Top 10 Admin Tasks That You Must Know for Moodle Administrators

Top 10 Admin Tasks that you must know for Moodle Administrators

These are the top 10 tasks that a Moodle administrator should know how to use.

If you are new to Moodle and need to know how to manage the Moodle learning management system, these top 10 must know tasks will help you get ahead.

Knowing how to create users, categories and courses is a requirement, but there are some hidden tasks that you really should know about as I guarantee you will need them at some point in your Moodle administration journey.

1. Clear Cache 2. Run CRON manually 3. Set tasks 4. Turn on debugging (in Moodle and manually) 5. Read log files 6. Edit the config file 7. Run automated backups 8. Check performance overview 9. Check security report 10. Use Ad-hoc Database Queries

LOOKING FOR COURSES ON HOW TO USE MOODLE https://ricoshae.com.au/courses

For more information on Moodle administration or if you need help with your Moodle server or content development visit www.ricoshae.com.au or email [email protected].

Find me on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrichterin/ or call +61 427211575

1. Purge the Moodle Cache

When things go a little crazy and people are asking why icons are missing or why a theme change hasn’t come through, clear the Cache. There are two types of cache. Moodle has its own internal cache which impacts everyone, so clearing this cache can be done using the admin function ‘Purge Cache’. The other type of cache is a browser cache. This can be cleared by the user in their browser. Don’t get them confused as one affects each individual user and the other affects the content delivered by Moodle. If things seem to be going pear shaped in Moodle in relation to JavaScript not working or CSS missing, odd layouts or buttons not operating correctly, purge the cache first.

Site administration > development > Purge Caches

2. Run CRON manually

This is something you should not have to do on production but you may need to do this on your staging server to check changes when testing plugins or new features.

CRON is a command line function that calls certain tasks in Moodle to make database changes, move files around, clean up data and many other time based jobs.

CRON is run automatically at intervals on your Moodle server. To run CRON manually you can call it from the command line or call it from a web page. https://yourserver/admin/cron.php

By default, you cannot run CRON this way. To change the settings to allow you to run CRON manually.

LOOKING FOR COURSES ON HOW TO USE MOODLE https://ricoshae.com.au/courses

For more information on Moodle administration or if you need help with your Moodle server or content development visit www.ricoshae.com.au or email [email protected].

Find me on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrichterin/ or call +61 427211575

Site administration > Security > Site security settings

Remove the tick beside CRON execution via command line only. Set a CRON password for remote access

Run CRON by using the URL below with your Moodle url and your password that you created. http://site.example.com/admin/cron.php?password=opensesame

When you run CRON, you may need to run it more than once to complete all the tasks.

3. Set Tasks

When you run CRON it runs a collection of tasks. You can see what these tasks are by going to the Scheduled tasks list.

Site administration > Server > Scheduled tasks

By turning on Allow 'Run now' for scheduled tasks you can individually run a scheduled task rather than re-running all the tasks using CRON.

Alternatively, you can set new tasks schedules if required. This would only be necessary if you are using plugins that access external services.

LOOKING FOR COURSES ON HOW TO USE MOODLE https://ricoshae.com.au/courses

For more information on Moodle administration or if you need help with your Moodle server or content development visit www.ricoshae.com.au or email [email protected].

Find me on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrichterin/ or call +61 427211575

4. Turn on debugging (in Moodle and manually)

On your production server you should never have to do this. Use the log files instead.

On your staging server, turning on debugging helps you check new plugin installs, debug issues with your theme or other custom work that you have implemented.

Site administration > Development > Debugging

Set Debug messages to DEVELOPER. Set D isplay debug messages to True.

This will show all issues and errors and is invaluable in troubleshooting issues.

5. Read log files

Someone will undoubtedly do something wrong or an issue will arise where you need to go searching through the log files.

Moodle has its own log files.

Site administration > Reports > Logs

Most general log information is available here to find out who did what and when.

Note: This is not the server error logs, they are stored in a different area.

LOOKING FOR COURSES ON HOW TO USE MOODLE https://ricoshae.com.au/courses

For more information on Moodle administration or if you need help with your Moodle server or content development visit www.ricoshae.com.au or email [email protected].

Find me on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrichterin/ or call +61 427211575

6. Edit the config file

Hopefully you will not need to do this but there will probably come a time when you need to change the config.php file in Moodle.

The config.php is located at the top level of your Moodle folder structure.

Depending on your platform Windows/Linux etc, that you are using changes how you access and edit the file. Find out NOW how to access and edit the config.php file so you are ready when the time comes to make changes to this file.

7. Run automated backups

You won’t need it now but I guarantee when you least expect it, someone will accidentally delete a course that they shouldn’t have deleted and you will be desperate to find a way to get it back.

Site administration > Courses > Backups > Automated backup setup

Look through the settings, check that you have enough space to run the backups then run them at least once a week and keep at least 2 copies of each course. You’re welcome….

8. Check performance overview

As an admin you sometimes make changes to check issues and forget to switch things back off. This is where you go to check you have the main settings set correctly.

Site administration > Reports > Performance overview

LOOKING FOR COURSES ON HOW TO USE MOODLE https://ricoshae.com.au/courses

For more information on Moodle administration or if you need help with your Moodle server or content development visit www.ricoshae.com.au or email [email protected].

Find me on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrichterin/ or call +61 427211575

9. Check security report

Once a month, add it to your calendar, check the security report. Again, you may have made changes or given temporary permission to someone.

Check the report and fix any issues.

Site administration > Reports > Security overview

10. Use Ad-hoc Database Queries

This is a need-to-have plugin that will make your life easier.

Install it on your staging and production servers if required. https://moodle.org/plugins/report_customsql

The plugin allows you to run SQL queries on your database to check or report on data.

Site administration > Reports > Ad-hoc database queries

You may not need this straight away, but have it ready when the time comes. Example SQL can be found here: https://docs.moodle.org/22/en/ad-hoc_contributed_reports

LOOKING FOR COURSES ON HOW TO USE MOODLE https://ricoshae.com.au/courses

For more information on Moodle administration or if you need help with your Moodle server or content development visit www.ricoshae.com.au or email [email protected].

Find me on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrichterin/ or call +61 427211575

Top 10 Admin Tasks​ That You ​Must Know​ for Moodle Administrators

Top 10 Admin Tasks That You Must Know for Moodle Administrators