Create & Manage a Course Using a CSV Text File

This article is about creating and managing courses with a text (.csv) file using the Upload courses functionality of Lambda Learn (Moodle).

Creating the Text File

The text file to upload courses must be a CSV file. It accepts the following columns which are divided in two categories:

Course Information Fields
Course Action Fields

COURSE INFORMATION FIELDS

Most of these settings are available on the settings page of a course. Please refer to Course settings for more information. Field names must be lower-case.

NOTE NOTE

The following are the required fields when using a CSV text file to create and manage courses.

shortname This field is mandatory for every operation, with the only exception of creating new courses.
fullname Required when creating a new course.
category, category_idnumber, category_path One of these is required when creating a course.

**Course Information Fields**
shortname	The shortname
fullname	The full name
idnumber	The course ID
category	This is the ID of the category to place the course in. This takes precedence over category_idnumber and category_path.
category_idnumber	The ID number of the category to place the course in (found in the category url). This takes precedence over category_path.
category_path	The path of the category to place the course in. If you want to place the course in a category named "Science-Fiction" which is located under the category "Movies", the value to provide is: Movies / Science-Fiction . Note that the separator must be [space]/[space] . Also note that the category MUST exist, it will not be created. If you want to place the course in the top-level category "Movies", the value to provide is: Movies
visible	1 if the course is visible, 0 if hidden
startdate	The time at which the course starts. Please note that this value is passed to the PHP function strtotime to generate a timestamp. Example 01.12.2014 (1st December 2014)
enddate	The time at which the course ends. Please note as with startdate that this value is passed to the PHP function strtotime to generate a timestamp. Example 01.12.2014 (1st December 2014)
summary	The summary of the course
format	The course format to use, this must be a valid course format plugin name. E.g. weeks, topics.
theme	The theme to use
lang	The language to use
newsitems	The number of news items
showgrades	1 to show the gradebook to students, 0 to hide it.
showreports	1 to show the activity reports, 0 to hide it.
legacyfiles	1 to enable the legacy course files, 0 not to.
maxbytes	The maximum upload size of the course in bytes. Use 0 for the site limit.
groupmode	0 for No groups, 1 for Separate groups and 2 for Visible groups.
groupmodeforce	1 to force the group mode, otherwise enter 0.
enablecompletion	1 to enable the activity completion, 0 not to.
tags	A comma-separated list of tags to add to the course. Existing tags will be deleted. Enclose multiple tags in quotes.

Enrolment Fields

Some fields can be constructed to enable and configure enrolment methods. The fields must be named:

1. enrolment_[number] for the enrolment method name, and
2. enrolment_[number]_property for its properties.

**Enrolment fields**
*enrolment_[number]*		The name of the enrolment method (eg, manual, guest, self)
*enrolment_[number]_delete*		1 to delete this enrolment method from the course, if set to 1 all the other properties will be ignored.
*enrolment_[number]_disable*		1 to disable this enrolment method from the course, if set to 1 all the other properties will be ignored.
*enrolment_[number]_startdate*		The enrolment start date. This value is passed to the PHP function strtotime().
*enrolment_[number]_enddate*		The enrolment end date. This value is passed to the PHP function strtotime().
*enrolment_[number]_enrolperiod*		Number of seconds, or if not a value understood by strtotime() such as "4 days".
*enrolment_[number]_role*		The role short name
*enrolment_[number]_[property]*		Where property is understood by the specified enrolment method
*enrolment_[number]_password*		The course enrolment key

Example

enrolment_1: manual
enrolment_1_role: student
enrolment_1_enrolperiod: 1 month

enrolment_2: self
enrolment_2_startdate: 2013-01-30

Role Renaming

To rename some roles, using the following pattern:

role_[shortname]The new name of the role [shortname].

Example

role_student: Apprentice
role_teacher: Master
role_mycustomrole: Jedi

It is worth noting that the short name for the teacher role is editingteacher and the short name for the non-editing teacher is teacher.

COURSE ACTION FIELDS

Those settings take precedence over the Course process parameters.

delete	1 to delete the course.
rename	The shortname to rename the course to.
backupfile	An absolute path to a backup file (.mbz) to import in the course. (This means the full path to your course, for example /home/yourmoodle/public_html/moodle27/transfert/backup.mbz . If you are unsure of this, look at include_path in Site administration>Server>PHP info.)
templatecourse	The short name of a course to import the content from.
reset	1 to reset the course.

Import Options

To prevent unexpected behaviour, you have to specify what you want the tool to be able to do.

Upload modeThis allows you to specify if courses can be created and/or updated.

Update modeIf you allow courses to be updated, you also have to tell the tool what to update the courses with.

Allow deletesWhether the delete field is accepted or not

Allow renamesWhether the rename field is accepted or not

Allow resetsWhether the reset field is accepted or not

Course Process

This allows you to specify actions to be taken for every course uploaded.

Shortname templateIf you are creating courses without a shortname, you can use this field to automatically generate a shortname. This field accepts two placeholders: %i for the ID number, %f for the summary.Restore fileA backup file (.mbz) to import in the course after create/update.Restore from courseThe shortname of a course to import content from after create/update.Reset after uploadWhether to reset the course after creating/updating it.