Enrol a student myself - they paid elsewhere
Plenty of course businesses don’t sell on their own site: places are sold on a call, through a cart like ThriveCart, or given away to the right person. The missing piece was getting that student into the course afterwards. Now it’s one ask.
The prompt
“Enrol [their email address] on my [course name] course - they’ve paid through [how they paid]. Their name is [name].”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
The same step invites a reader to a document library, a client to a client hub or a colleague to a handbook.
How it works
- Say who and which course. “Enrol jane@example.com on Gentle Sleep Educator Level 3 - ThriveCart order 4471.” The order note is optional but future-you will thank you.
- bernard does what a checkout would. The enrolment is recorded - who, which course, enrolled by you, when - and the student receives the same welcome email as a paying buyer, carrying their personal magic sign-in link. No password, no account setup (Let learners in without accounts or passwords).
- Check the register any time. “Who’s enrolled on the Level 3 course?” lists everyone - how they joined, when, and whether their access is active.
If the student is already enrolled, bernard says so and returns their existing link rather than double-enrolling them or re-emailing. Give a name at the same time and bernard corrects the name on their enrolment, which is the name their certificate prints (Give learners a certificate when they finish my course).
Want to know what lands in their inbox before you enrol anyone? Ask to see it: bernard shows you the welcome email exactly as it sends, filled in with your own course and with nobody enrolled (See the welcome email my students get when I enrol them).
If the course has a deadline rule, a student you enrol by hand gets their deadline the same way a buyer does, and you can give them a date of their own or an extension later (Give my students a deadline to finish the course).
The same move is how you test a course before you ever sell it: enrol yourself, then walk the lessons exactly as a student will (Test my course as a student before I sell it).
Worth knowing: enrolling works on a draft course - handy while you’re setting up - but the student’s link only opens once the course is published.
If you sell through ThriveCart, the cart can now enrol each buyer for you: a purchase of the product you matched to a course enrols them exactly as above, welcome email and all (Enrol my ThriveCart buyers on my course automatically). Another cart or tool can do the same through Zapier (Let another tool add people to my contacts, tag them or enrol them).
Setting up a whole class at once? See Give lots of people access to my courses at once. Taking someone off a course? See Take a student off a course.
Questions people ask
- Can I add a student to my course without them buying through my site?
- Yes. Tell bernard the course and the student’s email and they’re enrolled on the spot: bernard records who enrolled them and why, and emails the student the same magic sign-in link a paying buyer would get. Nothing about the course itself changes, so there’s nothing to approve - but the course must be published before their link opens.
- What if I enrol someone who’s already on the course?
- Nothing duplicates and nothing re-sends. bernard notices the active enrolment and hands you their existing sign-in link instead - useful when a learner has simply lost it.
- Can I correct a student’s name after I’ve enrolled them?
- Yes. Tell bernard their full name, for example ‘Jane’s full name is Jane Smith’. bernard saves it on their enrolment and sends them nothing. The name matters most on a certificate: bernard never prints a single first name or an email address, so a learner with only one of those is skipped until their full name is saved.
- Is there a record of who I’ve enrolled?
- Yes - every enrolment is recorded with how it happened (bought on your site, enrolled by hand, imported), who granted it, when, and any note you added (an order reference from your cart, say). Ask ‘who’s enrolled on [course]?’ any time.
- Do hand-enrolled students show up with everyone else?
- Yes. They land in your contacts like any buyer and use the same passwordless sign-in. By default they get the course welcome and any course emails you’ve switched on; ask for a quiet enrolment and nothing is sent until you tell them.
- Can I enrol someone without emailing them?
- Yes - ask for it quietly. They get access but no email, and no course emails start. You can tell them later with one email listing all their courses.
- How do I take a student off a course?
- Ask Bernard to remove them. Their link stops working and nothing is sent to them.
- Can ThriveCart enrol my buyers without me?
- Yes. Connect ThriveCart once, match each ThriveCart product to a course, and every purchase enrols the buyer the same way you would by hand. You approve the setup before it is switched on.
- A student says the course page shows no ticks, though they have finished lessons. Why?
- Ticks come from the student’s saved progress, so they show on any phone or computer once the student is signed in - through the link in their welcome email or from their learner home. Until 11 October 2026 the course page ticked only the lessons finished in that same browser, so a student on a new device saw none. If a student still sees no ticks, publish your site once so the course page picks up the fix, then ask them to reload the page.