Group membership only

[kinnectus]

We are a University and we sometimes use this plugin - only as administrators - to perform bulk group membership. We automatically manage course enrollment, in most cases, using webservices.

We'd like to more frequently allow module leaders to use this plugin, however we'd like to confine their capabilities to only allow adding students to groups - NOT also enroll them at the same time.

We have a workaround, which is to get the user to download the current enrollments to the course in question, format the list into one email address per line and then add any group headings. They then send the lists to us and we process them.

We don't want people to have the capability added by this plugin, however we love the fact that there is a simple text area, ideal for such a scenario.

Alternatively, what precisely does the new capability permit?

Could we remove the built-in capability of all managers, module leaders and teachers to enroll users, but if they have the "bulkenrol" capability, will this function and only add users to groups?

We'd love for the plugin to have, say, a new capability (along with additional admin controls) to only allow bulk group additions, as well enroll, but only if the settings allow. E.g. admins have both bulkenrol and bulkgroupadd, but module leaders etc only have bulkgroupadd, so they'll still see "Bulk enrolment", but they'll only be able to add existing enrolled users to the groups they define.

[abias]

Hi @kinnectus ,

thank you for your proposal and sorry for my late reply.

I understand your scenario and your needs.

Currently, the plugin only has the local/bulkenrol:enrolusers capability which allows teacher to do everything the plugin provides - especially enrol users with the configured enrolment method and especially regardless if they are allowed to enrol users individually into the course.

I think a wise approach would be:

• To introduce a new capability local/bulkenrol:use. This capability will control if a user sees the "User bulk enrolment" menu item or not and will have to be replaced in the existing has_capability() checks in lib.php and index.php
• To introduce a new capability local/bulkenrol:adduserstogroup. This capability will allow users to add to create groups with the plugin and to add users to the groups.
• To limit the scope of the existing capability local/bulkenrol:enrolusers to control if users are able to enrol users with the plugin into courses or not.
• To enhance the language pack and existing get_string() calls in a way that all help texts and strings only show the possibilities a user has (i.e. to enrol users and / or to add users to groups)
• To enhance the existing Behat tests
• To enhance the README file
• To update the CHANGES.de file

Currently and in the foreseeable future, we don't have the need and the ressources to implement this addition. However, I will be happy to review a well-crafted pull request of you if you have time to build one.

Cheers,
Alex