How to build a learning management system in Bubble

A practical way to build a learning management system (LMS) in Bubble is to set up a clean database for Courses, Lessons, Enrollments, and Progress, then build pages where instructors create content and students view it. Use Bubble’s Privacy Rules to protect data, backend workflows to automate enrollments and progress tracking, and conditional logic on pages to show the right lesson at the right time.

Core Database Structure

You only need a few core data types to make a working LMS:

• Course: title, description, list of Lessons, creator (User)
• Lesson: title, video URL (or file), text content, Course
• Enrollment: user, course, completed\_lessons (list of Lessons)

This structure makes it easy to track each student’s progress without duplicating data.

Enrollment Flow

Create a button like “Start Course”. Its workflow creates an Enrollment entry:

// Backend Workflow: create-enrollment
Create a new Enrollment:
  user = Current User
  course = This Course
  completed_lessons = empty

Using a backend workflow prevents fast double‑click duplicates and is more scalable.

Displaying Lessons

On the Course page, add a Repeating Group showing Lessons filtered by “Course = Current Page Course”. When a student clicks a lesson, send that Lesson as the page thing to a Lesson page.

On the Lesson page, add a button “Mark as completed”. That button triggers:

Make changes to Enrollment:
  completed_lessons add Current Lesson

Progress Tracking

You can show progress with a simple percentage:

• total lessons = Course’s Lessons:count
• completed = Enrollment’s completed\_lessons:count

Use a progress bar element with dynamic % = completed / total \* 100.

Privacy Rules

In Enrollment privacy, allow a user to see only entries where “user = Current User”. This prevents one student from seeing another’s progress. In Course and Lesson types, allow everyone to view but only the creator to modify.

Optional: Paid Courses

Use the Stripe plugin (Bubble’s built‑in) to create a checkout session. On success, run a backend workflow to create the Enrollment automatically. Store “is\_paid = yes/no” on the Course to conditionally show the purchase button.

Optional: Drip Lessons

Add a field “unlock_after_days” on Lesson. In the Lesson page workflow, block access if:

• Current date/time < Enrollment’s created date + unlock_after_days

This uses Bubble’s date arithmetic feature, which works well for LMS drip content.