23 August 2011, 10:52

Hi,

I have an external database with course IDs and course membership user ids. I would like to add an option to populate a Mahara group with users from a course with a certain ID, from my external db.

I see that plugins in Mahara can have a cron option. I would like to use this to update group membership every morning.

My question is where to make my plugin. Should I make it a grouptype? That would mean users would have to pick a certain type of group to be able to import users via a course ID. That could be a bit confusing.

Or should it be an import plugin?

Any hints or issues to be aware of?

Thanks,

Mike

23 August 2011, 11:48

Or should I just forget about plugins and build it into group/edit.php ?

23 August 2011, 17:03

Hi Mike, I'm not sure any of the existing plugin types would fit too well.  I'd be tempted to use the local directory if I were doing that: put a function into local/lib.php to read the external db & populate the groups, and add a row in the cron table to call your function every morning.

24 August 2011, 3:20

Hi Richard,

Thanks for that, I hadn't come across the local directory - I will try that approach.

Mike