Use Moodle As a Content Source

SearchUnify can help you enrich search experience by indexing your Moodle courses. This article explains how to use your instance as a content repository.

PERMISSIONS

SearchUnify ignores user permissions during searches. All indexed files can be searched by all users.

Establish a Connection

  1. Navigate to Content Sources and click Add New Content Sources.

  1. Find Moodle and click Add.

  2. Under the Authentication tab, enter the required details:

    • Name. Give your content source a name.
    • Client URL. Enter your Moodle instance URL.
    • API key. Enter your API key. RELATED - How to Generate a Moodle API Key?
    • Language. Select the language of your Moodle courses content.

  3. After entering the aforementioned details, click Connect.

Once the connection has been set up successfully, you will be prompted to the next action - Set Frequency.

Re-Connect

The Authentication screen is displayed when an already-created Content Source is opened for editing. An admin can edit a Content Source for multiple reasons, including:

  • To reauthenticate

  • To fix a crawl error

  • To change frequency

  • To add or remove an object or a field for crawling

When a Content Source is edited, either a Connect or a Re-Connect button is displayed.

Case 1: When the Connect button is displayed:

When the Connect button is displayed if the Content Source authentication is successful. Along with the button, a message is displayed There are no crawl errors and the Content Source authentication is valid.

Fig. The Connect button is displayed on the Authentication tab.

Case 2: When the Re-connect button is displayed:

The Re-connect button is displayed when the authentication details change or the authentication fails for any reason.

In both cases, the Content Source connection must be authenticated again. To reauthenticate a Content Source, enter the authentication details, and click Re-Connect.

Fig. The Re-Connect button is displayed on the Authentication tab.

Set Up Crawl Frequency

The first crawl is always performed manually after configuring the content source. Click Set.

Fig. The Frequency tab when "Frequency" is set to "Never".

Select Fields for Indexing

Only courses object is supported out-of-the-box for Moodle platform.

  1. Under the Rules Tab, you will land on the By Content Type subtab. You can see the supported Moodle objects here.
  2. Click EDIT to see the list of pre-configured fields. You can add custom fields whose data you want to crawl. NOTE. You can add or delete the content fields. Although, it is not recommended for users other than Admins to make any changes in the fields.
  3. Switch to By Folders subtab. Select and move the files and folders to Selected Files and Folders what you want indexed.
  4. Save your settings.

You have successfully added Moodle as a content source in SearchUnify. Perform a manual crawl to start indexing data in SearchUnify.

Related

Difference between Manual and Frequency Crawls

After the First Crawl

Return to the Content Sources screen and click in Actions. The number of indexed documents is updated after the crawl is complete. You can view crawl progress in in Actions. Documentation on crawl progress is in View Crawl Logs.

Once the first crawl is complete, click in Actions to open the content source for editing, and set a crawl frequency.

  1. Leave the Choose a Date field unchanged. For this content source, all data is crawled from the scratch during each crawl. This is a limitation for this content source.

  2. The following options are available for the Frequency field:

    • When Never is selected, the content source is not crawled until an admin opts for a manual crawl on the Content Sources screen.

    • When Minutes is selected, a new dropdown appears where the admin can choose between three values: 15, 20, and 30. Picking 20 means that the content source crawling starts every 20 minutes.

    • When Hours is selected, a new dropdown is displayed where the admin can choose between eight values between 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24. Selecting 8 initiates content crawling every 8 hours.

    • When Daily is selected, a new dropdown is displayed where the admin can pick a value between 0 and 23. If 15 is selected, the content source crawling starts at 3:00 p.m. (1500 hours) each day.

    • When Day of Week is selected, a new dropdown is displayed where the admin can pick a day of the week. If Tuesday is chosen, then content source crawling starts at 0000 hours on every Tuesday.

    • When Day of Month is selected, a new dropdown appears where the admin can select a value between 1 and 30. If 20 is chosen, then content source crawling starts on the 20th of each month.

      It is recommended to pick a date between the 1st and 28th of the month. If 30 is chosen, then the crawler may throw an error in February. The error will be “Chosen date will not work for this month.”

    • When Yearly is selected, the content source crawling starts at midnight on 1 January each year.

    Fig. The content source crawling starts at 00:00 on each Tuesday.

  3. Click Set to save the crawl frequency settings.

  4. Click Save.