Overall there’s not much in the external training module that can communicate requirements and documentation needs.  Off the top of my head, I would probably build some forms in a tool like Cognito Forms that would allow you to provide some narrative about requirements and deadlines as well as a place to upload any required documents.  On that form I would probably have an approval field that only an admin could mark, and then set up workflow automation (webhook to a tool like Make) to enter the external training into the student’s transcript (via API) once that approval has been granted.

you can create your “Authorized” institutions and courses that you allow to be tracked in the app so when users are ready to track external training, they need to choose from the list of institutions and courses only. I that what you need?