}

# File openedx_events_2_zapier/receivers.py
def send_user_data_to_webhook(user, **kwargs):
    """
    POST user's data after STUDENT_REGISTRATION_COMPLETED event is sent.

    The data sent to the webhook is, for example:

    'user_id': 39,
    'user_is_active': True,
    'user_pii_username': 'test',
    'user_pii_email': 'test@example.com',
    'user_pii_name': 'test',
    'event_metadata_id': UUID('b1be2fac-1af1-11ec-bdf4-0242ac12000b'),
    'event_metadata_event_type': 'org.openedx.learning.student.registration.completed.v1',
    'event_metadata_minorversion': 0,
    'event_metadata_source': 'openedx/lms/web',
    'event_metadata_sourcehost': 'lms.devstack.edx',
    'event_metadata_time': datetime.datetime(2021, 9, 21, 15, 36, 31, 311506),
    'event_metadata_sourcelib': [0, 6, 0]

    This format is convenient for Zapier to read.
    """
    user_info = asdict(user)
    event_metadata = asdict(kwargs.get("metadata"))
    zapier_payload = {
        "user": user_info,
        "event_metadata": event_metadata,
    }
    # WARNING: The receiver function implemented in this tutorial was intended to be lightweight, just to
    #  serve as an example for events' receivers. However, in production, you must use asynchronous tasks
    #  to avoid creating bottlenecks if you wish for others to use your implementation.
    requests.post(
        settings.ZAPIER_REGISTRATION_WEBHOOK,
        flatten_dict(zapier_payload),
    )

Those receivers work out of the box after the plugin installation. Now, we must set the plugin settings which indicate where to send the events data. For this, go to env/apps/openedx/settings/development.py and add your Zapier configuration:

ZAPIER_REGISTRATION_WEBHOOK = "https://hooks.zapier.com/hooks/catch/<account>/<webhook>/"
ZAPIER_ENROLLMENT_WEBHOOK = "https://hooks.zapier.com/hooks/catch/<account>/<webhook>/"

Getting data from Zapier

Now that you have configured both receivers, you’ll need to trigger the events so you receive the events data in Zapier. Try it out!

Warning

The receiver function implemented in this tutorial was intended to be lightweight, just to serve as an example for events’ receivers. However, in production settings, we encourage the use of asynchronous tasks to avoid creating bottlenecks.