Sometimes you may want to have a plugin that works in both a WordPress and Moodle environments. I had a requirement for a plugin that implemented the client for a payment gateway API. In WordPress I needed this as a plugin to enhance WooCommerce for reconciling bank transfer payments against orders. In Moodle I needed […]
Continue readingreconcile direct bank transfer for low cost online payments for schools
I have implemented a low cost e-commerce payment system for educational institutions in India using Virtual Accounts. Educational institutions need to be able to collect payments from users for tuition and other such services. Typically, payment gateways charge a hefty commission for payment by card, of the order of 2%. A payment by a direct […]
Continue readingPlugin for Moodle or WordPress Installed as Symlink to local repository
Sometimes it is convenient to install a plugin for Moodle or WordPress using a repository. Installing a plugin is as simple as copying the directory to the plugins directory. However if we want it to be a local repository then we can clone a remote. For example, to install the lti plugin in our WordPress […]
Continue readingAdding Chemistry editor to Atto
It is very easy to add a chemistry editor plugin to the Atto editor. There are 2 apects to this: Adding the capability to render chemical equations An editor capable of making this rendering accessible to user without remembering intricate syntax The 1st item is easily taken care of by enabling additional capabilities of the […]
Continue readingTravails of upgrading my server from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS
I just finished upgrading my server from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS and wanted to record the fun I had doing it. My server is hosted on Digital Ocean and hosts a WordPress multi-site installation as well as my Nagios monitoring server. So, the 1st question was, do I do a do-release-upgrade from the […]
Continue readingGetting xdebug to work with Netbeans using WampServer
I plan to use Netbeans IDE for my Moodle and WordPress PHP development. Netbeans is free, works on WAMP and is highly rated. Installation of WampServer is a bit tricky as you must absolutely follow the installation instructions to get it to work. Installation of Netbeans is straightforward. My environment is as follows: Windows 10 […]
Continue readingCustomization example of Moodle database activity: Implement a Leave Management System
Introduction The Moodle database activity module is extremely versatile. I have implemented an e-book library, an application form, a simple employee management system (acting as a simple HR module to keep track of employee documents and leave management), etc. All of these use stock Moodle code and just need some JavaScript templating. I wanted to […]
Continue readingMoodle parent portal: Searching for and optionally messaging parents of given set of children
I have described in a previous post how to implement a basic parent portal in Moodle. In this post I will show a very convenient way to search for list parents of a given set of children. This is not easy to do using standard Moodle but very easy using the plugin Configurable reports and […]
Continue readingMoodle parent portal implementation
Moodle does not offer a parent portal. This maybe necessary in K-12 schools where confidential communications with the parents maybe required on a separate channel form the normal one that the student also has access to. There is a backdoor way to implementing a Moodle parent portal. This consists of several steps as outlined in […]
Continue readingProvisioning o365 accounts using Google SAML App and assign licences using power shell
The final piece of our puzzle is provisioning of Office 365 Education (o365) automatically. To recap, we started out by using Moodle as the directory reference, modified Moodle plugin called Configurable Reports to synchronize Moodle user accounts to our LDAP server, and used Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) to provision Google accounts from our LDAP […]
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