Beginner questions concerning Moodle and .NET Forms Authentication

Beginner questions concerning Moodle and .NET Forms Authentication

by Point Right -
Number of replies: 2

Hi,

Just as background information, I wanted to describe a few details about my current situation:

- My company provides a web-based SAAS product for the healthcare community, our customers are mostly hospitals and long term care facilities.

- My organization uses .Net Forms Authentication.

- I am working on this project essentially by myself due to budget and staffing constraints. 

I am wondering if someone can advise me as to where to begin with this, and I realize it is a big question and a pretty large sized problem but even if I can get some course correction it would be helpful. I've gotten Moodle up and running and functioning properly, but it's all based on manually setting up accounts and that won't work for the internal clients I am working with. It simply has to be tied into our company's account system and my coworkers will not budge on that.


The goal is to make it so that users who have an account, can enter Moodle either without logging in, or simply using their username & password combination. I have been told there is a possibility of using Web Servies to make that connection, so I am in the process of making the server that Moodle lives on, secure/SSL with a certificate.

I am my company's UI developer and designer and I have a background in corporate LMS's, both home grown and open-source. This current project involves me basically doing everything though - both on the front end and the back end.

Any assitance I can get from anyone kind enough to help would be hugely appreciated here. I know there are a lot of plugins and add-ons to Moodle and someone must have solved this one - but I'd still appreciate hearing from the community here about this technical hurdle.


Thank you,

B

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In reply to Point Right

Re: Beginner questions concerning Moodle and .NET Forms Authentication

by Dave Perry -
Picture of Testers

We actually hacked the login code so that our staff intranet could activate moodle sessions. Less of an issue now we have AD-based SSO mind.

The simplest part of your queries is the 'using the same username/password' bit. You can use the LDAP authentication module (built in) to let moodle validate logins using your existing user directory (we were on eDirectory before, but now have it working with AD).

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In reply to Dave Perry

Re: Beginner questions concerning Moodle and .NET Forms Authentication

by Point Right -

David,

That is helpful, thank you. I was wondering if that LDAP support would have some importance to my situation. Or any of the authentication methods listed on the Available authentication plugins page.

The issue with my organization is that we use a home-grown concoction whose closest resemblance is Microsoft .NET Forms Authentication and I don't know what type of database the accounts are stored in. 

I am actually curious about the "external database" section in Moodle. I am wondering if it  might be that simple. Do you know about that option and if so, what are your thoughts?

Do you still think that the LDAP module could be of use? Would I need to somehow export the accounts database to a CSV file or something, then upload that into the Moodle bulk account creation area?  That would be cool, but not practical because it's ever-changing. It would have to somehow be synched with the actual account system at my company and be able to verify the existence of new accounts, account deletion etc.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me. if you could elaborate i would really appreciate it.

Thank you in advance!

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