Event reminders

Introduction

The Calendar Reminders plugin creates reminders for Moodle calendar events and sends them automatically to relevant users in a timely manner via Moodle messaging interface. This is a local plugin controlled by the site administrator.

Features

• Reminders can have customised delivery times/methods according to event types.
• Users can control how they receive calendar reminders in their messaging preferences.
• Reminders are automatically sent (as long as the system Cron process is set up).

Installation

1. Fetch the plug-in from following location Reminders and download the latest version from the repository.
2. Go to the 'local' directory inside Moodle root directory.
3. Go to the 'local' directory inside Moodle root directory.
4. Extract the downloaded zip file inside to this folder. After it is extracted, there should be a "reminders" folder in the local folder with a structure as shown in the project developer documentation.
5. Log into the Moodle site as the admin user. Usually the new plugin will be identified and notified you when logged-in. If not, go to Settings > Site administration > Notifications to detect and automatically install the local plug-in.
6. Now you can change the plug-in specific settings via Settings > Site Administration > Plugins > Local plugins > Reminders.

Settings

1. Enabled: This options allows to disable sending reminders temporarily without uninstalling the plugin. If not enabled, the cron cycles will be skipped.
2. Filter calendar events: Indicates how the calendar events should be selected before check them for sending reminders. There are three options.

1. All events: Filter all events without any constraints.
2. Only visible events in calendar: Filters only events that are set as visible in calendar by user. Ignores all hidden events.
3. Only hidden events in calendar: Filters only events that are not set as visible in calendar. Ignores all visible events.

1. Send before: There are 5 event types, namely, Site, Course, Activity, User and Group events. For each event type it has provided options to setup when reminders should be sent before the actual moment of event happens. Provided options are, 7 days, 3 days and 1 day.
2. Activity reminders: In Moodle for a activity there can be two events some times (one to indicate start of the event and other to mark end of the event). There are three options.

1. For both openings and closings: Reminders will be sent for both opening and closing due dates of the event.
2. Only for activity openings: Reminders will be sent only when activity is opening. Reminder will not be sent at closing of the activity.
3. Only for activity closings: Reminders will be sent only when activity is closing. Reminder will not be sent at opening of the activity.

Screenshots

Configuration page

Sample e-mail reminder

Tips and tricks

• If you want to change the cron frequency of reminders plugin, open version.php file in the reminders directory and change the value corresponding to $plugin->cron. That value must be in seconds and it is the interval between two cron cycles.

Acknowledgements

• Mentors: Michael de Raadt and Rossiani Wijaya
• Special thanks goes to following people for providing language packs
  • Luiggi Sansonetti who translated the plugin into French language.
  • Guido Roessling for providing a German translation for this plugin.
  • Jun Nakamura who translated the plugin into Japanese Language. This will be included in my upcoming versions.

Bugs and Improvements

• Please report bugs and improvements on the Tracker using the Local: Calendar Reminders component.

See also

• Download location from plugin repository, Local Reminders
• CONTRIB-3647 Automating Email reminders for calendar events project in Tracker.
• Plugin development Repository
• Forum post Local Plugin - Email Reminders for Calendar Events
• RSS Feed from Personal Blog, RSS Feed.