Guest access

The Guest access plugin allows users with the Guest role to view the contents of a course. This might be used, for example, if a Moodle site serves as a website where certain courses contain publicly available information, or else with a commercial Moodle site where courses with guest access can offers a "taster" of the kind of courses which may be purchased. (Note that the guest cannot participate in any activities; they can only view content.)

Course settings for guest access

1. With the Boost theme, from the navigation drawer on the left, click 'Participant's, and then from the gear menu on the right, click 'Enrolment method> Guest access'. With other themes, click Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methodsand then Guest access.
2. Enable guest access by clicking on the "eye" icon or by choosing it in the 'Add method' dropdown menu.
3. If you wish to set a password, then click the configure icon and type in your password here.

Setting password from Enrolment methods page

Admin settings for guest access

• In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins,ensure Guest access is enabled (has its eye open.) This enables Guest access.
• In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Manage authentication set the Guest login button to Show if you want the button on the Front page.
• Also Guest accounts can be logged - check the Administration> Site administration > Server > Cleanup > Log guest access setting
• A site policy for guests may be set in Site administration > Security > Site policies. Guests then have to agree to the site policy before accessing a course with guest access.

Default settings for guest access

• Clicking on Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Guest access brings up the screen where admin can set defaults for guest access in courses.
  • Clicking the 'Advanced' button next to 'Allow guest access' will hide this setting in a course and will instead display a 'Show more' link to click on to access the setting.
  • Guest access can be turned on by default in all new courses and you can also:
  • require each course with guest access to have a password for guests. (Note: this can confuse teachers who are not aware of the requirement.)
  • use or ignore your Moodle's standard password policy for guest access passwords
  • offer if needed the first letter of the password as a hint.

Auto-login guests

• In Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > User policies, you can tick the box so that visitors are automatically logged in as guests when accessing a course with guest access (i.e. they don't have to click the "login as guest button".
• In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Authentication > Manage Authentication, you must have "Guest login button" set to "Show".
• In Administration > Site administration > Security > Site policies you can check "Open to Google" setting so that the Google search robot will be allowed to enter your site as a Guest. In addition, people coming in to your site via a Google search will automatically be logged in as a Guest.

See also

• Guest role
• Re: Guest access to course sections! forum post
• Tracker discussion 'Auto-login guests not working' MDLSITE-4903