Administrators can create custom User profile fields to capture and store important information about users in their LMS profile.  These Moodle standard custom user profile fields can also be included in bulk user uploads and as User filters when generating flexible reports or for Bulk user actions.

Accessing Custom User Profile Fields

An administrator can create a new User profile field, or new User profile field category, by going to Site Administration>>> Users>>> Accounts>>> User profile fields:

User profile fields edit screen will open:

Creating Categories of Profile Fields

Create a new category of profile fields.  On the User profile fields screen, click on Create a new profile category. On the screen that appears, create a new category by inserting a unique name into the required field:

It is best to create the category prior to the fields that will belong in the category.

Click on Save changes.

Creating Custom User Profile Fields

Here, you can create custom profile fields or custom categories of profile fields to meet your needs.  To create a new profile field, click on the drop down menu "Create a new profile field" to select the type of profile field you wish to create:Checkbox, Date/Time, Menu of choices, Text area and Text input (more on each of these below):

Common Settings for New Profile Fields

Whichever type you select, the Common settings area is the same.  You must give the profile field a unique shortname, for example interestarea, and a unique Name, for example, Area of Interest:

Note: There are certain reserved names and terms that cannot be used for profile fields, see section titled 'Reserved names and terms' at the end of the linked article for more details.

All profile fields created will appear in the user’s Profile.  To ensure that the field appears on the account creation page for new users, if your site allows that, select yes for Display on signup page:

When saved, the field will appear on the New account creation form:

If it is essential that the user fill out the field when creating an account, select Yes for Is this field required?  Otherwise, the user might not populate the field upon sign up.  Required fields in the New account creation form are in red with a red asterisk:

Specific Settings for Each Profile Field Type

The Specific settings for each type of profile field are unique.

• The Menu of choices option requires you to specify the options that will be available in the menu.  This field will display these options in a drop down menu for your users.

The Date/Time option requires you to set the allowable date range (be sure to extend it decades into the future for most uses).  If you want a time stamp, put a check mark in the Include time?box.  If a time stamp is essential on the new account creation page, remember to select Yes for Is this field required?

You can also create simple Yes/No Checkbox fields:

For Text input, you can specify the amount of space allowed for plain text by setting Display sizeand Maximum length, which are both measured in bytes.  A basic “blank” would be a Display size of 30 (or five or six words), and to ensure the user does not add more text, limit the Maximum length to 30 as well.  Otherwise, select any length up to 2048 (1 kB):

A Text area field allows the user to enter any amount of text using the HTML editor:

Click on Save changes before leaving the creation screen.

Populating Profile Fields

All User Profile Fields and Custom Profile Fields, created by administrators, will appear in the user’s profile and can be populated when:

• The user fills out the field when creating their account or completing a webinar registration form
• The fields are populated in a user CSV file that is uploaded for a group of users
• The user or administrator edits the profile and adds the information

When the user's profile is edited, the profile fields designated to appear on the signup page will be organized under the category they are placed under:

And the information in the Profile Fields appears in the user’s profile:

Performing a Bulk User Upload

• Prepare your Bulk User Upload File with your users information.  This can be done in and Excel spreadsheet and saved in a .csv format or saved in another format using a delimiter such as ", ; : \t"Click here to download a template User Upload File in Excel
• .The .csv must contain values for all required Profile Field.
• The .csv file must have the appropriate field shortname titles

For Custom Profile Fields for the column heading, use the prefix "profile_field_fieldshortname"

Once the information is complete, save your Excel file as a .csv file for the upload.

Go to Site administration>>>  Users>> > Accounts>>> Upload users.

Click "Choose File" to upload a file from your computer or simply drag and drop the file into the space provided.

On the preview screen you can verify all the information in your upload file, including the profile fields, and complete some additional settings:

Cilck on Upload users.

Reporting with Profile Fields

Flexible Reports

User Profile Fields provide Administrators the ability to filter by specific user information in all RT2 Flexible reports.

Flexible Reports are accessed by an Administrator by going to Site Administration>>> Reports:

The reports that currently offer flexible filtering are:

• Documents Read
• Flexible Certificates/Completion,
• Flexible Usage,
• Flexible Sign-in Reconciliation
• and specially created Simple Reports.

Each of these reports offers User Filters (among other filters depending on the report).  The default view allows you to filter by user’s name, however, you can access all User Filters by selecting Show advanced:

The expanded User Filters screen allows you to perform complex filtering with multiple variables, including any profile fields you have created:

Next to Profile, select an option from the drop-down menu (which contains the shortname of all profile fields created for your LMS) then select whether the filter contains, doesn’t contain, is equal to, starts with, ends with, is empty, isn’t defined or is defined, and in the empty field to the right, type in the value you are filtering for.

Click on Add filter.

The Active filters section that appears summarizes all the filters you have selected:

The selected filters will persist until you click on Remove all filters or you log out of the LMS.  If you are producing multiple reports, you can enable the check box next to any filter and click on Remove selected, then you can add other filters.

Select the additional parameters for the particular report you need.  Click on Display or Downloadto obtain the report.

Workbook and Dashboard

Additional reporting is available inside courses that have webinars enabled on their site:

• Workbook - a downloadable Excel spreadsheet of all users including all user profile fields, default and custom, on tab 1
• Dashboard -  a graphic display of time zones and registration sources as well as a graph of ongoing registrations, a countdown and a list of users with timezone and source of their registration (if captured by means of a mandatory profile field on the webinar form)

These two reports are generated from inside the course by turning on editing then adding the Refined Tools block, inside which are links to the two options: 

In the Workbook report that is associated with an event is the ability to capture a source value from a user when they register. A source value is any value containing letters, numbers, dashes or underscores (no spaces or special characters), that is added to a URL pointing a user to an LMS. When a user clicks on the URL containing a source value, the source value information is captured in the user's profile when they log into the LMS or create a new account. The source value remains stored in the user's profile until it is replaced by a new source value.

This source value is then populated in the Workbook report associated with an event when a user registers for that event. 

For example, when a user already has an account and is sent a URL containing a source value (which appears as [URL]&source=[source value]) through a marketing email:

the user clicks the URL >>>> goes to the shopping cart for the course >>>> enters the checkout page >>>> receives their confirmation for the course and the source value is added to the Workbook report. 

If a user needs to create an account and is sent a URL containing a source value:

the user clicks the URL >>>> creates an account and verifies the creation via email >>>> goes to the shopping cart for the course >>>> enters the checkout page >>>> receives their confirmation for the course and the source value is added to the Workbook report.

Reserved names and terms

When you create new profile or course fields, certain names must not be used; these are the Reserved names and terms: