Question

I am really a newbie to Moodle and I have got this advanced functionality to build for a client’s Moodle site as quickly as I can. I have been reading a lot about Moodle through its documentation and any other online resources I can found but thought of taking some help from the experts out here too.

I am looking forward to build an advanced reporting feature where different role users have the permissions to view advanced reports (high level, overview level, individual)down their hierarchy.

The report data would be based on organization hierarchy i.e. say a manager can view a department report, within a dept he can select any of the sections, within a section, he can select any area and eventually any individual within that area.

I need to write a separate plugin for this so that future upgrades don’t over ride the changes. Can any one give me a starting point as to how to go about this one? Any links, pointers or suggestions would be useful as I am totally new with Moodle right now?

Answer 1

You need to put this plugin in the /local folder and provide access to its pages via links added to the main navigation block. This is done by putting the following function into /local/myplugin/lib.php which will be picked up automatically:

myplugin_extends_navigation(global_navigation $navigation) {
    // Read the docs for get_context_instance and look at other uses to see what params you need
    $usercontext = get_context_instance(CONTEXT_USER, $USER->id, MUST_EXIST);

    // You will need to define some capabilities or use existing ones. If the user is allowed, they see the link below
    if (has_capability('whatevercapability', $context)) {

        // Adds a link
        $node_schedule = $nodecoursework->add('Submission Schedule',
                                              new moodle_url('/local/myplugin/sub.php'),
                                              navigation_node::TYPE_CUSTOM,
                                              'Submission Schedule',
                                              'Submission Schedule');
    }
}

The report pages are then placed in the folder as separate files (sub.php in this example). Look for the html_table() class to make the report, also its sql-based subclasses.

Docs for making a local plugin are here and you can see an example here.