55.Signing in to Office 365
The easiest way to connect to Office 365 is to use the Office 365 user portal.
Proceed with the following steps:
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Open a browsing session and navigate to the Office 365 user portal at https://portal.office.com:
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Sign in with the credentials, i.e. e-mail address and password, of one of the previously created test users.
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Once authenticated, you’re redirected to the home page of the portal, which shows all the available Office 365 applications.
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Click the apps launcher in the upper left corner of the page.
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Click My apps to access other applications assigned to you. Since you have completed at this stage the integration of the Moodle environment with your Office 365 subscription, the latter appears in the list of the available applications that you can access, if you have signed in with one of the test user.
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The Contoso University app can be pinned in the app launcher for quick access to Moodle from Office 365. Right-click Contoso University, and then select Pin to app launcher.
56.Signing in into Moodle
Interestingly, you can alternatively sign-in into Moodle directly by using one of the Office 365 test accounts created earlier in this document, and all of this without having to navigate first through the Office 365 portal.
Proceed with the following steps:
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Open a browsing session and navigate to the Moodle site, for example https://o2m.contoso123.fr in our configuration.
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Click Log in in the upper right corner.
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Click Log in in the upper right corner.
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Under Log in using your account in, click Office 365. You should now be automatically redirected to the Azure AD portal.
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Enter your Office 365 credentials, and then click Sign in. Once authenticated, you are redirected towards the Moodle site, while being connected to it.
57.Configuring the synchronization of the Moodle calendar with Office 365
The synchronization of the Moodle calendar is not configured by default and is left to the user's initiative.
To synchronize, log into Moodle with a user account. Proceed as follows:
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In Moodle, navigate to View profile.
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On the Office 365 Connection line, click Manage.
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At the bottom, click Outlook Calendar Sync.
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Check the various types of calendar to be synchronized, then click on Save to complete the configuration.
Once the synchronization has been activated, all the new events assigned to this user will be automatically sent to their Office 365 calendar.
Going further
We wanted this paper to be readily usable by readers - for tests and experiments - and to show how to facilitate the rapid extension of the Moodle services with Office 365.
In this document, we decided to execute Moodle on virtual machines hosted in Microsoft Azure. Such an approach allows to rapidly and smoothly create a test lab environment that is suited to the needs of tests/fine-tuning, and that can be quickly and dynamically resized for production purposes and changes of scale.
With the virtual machines and all the features that relates to a IaaS platform, we’ve only scratch the surface in terms of services that Microsoft Azure can provide to sustain your need. We’ve shortly mentioned earlier in this document some of the PaaS, such as web applications53 or managed databases54. These services optimize the services provided by your Moodle solution, allowing you to focus on the content of the teaching platform and the corresponding services. The whitepaper Enabling Hybrid Cloud Today with Microsoft Technologies55 depicts some augmentations that may make sense in your own environment.
For more information on the additional capacities of Microsoft Azure, or for any questions about this paper, Moodle, Azure or Office 365, please contact us.
Thank you for reading this paper.
See you soon!
Appendix A Microsoft plugins for Moodle 58.Microsoft Office 365 plugins
This is a Shell plugin that functions using dependencies with all the other Office 365 plugins. It helps to maintain the consistency with the other plugins.
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OpenID Connect (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/auth_oidc). The OpenID Connect plugin delivers the single sign-in (SSO) functionality using configurable identity providers.
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Microsoft Office 365 Integration (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/local_o365). This plugin provides the libraries and services that feed the other Office 365 plugins. As well as implementing the Office 365 APIs, this plugin also handles a broad variety of Moodle events in order to fully integrate Office 365 in a Moodle environment.
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OneDrive for Business (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/repository_office365). This plugin provides access to OneDrive for Business as a data repository. It can also access SharePoint sites configured by local_o365 for each Moodle course, which can be used by teachers as a shared data repository.
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Office 365 Connection (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/profilefield_o365). This plug establishes a link with the user profiles in order to access the Office 365 management functions.
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OpenIDConnect Management (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/auth_oidc). This plug establishes a link with the user profiles in order to access the OpenID Connect management functions.
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oEmbed Filter (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/filter_oembed). The hyperlinks of the oEmbed protocol that point to the supported sites are replaced by an embedded version. This filter directs students to videos on external sites without exiting Moodle and prevents them from being distracted by other content. The following sites are currently supported: YouTube*, Vimeo*, Ted*, SlideShare, Screenr, Issuu, Poll Everywhere, Soundcloud and Microsoft Mix
*Also supports optional "lazy" downloads. With these sites, a thumbnail of the video is displayed, which is immediately replaced by the video itself when the user clicks on it. This shortens the time taken to download and reduces consumption of network bandwidth.
59.Microsoft Services plugins
All the Microsoft Services plugins depend on this Shell plugin. It is used to maintain all the other plugins.
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Microsoft OneNote Block (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/block_onenote). This plugin provides a container for the Microsoft account sign-in button and the action buttons used with Microsoft OneNote.
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Microsoft Account API Local Plugin (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/local_msaccount). This plugin provides a simple client API for authentications based on OAuth2 and to manage access tokens for the Microsoft accounts. It also provides help functions that allow calls to the REST APIs using the Microsoft account.
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Microsoft OneNote Online API Local Plugin (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/local_onenote). This plugin provides a client API that is common with the other Microsoft plugins so that Moodle users can use Microsoft OneNote Online. This includes operations such as browsing the notebooks, sections and pages. Students can submit their assignments in OneNote and the teachers can respond by sending their feedback on the assignments. It uses the Microsoft Account local plugin for authentication and the OneNote Online REST API.
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Microsoft OneNote Assignment Feedback Plugin (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/assignfeedback_onenote). This plugin allows teachers to grade assignments and comment on the assignments submitted by students using OneNote. It includes a view of a student's assignments in OneNote, the creation of the corresponding OneNote page with the comments on the submitted assignment, saving the comments in OneNote in Moodle in the form of a zipped file containing the HTML and any images contained in the submitted assignment and the recreation of the OneNote page from the zipped file in Moodle, if necessary.
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Microsoft OneNote Assignment Submission Plugin (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/assignsubmission_onenote). This plugin provides the functionality specific to a student working on an assignment in OneNote. It includes the creation of a OneNote page corresponding to the assignment, saving the student's work in OneNote in Moodle in the form of a zipped file containing the HTML and any images contained in the assignment and the recreation of the OneNote page from the zipped file in Moodle, if necessary. It uses the Microsoft OneNote API Local plugin to perform certain operations.
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Microsoft OneNote Repository Plugin (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/repository_onenote). This plugin allows users to browse the content in OneNote Online, such as the notebooks, sections and pages using the Moodle file picker UI. It also allows them to download the content onto their own OneNote page. It uses the Microsoft OneNote API Local plugin to perform certain operations.
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oEmbed Filter (https://moodle.org/plugins/view/filter_oembed). The hyperlinks of the oEmbed protocol that point to the supported sites are replaced by an embedded version. This filter directs students to videos on external sites without exiting Moodle and prevents them from being distracted by other content. The following sites are currently supported: YouTube*, Vimeo*, Ted*, SlideShare, Screenr, Issuu, Poll Everywhere, Soundcloud and Microsoft Mix
*Also supports optional "lazy" downloads. With these sites, a thumbnail of the video is displayed, which is immediately replaced by the video itself when the user clicks on it. This shortens the time taken to download and reduces consumption of network bandwidth.
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