A large number of training organisations want to sell their services to multiple smaller training organisations, schools, corporations etc. They want to setup a space on their LMS where these organisations (tenants) can access the training material and manage their users.
The Enterprise size organisations also need a similar setup where they can setup various departments as sub-organisaions or tenants to the main (master) LMS.
Wouldn’t it be easier if we had a Learning Management System that could do out of the box and address the following concerns:
Master LMS administrator is able to create a tenant and specify the url that they can use to access the LMS
Master LMS administrator is able to define credits (number of users that the newly created tenant can enrol into pre-defined courses)
A tenant can have their own unique URL, which is a sub-domian of the primary LMS.
A tenant can have their own branded login page
A tenant can manage their own users
A tenant can be assigned a set of courses which they can access but, are unable to edit.
A tenant can enrol their users into the courses that have been assigned to them by the master LMS administrator
A tenant can create new courses in their LMS and enrol as many users as they want
A tenant can configure and control their own LMS
A tenant can view all the reports for their users and courses on the LMS
Master LMS administrator can login to each tenant and view reports at a granular level
Unfortunately, Moodle does not offer this feature out-of-box. There were discussions about adding this feature in Moodle 2.2, which was later cancelled.
The good news is, we at Lingel Learning have been busy building a custom Learning Management System called Virtual Slate, which addresses all the above mentioned requirements and a lot more. Virtual Slate is built on top of Moodle and covers all the default features of Moodle, which means you get all the goodness of Moodle and much more in terms of features and enhancements. You can read all about Virtual Slate and its features here. If you need further information on the Virtual Slate multi-tenant solution, please feel free to give us a call at 1300 553 345 or contact us here.
Every now and then you come across a situation where you wish that you had taken a backup of your course in Moodle before you started making changes to the content or settings. If you are not careful while making changes, you might end up losing:
Student grades
Completion status
Course / Activity completion dates etc.
So to make sure you do not lose any data, you should take a backup of the course before you start making changes.
Moodle can be backed up in a number of different ways. It is important that whoever performs your Moodle backup knows what they are doing. You can use the following backups methods to perform backups for your Moodle installation:
Course Backup
Moodle allows you to backup individual courses as and when you need them and you can automate that too using the automated backup functionality. If you need to backup a single course in Moodle and or move a course from one Moodle site to another then a course backup is the easiest way to do it. Any user with editing rights can backup a course along with the user data and grades.
To perform a course backup, follow the steps below:
Navigate to a course you wish to backup
Under Course administration click Backup
You will be prompted to select what you want to include in the backup or just keep the default settings and click Next or Jump to Final Step to move all the steps and perform the backup
Please note: Course Logs and Grade History can be included in the backup, but are not selected by default. You can also Anonymize user information.
On the Schema settings – Select/deselect specific items to include in backup, then click the Next
Review the backup settings and click Previous if wish to make a change, otherwise click the Perform backup
Click the Continue
Course Backup (Automated)
To setup automated backups, follow the steps below:
On the following page you need to set the following:
Active: Set this to “Enabled” to enable the automated backups
Schedule: Select the days that you want to run the backup. Backups can consume quite a few resources so you can set them to run on specific days.
Execute at: As mentioned above, backups need system resources, so you can schedule them to run on a specific time when the server is not that busy.
Automated backups storage: By default the backups are stored in Moodledata directory but, you can use this setting to change it to another directory on the server or use both.
Save to: If you decide to store the backups somewhere else too, use this setting to define the directory where you want the backups to be stored to.
Delete backups older than: This is similar to the setting above.
Minimum number of backup kept: If backups older than a specified number of days are deleted, it can happen that an inactive course ends up with no backup. To prevent this, a minimum number of backups kept should be specified.
Use course name in backup filename: You should use this if you want the course name as part of the backup filename.
Skip hidden courses: Do you want to skip hidden courses during the backup.
Skip courses not modified since: You can choose to skip the course if it hasn’t been modified for a certain time period.
Skip courses not modified since previous backup: You can also skip the courses that have been not been modified since your last backup.
Once setup, the administrator will get an email each night (depending on the schedule set above) after the backup is complete.
Site Backup
If you need to backup your entire Moodle site, then a site backup allows a site administrator to save everything associated with a Moodle site. These backups can be restored to bring a site back to the point in time when the backup was made.
You should always perform regular backups to safeguard against data lost information in the event of problem with your site and to speed the overall recovery process.
The following three items need to perform a complete site backup:
Database
Uploaded files (Files uploaded via Moodle in the moodledata directory)
Moodle code (Everything in server/htdocs/moodle)
If you are unsure where to find these items are located in your Moodle installation by checking the config.php file.
We see poorly managed and implemented Learning Management System’s on a regular basis, whether it’s installing a corrupt plugin or changes to Moodle’s core code can result in a sluggish, error prone environment, frustrated users and poor user adoption.
How do you check if your Moodle LMS needs a health check?
