Moodle in English: IFTTT-Connector

Dear all,

I am using IFTTT for some time now. The same as Moodle.

I was wondering what the future possibilities of integrating IFTTT into this?

Has anyone already tried this?

And how should we go about exploring this?

Kind regards,

Bas

I looked at the IFTTT website. I still have no idea what it does. Good web site

It has very big type though... so it must be something exciting.

Howard, just in case you are really interested in knowing whatifttt means, then check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFTTT

You may also like this article. Or not. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/when-typography-speaks-louder-than-words/

There is a nice link to the developers meeting mentioning IFTTT here: http://www.moodlenews.com/2015/all-you-need-to-know-from-the-most-recent-general-developers-meeting/

To get really understand this you need to look at recipes, eg http://au.pcmag.com/internet-products/11673/feature/the-101-best-ifttt-recipes?p=2 This probably explains 3 Billion (and counting) posted things on the internet. Automated IFTTT recipes.

-Derek

Another day, another "next greatest thing"

So, in Moodle terms, what would this "integration" give us? What could we do that we can't do now?

I am, of course, aware that saying "integration" does not make a specification!

Having read a bit of the docs.... sanity check.

So is the idea that we would make (all or some?) Moodle events to IFTTT? If I'm reading this correctly (I'm probably not) IFTTT would poll Moodle to ask what the last 'n' events are so it doesn't sound too bad.

Like many technologies that have A talking to B... it can be very difficult to articulate clearly - "which end is it talking about?" etc.

Hi Howard,

In a simple way, it does what it says on the can - If This, Then That. It works by setting a trigger and a consequence, so you can get it to create a spreadsheet in Google Docs with a new entry every time you make a call showing number called, time, and duration.

In the case of Moodle I could imagine students getting a mobile notification when a new activity is placed on a course, or maybe when a deadline is approaching. Many of these recipes end with a mobile notification or an entry in a Google spreadsheet. The key thing is getting the access. Once that's available, it's up to the creativity of the users.

All the best,

Andy

I think I get that but... there's two sides to this is there not? Are we talking about Moodle providing the "If this" or the "then that" or both? I'm supposing the "if this" - as you describe it, if an event fires in Moodle something happens outside Moodle.

This would be pretty useful for things like course completion.

Is the "then that" side of this well supported?

Also, the "services" seem to be monolithic things like Dropbox and Google. Can we create multiple Moodle sites as services? Presumably a prospective user would have to sign up and register *their* Moodle as a service? Some of this appears to cost proper money however.

Hi Howard,

Up to now I haven't developed my own functions in IFTTT, but you're right - the output is often taken care of by one of the big services. As I understand it though, anything which can output a message or store data can come on the "then that" side. The key is having the interface. I think this comes in plugin territory rather than some core change. (But that's something a developer could better answer!)

Andy

I can see that it would be possible to build a plugin that can trap certain events and surface them to the IFTTT API. Shouldn't be especially difficult.

A more rounded solution would be in core and allow *any* events to be selected.

Muhaha! I can vivdly imagine students using it to have their mood-light to red when they receive a bad test score

There has been past discussion about it:

But at this point, it doesn't look like anyone has picked up the ball and run with it.

I agree that it could be a very useful integration.

mike

I believe IFTTT can deal with RSS, and Moodle already has a bunch of RSS outputs.

I suppose it might also be possible to make a message-output plugin.

At the moment, that's the approach I've taken, Tim - a fairly straightforward export IFTTT recipe based on Moodle's RSS feeds being enabled

IF (forum post - with hashtag)

THEN

{applet 1: staff member} push forum post to Twitter (with hashtag), WordPress blog and Facebook page - other outputs are available

{applet 2: student user} get mobile push notification of forum post.

Twitter and push notifications were the original request - with the added benefit of embedding the Twitter feed back onto both a Moodle page and (potentially) our student portal. WordPress and Facebook were my experiments.

Now that there are message outputs available for Slack and Telegram too - and IFTTT works with those, then other options would probably also open up, with minimal development needed.

(Actually on closer look - IFTTT seems to be able to use Slack as an action, but not as a trigger, although Telegram appears to be both)

Hi Richard -

Have you started development on this? If so, is it available anywhere yet (in any state)?

mike

I'd like to say yes Mike - but the reality is it doesn't need any Moodle development (at least as far as I've taken it to date), simply a very small amount of playing with IFTTT through its front end

Steps I took:

1. Turn on RSS feeds for Moodle at a site level, for forums generally, and then for my specific forum

2. On IFTTT, create a new applet

a. Trigger - RSS feed, giving the URL (from the forum RSS link) and short phrase (where I used a hashtag). These can either be specified and fixed, or set as a default but available for the user to edit (I gave the advice that the hashtag should be in the forum post title, to ensure it is in the first 140 characters of any post so that it can be used as a twitter hashtag)

b. Action - I was able to set up Twitter, Facebook and WordPress by setting them up on my IFTTT account. By applying the IFTTT applet, it automatically connects to the ones connected that way. This is suitable for staff disseminating content to a single Twitter/FB/WP or various other

3. I created a separate applet for use by students which would use the RSS feed as a trigger too, but would connect to their mobile phone to send a push notification.

4. Grabbed the Twitter embed code for the hashtag I was using and added it to a standard Moodle html block on my course page (and dashboard)

Even better! Thanks for sharing.

mike

Lounge

IFTTT-Connector