100 things I do supporting moodle ......

a basic brain dump of task and other things I do relating to support / setup/ administration / training / explaining / problem solving / etc with moodle.  I will organize later

1. Update this moodle blog
2. Integrate with external DBs
3. Create new accounts
4. Monitor cron files
5. Check drive space
6. Check DB backups
7. Remove accounts
8. explain and use cohorts
9. explain why share and share accounts
10. Load courses
11. Remove courses
12. troubleshoot why some course restores do not work
13. help my customers find things in moodle
14. explain the gradebook
15. configure the gradebook
16. explain completion tracking
17. turn on/off completion tracking
18. configure quizzes - attempts, review options, open/close dates, delete attempts, contact vendors about content issues
19. contact vendors in general - about their courses - loading them on our moodle - maintaining accounts and assigning permissions for them in contexts
20. keep the # of administrators to a minimum - saying "no, you don't need those rights" - and then repeating that.
21. Reset passwords
22. Upload users via bulk upload
23. Create cohorts, edit cohorts, explain and find instances where cohorts make sense
24. enroll cohorts into courses
25. enroll teachers into courses
26. troubleshoot the external synch for account authentication and enrollments
27. configure assignments - # of uploads - automatic email push to teacher, change the number of submit buttons - via draft
28. troubleshoot RSS feeds - enabling and turning off blocks
29. loading and using course themes
30. explaining site wide variables, like session time, file max upload size\
31. turning on and off debugging options
32. remoting to the MySQL moodle DBs using both MySQL Workbench and phpMyAdmin to perform all sorts of operations on the DB.  usually in the form of course wide updates to quiz, forum or assignment settings.
33. Backing up the DBs - Restoring the DBs - upgrading the moodle from 1.9 - 2.2 - 2.6
34. Troubleshooting DB upgrade issues.
35. Documents in this blog lots of detailed moodle things
36. Installing plugins - un-installing plugins - wondering if a plugin is problematic in other places - like in DB upgrades.  Activating plugins - like google drive or dropbox.
37. developing custom enrollment and grade / progress reports - using php / javascript /  html / mysql
38. helped solve a large en-mass data file - attempting to be imported via bulk users
39. resolve course behavior - usually from vendors
40. assigning points to forums - modifying the gradebook
41. explaining LDAP configuration - why its a good idea - tradeoffs - moodle is now a slave etc.  Troubleshooting LDAP configuration  - determining what moodle requires and will allow - like duplicate email addresses.
42. help explain and demonstrate the home page setup - course categories - how to organize course and  other information on the home page and course pages
43. show different course formats - topic formats - and other course wide properties.
44. explain - demon-straight the relationship between the course wide forum and the
45. update Timezones and then time settings - so moodle would be daylights savings time aware - and stay that way.
46. deciding  - allowing users to create their own accounts - tradeoffs - Site policies
47. site policies - like password policy and what that should be.
48. assigning system roles - site wide - when applicable - why......
49. creating custom roles - although the longer i am here doing this - the less I like doing this.  Work within the framework - do not introduce upgrade maintenance points.
50.  Enable email based self registration  - with the reCAPTCHA - so we don't get spammed with a bunch of dummy accounts.  Yes - that happened.
51. creating graphics and uploading into site themes
52. help diagnose issues with our teachers - their course content.
53. Create little cheat sheets and share with teachers for things like
54. uploading files - allowing student to submit draft files before getting graded
55. adjust quiz settings to allow reviewing, but only after a quiz has closed
56. how to change the points assigned to a quiz - assignment or forum activity
57. how to turn on/off change completion tracking for an item
58. configure the external account and enrollment scripts
59. monitor the cron script that calls external scripts
60. diagnose and correct problems in the external enrollment and user tables
61. update moodle accounts - authentication type, email etc.
62. set up shared accounts and enroll them in shared courses - that are not really courses, but more like information repositories.
63. agree that moodle can be used as a repository and not just an course entity
64. encourage the use the forums, assignments and quizzes in moodle 
65. promote the co-constructionist moodle - saying "50% of the learning should be coming from the students"
66. keep the moodle DB instances healthy - removing old courses, trimming logs, user records - basically monitoring the six of the DB and ensuring its backups are being created.  
67. zipping moodle db backups once a month and keeping for double dog backup.
68. figure out how to make these calls and add to cron script  - and monitor, 
69. c:\wamp\bin\php\php5.3.13\php.exe -f c:\wamp\www\student\auth\db\cli\sync_users.php,
    c:\wamp\bin\php\php5.3.13\php.exe -f c:\wamp\www\student\enrol\database\cli\sync.php
     
