ELIS User profile fields

ELIS custom user profile fields are created from custom Moodle profile fields. To create user profile fields in ELIS:

1. Go to the Program Management block > Admin > Custom fields.
   
2. Go to the User tab, custom fields should open on the user tab by default.
3. Choose which Moodle user profile field you will use to create the ELIS profile field.

After choosing the Moodle field (step 3 of image above), an edit screen opens for the ELIS user profile field. There are 3 sections to the edit screen:

1. Common settings:

• Name - The name is usually shown to general users, it does not have to be unique.
  
• Shortname - The shortname must use the Moodle profile field shortname or any synchronization between the fields will be broken.
  
• Category - Select a category. In the example I added an additional category, User Fields, that isn't shown in the first image.
  
• Description - Add a description for the field.
  
• Data type
• Long text - Long text is an information field, with HTML.
• Short text - Short text is a single line of text, without HTML.
• Integer - Integer is a number without decimals - for example "1".
• Decimal number - Decimal this is a number with decimals - for example "1.1".
• Boolean - this is a "Yes/No" choice radio button.
• Should the data be unique?
• Multivalued
• Default value

2. Manual editing:

• Allow viewing/editing? - Some fields might be entirely hidden, and only for reporting purposes. If this field is meant to be visible by any user, select "Allow viewing/editing".
• Is this field required? - If the field is required on the context (program, track, course, class, user set, or user creation/editing tab) then check "Is this field required".
• Who can edit this field? - Select the Show more link to edit this setting. With the the "Who can edit this field" dropdown menu, you can select which users can edit the values of the field - these are users who are in a role in the context with the described permission. For example, if you create a Program Administrator role, and one of the permissions given to that role is permission to edit programs, then any user in that role in the current programs can edit the values of the field. This setting enables site administrators to finely tune who can edit which fields.
• Who can view this field? - Select the Show more link to edit this setting. Similarly, the "Who can view this field" menu controls which users can view the values in the field.
• Input control type - Next, we set what type of input the field will have (text, checkbox, etc.).
• Source for menu options - Select the Show more link to edit this setting. Enter the source for the menu options. The options are listed in the following bullet points. The first two options are included with each field, the other options are an additional option with some types of custom fields, e.g., class fields.
  • Manually entered list (below) - this option is referring to the menu option list shown by #7 in the image.
  • Moodle themes - this needs more testing.
• Menu options - For inputs with multiple options (like a drop down menu) you can specify the options here by typing the options with each option on it's own line.
• Columns/Rows/Maximum length - For text inputs you can control the size of the text input fields.

3. Moodle Synchronization: There are 3 selections for Moodle synchronization:

• No synchronization - The profile fields will not share information in this instance, they will have to be updated separately.
• Copy values to Moodle - The associated profile field in Moodle will use the values assigned to the ELIS profile field.
• Use values from Moodle - The ELIS profile field will use the values assigned to the Moodle profile field. This example is set to use values from Moodle. Any updates made to the profile field in Moodle will automatically update this ELIS profile field.

Select the Save changes button and the profile field is created ELIS.

The profile field we created is set to synchronize with a Moodle profile field. If that synchronization is broken, an asterisk will be displayed to the right of the ELIS profile field referring to a warning message, as shown in the next image. I changed the shortname of the Moodle profile field to demonstrate this next image.

The short name fields in Moodle and ELIS need to match for the profile data to be synchronized. The short name fields will always start the same because ELIS copies the profile field information from Moodle. The name field is not used for syncing information so that can be changed once the ELIS profile field is created.