This guide is for course providers who advertise courses through Cademy and want customers to book through another website, form or booking system. External Bookings changes the destination of eligible booking buttons. It does not connect the two systems or publish a course.
Before you start
You need System Admin access, the staff role with full account access, or Course Owner access to this course. A Course Owner manages assigned courses or course dates. Facilitator access alone does not allow this setting to be edited.
Your account must include External Bookings. Pro, Teams and Enterprise plans include this feature. Your account’s access determines whether its controls are available. For plan information, see Understand Cademy Plans, Limits and Fees. If the section is visible but disabled, ask your System Admin or Cademy Support to check feature access.
Use a complete web address beginning with
https://, with no more than 2,000 characters. Arrange for the external system to handle bookings, payments, customer messages and available places.
The Booking Options card used below is shown for On set dates and Blended course. It is not shown for On-request or On-demand online course. For either of those types, contact Cademy Support with the course and the setting you need checked. Do not change the course type to reach this setting. Having a plan with External Bookings does not make a missing Booking Options card appear.
Before editing: Review any other unsaved changes to the course. Save can include those changes, and moving between sections inside an existing course editor automatically attempts to save unsaved edits. Switching from external bookings to Cademy and back clears the entered external address. Keep the intended address separately before switching modes.
Send bookings to your external website
Select the external website option to show the External Booking URL field.
Use these steps for an On set dates or Blended course with accessible Booking Options. If you cannot find Edit Course, ask your System Admin to check your role and access to this course. If Booking Options is missing, use the course-type guidance above.
Open Cademy Admin in the intended course provider account. Select Courses and open the course.
Select Edit Course. Open Settings, then select Booking Options.
Under External Bookings, the choices are Handle bookings on Cademy, then Handle bookings on an external website. Select the second choice. The External Booking URL field appears.
Enter your full external address. Do not prefill the reserved
cademy_fields described below. Keep the other booking settings unless you intend to change them.Select Save. Check for Course saved and resolve any errors shown. A valid address alone does not guarantee that all course changes can be saved.
Reload the editor, return to Settings > Booking Options and check that the external option and intended URL are still shown. If they did not remain, note the error and contact Cademy Support before sharing the link.
There is one external URL per course, and the setting stays on that course until you change it. Repeat the setup for each course that needs an external destination. To change an existing URL, use the same route, edit the field, Save, then reload and check it again.
Before sharing, arrange a controlled link check with the person responsible for the external website. Saving checks the URL format, not whether that website or its booking form works.
After saving and reloading, use Open in new tab beside Share at the top of the course editor. This control appears for a published course. If the course is unpublished, leave publication as a separate decision and ask your System Admin or Cademy Support how to arrange the customer-page check.
On the customer page, select the booking action you want to check. An available main Book, Buy, Enrol or Apply action, or an enabled request action, should open your intended external destination in a new tab. A general button does not select a course date; the external page must let the customer choose one when a date is needed.
If you use individual date bookings, select an available date’s booking action and ask the external website owner to confirm that it receives and uses that date’s information.
Open each website page where you display an embed or a WordPress course listing and check the particular action there too. Use the display and availability differences below when a button is absent or has another destination.
The page the customer was viewing should remain open. If the destination is wrong, note the course, website page and exact action, then contact Cademy Support. Stop at checking the destination; plan any form submission, booking or payment separately with the external website owner.
What customers see
After the setting is saved, the supported booking actions described below open the external website in a new tab, subject to the account-access and availability conditions in this guide. The page the customer was viewing remains open. Course publication and visibility still depend on the course’s separate settings. Displayed prices, dates, delivery details and places continue to come from Cademy; external bookings do not update them automatically.
On the full course page, eligible actions include the main Book, Buy, Enrol or Apply button, a specific date’s booking action, and enabled Request Group Booking and Request a Date buttons. If both request buttons appear, Group comes before Date. Custom wording can replace the main booking label.
A saved external destination can also be used by On-request and On-demand online course booking buttons when the feature is available. This does not provide a setup route for those types: contact Cademy Support to check the course if its Booking Options card is missing.
Important: For an action that redirects, External Bookings takes priority over Instantly, Manually or Via Application. The external system must collect and manage the booking, request or application. Selecting that action does not first complete a Cademy form.
A custom Booking Button label changes the main action’s wording, including on the Feature Card, an embed showing a single course as a card on another website. It does not change the destination. The separate Request Group Booking, Request a Date, sold-out and waitlist labels are unchanged. The linked Rename Course Buttons and Forum Names guide covers the separate label-setting task.
