Moodle app guide for admins: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:43, 30 July 2017

Enable mobile services on your site

Your site needs to have mobile access enabled so users can use the mobile app.

For sites using https, mobile access is enabled by default in new installations of Moodle 3.0 onwards.

For http sites, mobile access can be enabled by an administrator as follows:

In Administration > Site administration > Mobile app > Mobile settings tick the 'Enable web services for mobile devices' checkbox
Click the button to save changes.

If your site uses a SSL certificate it must be a trusted certificate. For security reasons the app doesn't work with self-signed certificates.

Please, verify that your certificate is valid via: https://www.geocerts.com/ssl_checker (you shouldn't see any warning).

If your site has the /login directory protected (frequently done when using the Shibboleth authentication method), you must enable access to the login/token.php script.

If your sites uses a SSO method (CAS, Shibboleth, LDAP SSO, OAuth...) you must install and configure the Moodle Mobile additional features plugin. For Moodle 3.2 you can configure this without any additional plugins via the Mobile authentication settings.

Customise your app theme

The app can also retrieve your custom styles from your Moodle site. Since the app is a HTML5 app, you can safely apply any CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 style.

Go to Administration > Site administration > Mobile app > Mobile appearance and enter in the mobilecssurl field a valid URL pointing to a CSS file containing your custom styles. For example: https://mymoodlesite.com/theme/mytheme/style/mymobileapp.css

The CSS should be placed inside your Moodle installation (in your custom theme or inside a local plugin).

Once the user is logged in the app, remote CSS files for applying your custom styles are regularly retrieved.

Notice that on the first time a user opens the app, he will see the default "orange" style. Your custom styles will be applied once the user has added a site in the app.

For further information, see the dev docs Moodle Mobile Themes.

If you want your own custom branding for your organization, Moodle offers the The Branded Moodle Mobile app service, please visit https://moodle.com/mobileapp/ for more information.

Moodle Mobile additional features plugin for old Moodle sites

For old Moodle sites it is recommended to install the Moodle Mobile additional features plugin.

Notifications

You might find them annoying but push notifications keeps you and your users informed and updated on everything about the app. Moodle only send useful and important notifications such as new features or service disruptions.

Enabling push notifications is easy! An administrator can enable it by connecting their Moodle site/s to our free Notifications server available (only) for registered Moodle sites.

An access key can be obtained via Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Message outputs > Mobile Notifications.

The full guide on enabling push notifications can be found here: Mobile app notifications

Smart app banners

A smart app banner on your Moodle site/s (when viewed in iOS only) lets your users know that there is a mobile app for this site and they can download it to access their learning environments on mobile devices.

This saves you time and resources to communicate that there is Moodle Mobile App available to your users.

To enable smart banners, please complete the following within your Moodle site: Administration > Site administration > Mobile app > appearance'

Configuring the app from your site

In Moodle 3.3 or with the Moodle Mobile additional features plugin you can easily:

Disable app functionalities for your site. If there's a feature you don't want to make available via the app you can disable it here.
Rename app text strings. In this link there is a list of the current app identifiers.
Add new items in the app's main menu (the side menu).
Replace the Change site option to "Log out" so that users must enter their credentials on their next access. This is useful for custom mobile apps, as there is no reason for users wanting to switch to a different site.

For accessing those settings:

In Moodle 3.3 go to Site administration > Mobile features
In sites with the Moodle Mobile additional features plugin installed, go to Site administration > Plugins > Local plugins > Mobile additional features

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 The app can also retrieve your custom styles from your Moodle site. Since the app is a HTML5 app, you can safely apply any CSS, CSS2 and CSS3 style.
-Go to ''Administration > Site administration > Mobile app > appearance'' and enter in the mobilecssurl field a valid URL pointing to a CSS file containing your custom styles.
+Go to ''Administration > Site administration > Mobile app > Mobile appearance'' and enter in the mobilecssurl field a valid URL pointing to a CSS file containing your custom styles.
+'''For example:''' ''https://mymoodlesite.com/theme/mytheme/style/mymobileapp.css''
 The CSS should be placed inside your Moodle installation (in your custom theme or inside a local plugin).

Documentation