Remote Learner Adobe Connect Pro Module

The Remote Learner Adobe Connect Pro activity module provides the officially sponsored integration method between Moodle and Adobe Connect Pro. It was developed in conjunction with the Remote-Learner development team and Adobe Inc. It is designed to simplify the use of synchronous events within Moodle. It provides a single sign on between the two systems with easy event creation and management.

Features

The module allows users to create Adobe Connect Pro meetings by adding an activity instance and providing the meeting name, url (optional), start time, end time, meeting template and a public or private meeting setting.

There is also support for Moodle groups so that users who are only a part of a group can join meetings that are only for their Moodle group.

Any user who creates or joins a meeting will have their account created on the Adobe Connect server (if one doesn't exist) and they will be signed in automatically using HTTP header authentication. So as long as the user is logged into Moodle they will never have to enter in user credentials to get access to an Adobe Connect meeting. Note: If you have an Acrobat Connect Pro hosted account, the single sign-on or external authentication will not work

This module creates 3 roles: Adobe Connect Host, Presenter and Participant in Moodle to reflect the roles on the Adobe Connect server. Users can be assigned these roles through Moodle and they will have the corresponding roles on the Adobe Connect server when they join.

The activity module will also display meeting recordings (if there are any) that are available.

This activity module has been tested with an Adobe Connect Pro 7 server (ACP) and an Adobe Connect Pro 8 server (ACP) installation.

ACP Server Installation additional notes

Please follow the instructions that came with your ACP server install
After the installation of the server, Enable HTTP header authentication. Refer to Adobe Connect Web Services and scroll to Login and requests -> Log in from an application -> Log in using HTTP header authentication; Follow the steps outlined in the section titled if your application uses only the XML API. Only perform the steps that require you to modify your web.xml file. Ignore the rest.
- There is a bug in the original web services documentation for ACP. Follow Steps 2 and 3 from this document HTTP Header Modification.
  - Record the value you used on Step 3 because it is required in the activity module's global settings page. Refer to section Activity Module Installation for more details
After making these changes restart your ACP server

Here is a snippet of the web.xml. This is meant as a visual aid to compare with your Adobe Connect Pro server settings. The settings below are the settings that have been tested and work with the activity module (default location c:\breeze\appserv\conf\WEB-INF\web.xml)

 <filter>
   <filter-name>NtlmAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>
   <filter-class>com.macromedia.airspeed.servlet.filter.NtlmAuthenticationFilter</filter-class>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-0</param-name>
     <param-value>/api/</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-1</param-name>
     <param-value>/common/</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-2</param-name>
     <param-value>/servlet/gateway</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-3</param-name>
     <param-value>/servlet/mirror</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-4</param-name>
     <param-value>/servlet/testbuilder</param-value>
   </init-param>
 </filter>

 <filter>
   <filter-name>HeaderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>
   <filter-class>com.macromedia.airspeed.servlet.filter.HeaderAuthenticationFilter</filter-class>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-1</param-name>
     <param-value>/common/</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-2</param-name>
     <param-value>/servlet/gateway/</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-3</param-name>
     <param-value>/servlet/mirror</param-value>
   </init-param>
   <init-param>
     <param-name>ignore-pattern-4</param-name>
     <param-value>/servlet/testbuilder</param-value>
   </init-param>
 </filter>
 <filter-mapping>
   <filter-name>HeaderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>
   <url-pattern>/api/*</url-pattern>
 </filter-mapping>

Here is a snippet of the custom.ini. This is meant as a visual aid for you to compare with the settings of your Adobe Connect Pro server. The settings below are the settings that have been tested and work with the activity module (default location c:\breeze\custom.ini)

...
HTTP_AUTH_HEADER=my-user-id
...

Activity Module Installation

Select the correct version of the "adobeconnect.zip" module for your moodle installation
Uppack the zip file into the mod folder of your Moodle site
Login to the Moodle site as administrator and
In site administration block click on notifications
Moodle will install the Adobe Connect module.

After the tables have been installed you will see a global settings page for the module. You will want to change the default settings to suit you ACP installation. The settings are a follows:

Host - This is the URL where REST calls are sent to and it must bet set to the domain where our ACP server exists. If your ACP server is behind the domain name of myacpserver.com, then this settings would look like myacpserver.com/api/xml. The /api/xml part will always come after your server domain name unless your ACP server is customized to use a different location
Meeting domain - This value is just the domain name of your ACP server. The value would be the same as the Host setting above without the /api/xml part.
Port - The port your ACP server uses for it's connections. On some dedicated servers, the server admin may choose to run the Connect Pro service on a different port rather than run it on the standard 80 port.
Admin Login - This is the super administrator account user name. This account will be user to make all the API calls and should have the permission to create users and assign roles. Create/update/delete meetings and move content (Meeting recordings) to shared folders on the Adobe Connect Pro server. If you are not sure which user account that is then you will have to contact your ACP server administrator and consult with them.
Admin Password - the password for the super administrator account. Again if you are not sure about this then consult with your ACP server administrator.
HTTP Authentication Header - This value can be found in your custom.ini file for your Adobe Connect Pro server. In the custom.ini file look for the line that begins with HTTP_AUTH_HEADER, enter in the value after the equal sign. Example if your custom.ini file has the line HTTP_AUTH_HEADER=rl-user-id, then only use rl-user-id in the module global setting.
Email address login - Check this box only if on your ACP server the option Use e-mail address as the login is set to yes. Otherwise if that setting is set to no then leave this configuration option unchecked. If you need to verify what value your ACP server is set to, log into the server as an administrator, click Administration - Users and Groups - Edit Login and Password Policies; and look at the Use e-mail address as the login setting.
HTTPS Connection - Check this box only if you are connecting to your Connect Pro server via HTTPS

Roles

This module creates 3 Moodle roles.

Adobe Connect Host
Adobe Connect Presenter
Adobe Connect Participant

Users who are assigned either of these roles will automatically have an associated ACP role for the meeting. The creator of the activity will automatically be assigned the role of Host for the Adobe meeting. A public meeting type will automatically give users the Adobe role of Participant, unless the user was assigned one of the roles above.

Creating a meeting

After the module is installed and your global settings have been set. You may now create meetings. Go into any one of your courses

Enabled editing
Enter in the details for the meeting
- Adobe Connect - The name of the meeting
- Intro - A description of the meeting
- Meeting URL - An optional field where you can cuztomize part of the URL for the meeting. See the help bubble on the page for details.
- Meeting type - The meeting can either be public where everyone in the course can join or private where only user with the required capabilities can join.
- Meeting Templates - A list of templates found on the ACP server that can be used to create a meeting from
- Start time - the meeting start time
- End time - the meeting end time

Known Issues

Some users have reported that if the meeting URL includes the port number the Connect Pro server will return a "Resource not found" page. It seems like it's an issue for some servers, while others are okay with it. The reasoning for this issue is still being pursued. If this is happening to your server please report it in the activity forums http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=145225
When running Test Connection against an Adobe Hosted account the test result will returns with the message "common-info API call returned an empty document". To resolve this ensure the Adobe Connect plug-in Port setting is set to 443 and disable Enhanced Security in your Connect Pro account (see Using the XML API with Enhanced Security
- Note: this setting only applies to Connect Pro servers versions 9.0.4 and above.

Documentation