Check Installed Plugins
You should always be mindful of installing too many plugins on your production site as it does affect the performance. Another issue is that you might have installed plugins in the past that were not brought forward with major upgrades done in the past. You can go to the plugin overview page as described below and look for the following:
To check your active plugins navigate to Site Administration > Plugins > Plugins overview
Review all the installed plugins in your LMS and see if they are being used and are still available
Only install thoroughly tested plugins
Check Filters
Too many filters can also slow down the site as they run through the content before it is displayed on the site.
To check your filters navigate to Site Administration > Filters > Manage Filters
Review all the installed filters in your LMS and see if they are actually needed.
Check your Moodle version
Moodle releases both minor and major updates in a regular support cycle.
To check what version your Moodle is navigate to Site Administration > Notifications
We recommend you should always implement minor updates (security patch and incremental updates); however with major version upgrades we recommend you wait six months after its released prior to upgrading.
Enable Debugging Messages
This can be used to display information regarding any underlying problem. This also helps in determining if all the plugins follow the standard Moodle coding guidelines.
To turn debugging on navigate to Site administration > Development > Debugging
Check “Display debug messages”
It will then start displaying debugging info on top of each screen
Moodle’s Core Code
Moodle allows you to customise it’s core code; however this may lead to problems in the future when it comes to minor and major upgrades. When working with a vendor, make sure you understand the changes they are making to your Moodle. If they intend on making changes to your Moodle core code, make sure it’s fully documented.
We recommend that you start by talking to your vendor and ask them if they have made any changes to your Moodle’s core.
What’s included in a Lingel Learning LMS Health Check:
Want to create courses using Moodle and sell them using an actual e-commerce application?
If you are reading this then you either use Moodle already, or are planning to use Moodle to create courses and then sell them online; but, you aren’t sure where to start. If you have previously used Moodle then you know that it already has a paypal plugin built in that allows the existing users to purchase a course using paypal. The issue here is that people can only purchase your courses after they have registered for your moodle site and only then, purchase one course at a time. This is not the most pleasing e-commerce experience for your customers/users. Wouldn’t it be great if you had an application that worked with what you already have (Moodle) and gave you the freedom to use a shopping cart to sell those courses the right way?
Lingel Learning introduces enrolmart, an advanced ecommerce application (shopping cart) that allows you to sell online courses, face to face sessions, shippable and downloadable products, subscriptions and more, all from one application. You can create courses in Moodle or enrolmart and sync them across to the other platform with one click. You can create voucher codes for your corporate customers who can then provide those codes to their employees, who can purchase the courses free or at a discounted rate. Whether you already use Moodle or are planning to use it in the future, whether you host Moodle with us or you don’t, you can still use enrolmart with all the features listed above and many more.
enrolmart seamlessly integrates with Moodle and allows you to start selling courses and much more in almost no time at all.
enrolmart seamlessly integrates with your website so users can purchase products, courses, webinars and face to face sessions. When a user purchases a course, they are instantly enrolled into the course and then emailed login credentials. enrolmart works with any Moodle LMS, no matter who you host with! Find out more
If you want to set up paid courses, you can enable PayPal enrolment method. The PayPal enrolment plugin has to be enabled by the site administrator and then either administrator or manager can add the payment method to the course.
Let us take you through a step by step procedure on how to enable paid enrollment on a course in Moodle.
Course settings for PayPal
1) Go to your course and then click Settings > Course Administration > Users > Enrolment methods
2) If you do not find PayPal enrolment method in the list, you can choose PayPal from “Add Method” drop down list.
3) When you choose PayPal from the dropdown list, you will be directed to PayPal course settings page where you can configure the following information.
Define a name “Custom Instance Name”
Choose “Yes” for Allow PayPal enrolments
Enter the cost of your course in “Enrol cost” filed.
Choose an appropriate currency from the “Currency” List
Select Student for the “Assign role”. If you have any special reason for allowing other users to enroll, you can choose other options.
Enter the enrolment duration, start date and end date. These fields are optional.
Click the “Add Method” button and save your changes.
4) Now you have enabled the payment method of “PayPal” to your course.
Admin Settings
If you do not have the ‘PayPal’ option in the ‘Add method’ dropdown list, you need to enable the plugin for ‘PayPal’ paid enrollment method.
1) Go to Settings > Site Administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enroll plugins
2) Enable ‘PayPal’ plugin by clicking the ‘eye’ symbol
3) After you have enable the ‘PayPal’ plugin, Click the ‘Settings’ link, it will then direct to the PayPal settings page where you can configure the following information:
Enter the email of your Business PayPal account.
Choose the notify options for students, teachers or admin
Select Enrolment expiration action
You can choose to allow the PayPal enrolment plugin by default in new courses by selecting ‘Yes’ option.
Enter a default cost value and currency
Choose a default role assignment (e,g. student)
Given a default enrolment period
Finally click the ‘Save Changes’ button to save and complete the PayPal’ enrolment plugin.
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