Review: CSV Enrol Block

Today’s plugin for review is the very recently released Enrol CSV block by Ted van den Brink from Brightalley.nl.

Background

This block was created by Ted van den Brink from Brightalley in the Netherlands and just released in June 2012 with some updates in July 2012.

What does it do?

One of the challenges in a course with large lists of student is managing manual enrolment when you add a new course. It can be a long process selecting them one by one and although admins can upload a CSV to enrol existing users into a course teachers cannot avail of this at course level, well, until now.

This plugin enables a teacher to mass enrol students who are existing users in Moodle by just using their email put into a text file one per line and then uploading it to this block.

Is it simple to install?

Yes, the zip downloaded from the Plugin Directory unzipped fine and was easy to add to the moodle/blocks folder. I found no problems when installing and there were no extra global settings to select.

The admin must add this block to a course for a teacher to avail of the feature.

The module source is managed on Bitbucket which is a system like Github, so like other modules you can browse the source or choose to download a zipfile of the plugin.

Is there documentation for it?

There is no Moodle Docs page yet as this is a new block. The readme provides clear information on usage and how the file names are named after processing.

The plugin directory page also provides step by step instructions for usage.

Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?

It is quite easy to use. Once added to the course, the teacher can then use the feature.

Before you try to use it however, you need to create a CSV of existing Moodle users. You must create a text file csv with one email per line like:

User1@example.com
User2@example.com
User3@example.com
User4@example.com
User5@example.com

Then you go through the following process

1. Click on Manage uploaded files in the block on the course page
2. Click on Choose a file in the Enrol users manager.
3. Find your file and upload it
4. Click on Save changes

At this point the block processes the list and enrols the students using the manual enrolment method.

You will notice that in the Block area you now have a list of files, both the CSV you uploaded and also a log file which it creates when processing.

One thing to note is that if some of the users are already enrolled, it detects this and just puts an entry into the log file and continues with the others. It is very handy indeed.

You can go into the Manage files area again (as below image shows) and remove the csv, or add more.

One thing however I would like to see changed is that while in the file manage area, the “breadcrumbs” and header are lost. I hope we see this in a future version of the block.

Is it easy for the learner/student to use?

This is just available for a teacher.

Does it do what it promises?

Yes. Once installed and configured this does exactly as expected providing a simple neat feature that many teachers have dreamed of! Now over to you teachers to persuade admins to install this!

I also hope we see a Moodle Docs page for this in the next while!

Stars: 3 out of 5 stars for this plugin

**Standard Reminder**

These reviews check out the plugin for usability not for security. If you are considering installing any module on your site you should also check that is secure and does not impact the server performance.

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.