19 September 2017, 12:21

Hi there,

We're currently implementing a second Moodle to attract new online students and we want them to have the same access to our Mahara that our existing Moodle installation does. We have our existing Moodle connected via an institution that allows both LDAP and XML-RPC authentication.

My first thought was to add the new Moodle as an authentication type to this institution but that's been hitting issues:

1. At first it wouldn't allow me to SSO at all, as I'm already an existing user
2. I tried setting useruniquebyusername to true (since it all comes back to a core Active Directory installation that would not allow duplicate usernames) but this gives the error that an institution allows registration even though all 3 I've got do not:

Error:

[WAR] 7c (auth/xmlrpc/lib.php:141) usersuniquebyusername is turned on but registration is allowed for an institution. No institution can have registration allowed for it, for security reasons.
[WAR] 7c (auth/xmlrpc/lib.php:141) The following institutions have registration enabled:
[WAR] 7c (auth/xmlrpc/lib.php:141)   mahara

I'm assuming if I create a separate institution I'd still hit the unique username issue. There is a possibility that students may move from one Moodle instance to another and staff will definitely be coming from both.

What's the best way to implement this?

Will Mahara assignments be able to handle the two separate Moodle instances (e.g. will assignment IDs be unique)?

Thanks,

Scott

20 September 2017, 18:30

Regarding multiple institutions, am I missing a setting that allows a user to be in multiple? This is what happened when I split the two Moodles to two institutions:

The ideal behaviour from my perspective would be one gagesw user, enrolled in both institutions.

21 September 2017, 9:34

Hi Scott,

You can set up multiple Moodle connections within one institution. If you don't use usersuniquebyusername, a second account would be created though. I don't know why that wouldn't work for you.

Having no registration allowed correctly in the database should use the settings correctly. But just in case, please go into the settings for "No institution", turn registration on, save the form and then turn it off and see if that makes a difference.

If you want to be in multiple institutions but still only have one account, you'll need to turn on the use of multiple institutions in Administration -> Configure site -> Site options -> Institution settings. The students will have the authentication method from the institution that they log in first. If you don't use usersuniquebyusername, they will receive a second account if they are coming from the other Moodle site though.

If you are not using the assignment submission plugin and upgrade to 17.04 or 17. 10 (will be released by the end of October 2017), you can use LTI. That would make it easier to set up accounts from multiple LMS. We'd have to play it through to get the work flow right.

Cheers

Kristina

21 September 2017, 11:21

Hi Kristina,

Thanks very much! Re-enabling registration for No Institution and then disabling it via the front-end fixed that issue, and since I already had multiple institutions set I'm now chugging along nicely.

Cheers,

Scott

21 September 2017, 22:18

Glad to read that it worked. :-)

Cheers

Kristina