Course cards, embeds and WordPress
The date-click option is shown under Options for a Dates List.
Your minisite is the public website Cademy provides for your business. The full-course-page guidance applies on your minisite and to a course page reached through the marketplace. An embed is a Cademy course display placed on another website. External booking actions are also used in the Full Course Page, Feature Card and Price Card embeds, date-booking displays, and course pages and listings produced by Cademy for WordPress (see Publish Cademy Courses on a WordPress Website).
A System Admin does this part, because only a System Admin can open Apps. To configure the date-click option for a course list:
Open Apps → Cademy Embeds and choose Multiple Courses.
Under Layout, choose Dates List or Date Cards.
Under Options, select Open checkout when a customer clicks a date. Grid, Rows and Calendar do not show that checkbox.
Before taking replacement code, set Content to the intended All Published Courses or A Collection; for A Collection, choose the collection. Match the other choices used by your existing display too.
Give the revised code from Get Code to the person who manages your website, then check the installed display.
This configures the embed you are building; it does not change code already installed on your website. The builder does not load the settings of your installed code. Full embed installation is a separate task: see Embed Courses or Forms on Your Website.
For a course-list date to go directly to booking, Open checkout when a customer clicks a date must be enabled and the item must represent a specific date. An available date can then use the external URL. A sold-out date uses the Cademy waitlist when enabled; without a waitlist it opens course details instead. Without the date-click option, the date link opens course details.
Check the particular display you use. The Feature Card does not apply the same spaces and membership checks as the full course page. For On set dates and Blended course, it shows only View when its course information has no future dates. That future-date requirement does not apply to On-request or On-demand online course. View opens course details. Do not rely on every embed to enforce the same booking restrictions.
Course lists and cards use separately refreshed course information. WordPress also has its own cached pages. A saved change does not guarantee every displayed link changes immediately. If an old destination remains after reloading, give Cademy Support the course, the page address and the specific button or date involved.
Actions and states that do not redirect
Contact Us still opens Cademy’s Send a message form. Join Waitlist still uses the Cademy waitlist. Viewing course details or accessing an existing learner course is separate from starting an external booking.
On the full course page, the standard booking controls handle availability as follows:
With no upcoming bookable dates, an On set dates or Blended course has no main Book action. If enabled, a course-level Join Waitlist button and the request buttons can still appear. The request buttons can redirect externally.
When upcoming dates exist but all are sold out, the main action becomes Join Waitlist if enabled, otherwise Sold Out. Enabled request buttons can still appear and redirect externally.
For a sold-out date, Join Waitlist is shown when allowed. Without a waitlist, that date’s booking action is unavailable.
For an on-demand course requiring a membership the visitor does not have, the main purchase or enrolment action is unavailable.
These full-page examples do not describe every embed. Keep the Feature Card distinction above in mind when choosing a display, and manage the actual places and eligibility in the external system.
What is not recorded in Cademy
An Order is a purchase record; a Registration records a person’s place on a course. External Bookings only supplies a link. Completing the external form does not, through this setting alone:
create a Cademy Order, Registration, request or application;
collect or record a payment in Cademy, or reduce its displayed available spaces;
send Cademy booking confirmations or reminders;
record attendance or completion, or issue a certificate;
add the external booking or payment to Cademy’s booking, revenue or conversion reports.
The feature does not provide a Cademy report of external booking clicks or completed external registrations. Website analytics and separately configured integrations are separate. Cademy adds only the cademy_ fields described below to your address. It does not add the visitor’s cookie choice, an analytics ID or campaign (UTM) values, which a link from an embed to Cademy checkout can carry. The external website uses its own consent setup. See Manage Cookie Consent for Website Embeds and Track Course Bookings with Analytics. Arrange external tracking with the person responsible for that website; do not assume a Cademy checkout purchase event records an external sale.
Important: Agree who will manage bookings, customer communication, payments and capacity in the external system. If you also need records in Cademy, arrange that separately. Import Bookings and Orders explains how to bring bookings into Cademy from a spreadsheet. Enabling External Bookings does not perform an import or set up ongoing synchronisation.
Use course and date information in your external system
Cademy adds query parameters, named pieces of information in the link, for your external website to read. The provider and course address names are the identifying text used in their Cademy web addresses.
cademy_educator: the provider’s address name, set on each valid external booking link.cademy_course: the course’s address name, set on each valid external booking link.cademy_occurrence: the course date’s unique ID, added when the action supplies a specific date.cademy_start: that date’s start time in UTC, added when a start time is supplied. UTC is the common time reference rather than the visitor’s local time.
