Overview
Part of what makes Moodle so great are the plugin systems and the community who creates them. If you find a plugin that you would like to be added to your site, open a Support ticket and ask!
Before You Begin
A plugin is an additional feature or functionality that is not included in the core version of Moodle. The plugin can be added to a Moodle site.
Where do I find plugins?
You can find many commonly used plugins in the Moodle plugin directory at www.moodle.org/plugins. There are plugins that can be installed upon approval by Moodle US from other sources such as GitHub.
How do I request to install a plugin on my site?
At Moodle US, we are committed to the performance, stability, and integrity of the sites we host. We perform a review with each new plugin and any updated versions of each plugin to avoid any problems our customers may have.
The only thing that you need to do in order to request the installation of a plugin on your Moodle site is to submit a ticket to our helpdesk. Please include the name of the plugin in the ticket as well as the uniform resource locator (URL) of your Moodle site that you would like the plugin installed on.
Once we receive your plugin request ticket, we perform a review to make sure there are no concerns that may cause our customers to have a negative experience.
Plugins that pass our review often meet the following criteria:
The plugin is available via the official Moodle.org plugin database*
The plugin has a release compatible with the version your site is on
There are no issues of concern noted in the official Moodle.org plugin database's comments or open in the associated source control system
The plugin installs to the site cleanly without errors or warnings
Adding a new instance of the plugin and general usage is successful without errors or warnings
Note: Moodle US does not perform extensive feature functionality testing or regression testing against 3rd-party plugins.
Performing a backup/restore/import of a course with a plugin instance is successful, does not noticeably degrade performance, and completes without errors or warnings
The plugin uninstalls cleanly without errors or warnings
The plugin does not consume an excessively high amount of resources or cause a performance degradation
Note: The plugin does not perform complex, larger or otherwise slow database queries.
MoodleUS does not see any security issues that the plugin may introduce into our environment
MoodleUS does not identify any data integrity concerns
Once the requested plugin passes the review stage, we will add the request for our next deployment window in the week and add the plugin to your site during the scheduled deployment window.
Note: The review and deployment process lasts about one week and can take up to two weeks when we are experiencing a high number of requests. If the plugin does not pass our review, we may disapprove of the plugin and decline to deploy it. If issues with a plugin are identified after deployment, we may decline future deployments, and, in some rare cases, retroactively remove the plugin when needed for functional, performance or security reasons.
Third-Party Plugin Support
There are thousands of plugins available for Moodle and we have a lot of experience with many plugins, but we cannot be experts on all of them. We will do our best to assist you with issues regarding third-party plugins, but we may not have specific knowledge or be able to resolve all issues with the third-party plugin.
Note: If there is an issue/bug with a plugin or it is not compatible with the version your site is on, the plugin maintainer is responsible for addressing these issues and releasing a new version.
Closed Source Plugins
There are a growing number of “Closed Source” plugins which have a commercial software license and can not be freely distributed. Closed Source plugins include themes you can purchase from marketplaces such as ThemeForest. While we do support the ability to deploy these types of plugins, your site will require changes to use them. We refer to this as a custom code base. A custom code base is not standard and requires additional resources and management. There are additional costs for custom code bases. If you are not running a custom code base on your site when you request the plugin, we will connect you to our sales team. Our sales team can help determine the cost to add the service to your site, and then we can continue with the plugin request.
Special Case Plugins
Edwiser Bridge - Requires a custom code base.
Deployment
We deploy plugins weekly during our change window. The change window is Tuesday evenings from 8-10 pm Central Standard Time (CST). After a plugin is reviewed, we will add it for deployment during the next change window.
Note: Depending on your site’s infrastructure, we are unable to deploy any code changes, including new or updated plugins outside of our change window.
Deploy Plugins through the UnHosting Control Panel (UHCP)
If your site is hosted on the UnHosting infrastructure, you can use the UnHosting Control Panel (UHCP) to deploy any compatible plugin from the Moodle Plugins Directory whenever you would like.
Go to the control panel for your site
Click Sites, and click the i icon next to your site
Click Edit Settings, then scroll down to the Plugins section, and click the Add Plugin button
Type the name of the plugin that you want to add, click the checkbox next to the plugin, and close that pop-up window
Scroll to the bottom and click the Deploy Changes button