Moodle plugins directory: Event Reminders

@April

Could you verify whether there is a calendar event created for a opening of an assignment, or not. Because, the plugin sends reminders only for the calendar events.

@Isuru I see the open date in the settings for the assignment but they're not on the calendar. Is that something we have to add manually?

@April
Moodle by-default may not be adding assignment open date to the calendar as an event.
May be you have to look in the forum on how to add an event for the open date or is there any upgrade in the assignment module to support that.

However, if you add an event manually, then the plugin should send reminders as long as still in the reminding date range.

Hello, i don't know if this behavoiur is normal or not. So please excuse my post if it is so. I installed ER on our Moodle. No problems here, everything fine. The admin panel of ER is also fine and all inputs are croned correctly. But my question is, why do the user get still a remind if they completed a task? Is it normal?

Kind regards

@Herrmann
Yes, that's the current default behavior of reminder plugin. As a plugin, it sends reminders as long as the calendar event is in future and active.
Plugin gets all associated users for a calendar event, but it does not consider whether individual has completed the event or not. That's why it sends reminder mails for a user even he/she has already completed the assignment.

This has been reported by several moodle users to me and I am still figuring out whether plugin can filter out completed users out so they don't receive reminder mails. Let's see how it goes.

Is there a way to apply the event reminders to a certain type of class in a folder or category that hold those classes. We offer different type of offerings of classes in different formats. Some have due dates and some are open due dates.

@Mr. Marc
Event reminders will work if you can create a calendar event (manually or automatically) for each interested type of offering.

Seeing two issues within the cron scripts when trying to send out reminders. I'm running Moodle version 3.2.2 against an Oracle 11 DB.

The first is for a Course or Close Events:

[Local Reminder - ERROR] Error occured when initializing for event#[581] (type: course) Error reading from database
[Local Reminder - ERROR] #0 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/dml/oci_native_moodle_database.php(277): moodle_database->query_end(false)
#1 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/dml/oci_native_moodle_database.php(1179): oci_native_moodle_database->query_end(false, Resource id #2429)
#2 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/accesslib.php(3937): oci_native_moodle_database->get_records_sql('SELECT DISTINCT...', Array, '', '')
#3 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/local/reminders/lib.php(280): get_role_users(Array, Object(context_course), true, 'ra.id as ra_id,...')
#4 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/cronlib.php(223): local_reminders_cron()

The second is for Site events:
[Local Reminder - ERROR] Error occured when initializing for event#[602] (type: site) Error reading from database
[Local Reminder - ERROR] #0 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/dml/oci_native_moodle_database.php(277): moodle_database->query_end(false)
#1 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/dml/oci_native_moodle_database.php(1179): oci_native_moodle_database->query_end(false, Resource id #1786)
#2 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/local/reminders/lib.php(254): oci_native_moodle_database->get_records_sql('SELECT * \r\n ...')
#3 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/cronlib.php(223): local_reminders_cron()
#4 /u01/apolloglobal/moodle/ies/noah/lib/classes/task/legacy_plugin_cron_task.php(163): cron_execute_plugin_type('local', 'local plugins')

I'm trying to get more details regarding the DB errors that are thrown, but was hoping folks here may have some insight into the issue.

I have solved the problem with reminders not working in moodle 3.1.5 if anybody is interested to know.

Basically i did the following

1. i noticed that version 1.3.1 will work but it sent reminders out more than once due to a bug. After an upgrade to versions 1.4, 1.4.1 and 1.5 i noticed that event reminders didn't send

2. I downloaded 1.4 to find out how the repeated reminders were no longer sent and i noticed that a database table was not created for this plugin

3. I went into the lib.php file and modified the following lines of text to be as follows:

The logrows line to now become:
$logrows = $DB->get_records("local_reminders", array(), 'time DESC', '*', 0, 1);

timewindowstart variable line:
$timewindowstart = $firstrecord->time + 1;

Changed the following if function in local_reminders_cron to the following:
if ($upcomingevents == false) { // no upcoming events, so let's stop.
mtrace(" [Local Reminder] No upcming events. Aborting...");
add_to_log(0, 'local_reminders', 'cron', '', $timewindowend, 0, 0);
add_flag_record_db($timewindowend, 'no_events');
return;
}

Added the following to the bottom of local_cron_reminders (before the add_to_log line)
add_flag_record_db($timewindowend, 'sent');


Added into lib.php:
function add_flag_record_db($timewindowend, $crontype = '') {
global $DB;

$newRecord = new stdClass();
$newRecord->time = $timewindowend;
$newRecord->type = $crontype;
$DB->insert_record("local_reminders", $newRecord);
}

Please note that add_to_log doesn't appear to work in moodle 3.0+ from what i have noticed and so that is obsolete

Finally go into your phpmyadmin or whatever database software you use and set up the following:
table name: yourmoodleprefix_local_reminders (in my case it is modl_local_reminders)

column name: id; type: bigint(10); auto increment
column name: time; type: varchar(16); null: no
column name: type; type: varchar(32); null: yes; default: null

If you don't want to do the last part i simply copied the structure of the database from version 1.4 onwards. If anybody would like a copy of my lib.php then i can send this over but as i say, the database table is just the same as version 1.4 onwards

I am receiving the following error when trying to send reminders for Group Events:
[Local Reminder - ERROR] Error occured when initializing for event#[101] (type: group) Coding error detected, it must be fixed by a programmer: Invalid modulename parameter
[Local Reminder - ERROR] #0 /data/www_root/html/xxx/local/reminders/contents/group_reminder.class.php(60): get_coursemodule_from_instance('0', '0', '4')

Any ideas about how to remedy this? Thanks.

Hi Andrew,
Which moodle version and plugin version you use? I believe it is somewhat older and we fixed it in the latest version.
(See this diff: https://github.com/isuru89/moodle-reminders-for-calendar-events/commit/9116a412a9c1e2cd9a8d8fc34fd4c75f381563d1#diff-91d5700bd6a6490b6f68e88225034bde)

Check whether the below shown condition is there with your plugin code. If not, you can add the line and verify it again.
https://github.com/isuru89/moodle-reminders-for-calendar-events/blob/master/contents/group_reminder.class.php#L58

Thank you, Isuru. The updated version solved the issue.

Are there plans to make a version compatible with Moodle 3.1?

I'm using this currently in Moodle 2.7. Is there a way to segment the reminders notifications by course?
Example: I own course A and course B, but as a user I only want to receive reminders from Course B. Is that possible? Is there a way to adjust the Plugin Code to make this possible?

Is the Custom Schedule not working? The 1, 3, 7 days reminders work for me. I'm not getting email reminders for the custom schedule e.g. 1 hour before activity starts. Is it a either/or function? Not both works. Like you can only use 1,3,7 days or custom schedule? Thanks.

Custom schedule:
local_reminders_duecustom
Additionally specify desired schedule to send reminders in ahead of time for an event.