A general course or request button does not select a date. The date fields are therefore conditional. For example, the main course Book button does not identify which session the customer wants; a specific date’s booking action supplies that date’s context.
Other query parameters already in your URL are kept. Cademy replaces the provider and course fields, but replaces the date fields only when their context is supplied. Do not manually prefill any reserved cademy_ fields: prefilled date values can otherwise remain on a link with no selected date.
Ask your website or form provider to configure how the destination reads and uses these values. Their presence does not automatically prefill a form or create a booking. These fields do not supply customer details or distinguish a group request from a date request.
Return a course to Cademy booking
For an On set dates or Blended course with accessible Booking Options, use the steps below. Review other unsaved course changes first. If the card is absent or its controls are disabled, contact Cademy Support to check the saved setting and available next step.
In Cademy Admin, select Courses, open the intended course and select Edit Course.
Open Settings, then Booking Options. Under External Bookings, select Handle bookings on Cademy.
Select Save and resolve any errors. Reload, return to Settings > Booking Options and confirm that Handle bookings on Cademy remains selected.
Eligible actions then use the course’s configured Cademy booking or request flow. The other booking settings remain in place, so this does not mean every action takes an immediate payment. It does not import external bookings or rewrite previously shared checkout links. Switching External Bookings on or off does not change Orders or Registrations already in Cademy. Use the customer-link checking steps above again: the selected action should now open its configured Cademy flow. Check the displays you use because lists, cards and WordPress pages do not all refresh together.
Frequently asked questions
Why will my External Booking URL not save?
Use a nonblank, valid address beginning with https://, no longer than 2,000 characters. http:// is not accepted. Check other course errors too: Save includes the pending course changes. After resolving them, Save, reload and check the stored URL in Booking Options. If the controls are missing or disabled, contact Support.
Why am I still seeing Cademy checkout after turning External Bookings on?
For an On set dates or Blended course, reload Settings > Booking Options and check the external option and URL. Check the exact button: Contact Us and Join Waitlist do not use it, and full-page availability rules still apply. Compare the main course page with the particular card or embed because they can refresh separately. For a missing setting or a persistent destination mismatch, give Support the course, page address and action.
Why can I not see Edit Course or change External Bookings?
Missing Edit Course requires a role and course-access check by your System Admin. Missing Booking Options is a different issue: it is not shown for On-request or On-demand online course, so ask Support to check the course. Visible but disabled External Bookings controls require an account feature-access check.
Can different dates use different external websites?
No. There is one external URL per course. A specific date’s booking action can add date information for the external website to use. Other actions have no selected date, so do not prefill the reserved date parameters or assume every link includes them.
Can I change the main booking button text?
Yes, when your account includes Custom Labels. The Booking Button label affects the main action, including the Feature Card. The separate Request Group Booking, Request a Date, sold-out and waitlist labels keep their wording. See Rename Course Buttons and Forum Names for that separate task.
Can I see external booking clicks or completed registrations in Cademy reports?
No, this feature does not provide those records or reports. Use the external website’s reporting and separately arrange any records needed in Cademy. Website analytics or integrations you configure separately are not established by enabling External Bookings.
Does Via Application still create a Cademy application?
No, an eligible Apply action that redirects externally does not complete a Cademy application. The external system must handle it. Contact Us remains Cademy’s separate message form.
Why does an old link still open Cademy checkout?
The setting changes supported booking actions; it does not rewrite links already copied from checkout. Replace a previously shared checkout link with the intended course page or external address after checking the destination. An old link is not proof the current course setting failed.
Why is the customer still seeing Join Waitlist?
Waitlists stay in Cademy. On the full course page, Join Waitlist can appear for a sold-out date or at course level when there are no upcoming bookable dates or all upcoming dates are sold out, if waitlists are enabled. External Bookings does not turn those waitlist actions into external bookings.
What happens if the account changes to a plan without External Bookings?
The saved URL is retained. Once the full course page’s feature-access check reflects the change, its eligible actions use the configured Cademy flow instead. Search-based cards and embeds do not use that same access check, so a plan change alone does not guarantee their external links stop working. Waiting for an ordinary refresh is not a reliable way to remove those links. Contact Support if a destination remains external or the disabled setting needs to be removed.
Can I still use Contact Us?
Yes. Contact Us opens Cademy’s Send a message form instead of the external booking website.