70. help configure forums - to they show up in gradebook - and are graded - worth points
71. trying to add css to themes, explaining site wide themes -vs- course wide themes
72. discouraging the use of themes in general - because they cause problems with layout that you do not see initially.
73. monitor the error logs on the server - keep them from getting too large over time
74. override passwords for accounts when people forget them and do not understand how to use the forgot password link - or explain to them to do that, rather than bother me
75. remove accounts that have too much permission, like sitewide managers or worse yet site admins.  encourage the minimalist approach - only give permissions that someone needs.
76. encourage the use of the system as is, not introduce changes to the core code or setup - as that introduces upgrade maintenance points
77. login to my backupmaster account to look for course backups
78. create new course backups using backupmaster - because some aspect of the course changed, and we want those changes to be included in the next copy of that course.
79. delete course backups from the bm account.  although i have been leaving them as of late.  following lifo protocal - last in first out.  meaning the most recent backups are the most relevant.  But, old backups are probably better than no backup.  I think.  Most of the time
80. server administration - remove courses (course backups with student data) from the moodle server onto a share server - where my customer can also see.  
81. course administration - try to set up automated course backups, keeping 2 copies - twice a week.  this worked ok, but had an unattended side effect of blowing up the mdl_log table.
82. monitor the size of the moodle db tables - that tend to grow (question, grades_history, files, mdl_question, mdl_grade_grade_history, mdl_files, mdl_question_answers, mdl_log, mdl_grade_item_history).  all those tables that deal with students grades and activity in a course.
83. update the code in my DAO.php file.  this is where my calls to the moodle db are kept - following a MVC design pattern.  when i need to make updates mainly to the customer reports i created a while back, including grade and enrollment reports.  there is now a new system, front end, where a lot of the grades and enrollment happens and has its own reports - so i could retire the ones I developed and make things a little easier on myself.
84. planning upgrades - which we are doing now - when is the best time to do this and to what version.
85. updating server infrastructure - we will need to upgrade php to move past moodle version 2.6
86. requesting and setting up new moodle vm's - so we can practice infrastructure upgrades on something other than a live server
87. configuring Apache - vm instances for each moodle instance.  occasional updates to Apache settings - although, to be honest - I cant think of a single Apache change i have made in the past few years.  perhaps a file size limit in the vm directive.
88. remote into moodle servers, update passwords, remove old DB backups, zip and keep copies for perpetuity.
89. troubleshoot very large .csv files - that are attempting to upload to create new users.  divide and conquer - the file into small pieces until you expose the problem record
90. create, update, manage cohorts - meaning adding and removing accounts
91. migrated course content from one course to another - when the content is so important that the student, despite already starting and contributing graded content in the course....still wants the student in the new course.  downloading assignment files and then logging in as the student in the new course and uploading them again.  copy and pasting teacher feedback from one course gradebook to another
92. monitor the php error log on the server.  occasionally, very helpful.  updating and reducing size of the file.
93. listening to my customer so i can understand how to best support them - this goes for all my moodle customers.  understand first before trying to resolve.  seek first to understand, and from there devise a plan
94. creating and restoring db backups of the dbs - especially for one of my instances where we have changed the core and added upgrades - plugins - when testing an upgrade - must continuously restore the current live DB to the test DB - and then try the upgrade again
95. use SQL snippets to update course quizzes, assignments, forums and other activities en mass.  rather than so repetitively in the moodle GUI
96. create new SQL snippets as I discover tasks that repeat themselves
97. remove courses from my moodle - via the moodle GUI - since it probably touches other tables when removing course from moodle GUI - as opposed to removing course en mass directly in the moodle mdl_course table - I suspect this is why I have orphaned questions (its parent course is gone) - I probably removed a few tables in the DB - and there was no routine to push out into the related tables, like mdl_quiz, to remove related questions.
98. Turn off quiz close dates in quiz settings.   Close dates prevent the quiz from being available when needed