Reference Guide

Forma LMS Basics

Technical information for system setup and maintenance

Forma LMS Basics

Requirements

Server Specifications

Database

WARNING - MySQL Strict Mode
Until version 2.4.2 Forma LMS requires MySql strict mode set to OFF.
Please make sure your hosting provider allows this configuration
This restriction has been removed since version 2.4.3

WARNING - MySQL 5.7 Settings
Using MySQL version 5.7 requires some specific configuration. Check this thread for details

Forma LMS Basics

Installation and Upgrade

INSTALL PROCEDURE

  1. Create the database on your dbserver:
    • If the db user has permissions, the installer can create the database for you
    • You can use any db admin tool, such as phpmyadmin
      If you use a prepackaged webserver on your PC, the default db admin link is http://localhost/mysql/ or http://localhost/phpmyadmin
    • Be sure you have your database parameters available (host, user, password, dbname)
    • The database must be defined with UTF-8 encoding
  2. Upload all the files in your root directory or subfolder. 
    • If you want use at runtime FTP upload features, be sure you have your ftp parameters (host, user, password)
    • forma.lms web is protected with apache.htaccess files from unauthorized use. Often, dot-files are hidden from view. Check your environment and be sure that these files are also uploaded
  3. Launch http://www.yoursite.com/install/ (of course you should type your domain, not “yoursite.com”)
  4. Follow installation instructions. Note: during installation, a config file is created in the application root directory. In case your root is missing writing permissions, you can download it from the link provided on the last installation step, and upload it manually.
  5. To secure your installation, at the end of install, remove or rename the install and upgrade folders

Note:
During the install procedure, the system will load XML file languages.
Depending on number of language chosen, this operation can take some time in order to complete

UPGRADE PROCEDURE

  1. Make a full backup of db and files, and make sure that you have a full backup that you can trust and recover if needed
  2. Export the language files (if you did any customization), to import them again after the upgrade
  3. Delete all files and directories excluding
    • the/files folder and all its subfolders and files
    • the customscripts folder
    • your own templates in templates/<yourowntemplate> (if you have any)
    • the config.php file in root folder
  4. Upload the new files
    • The upgrade procedure needs resources under install folder, so make sure to also upload this one
    • Forma.lms web is protected with apache.htaccess files from unauthorized use. Often dot-files
      are hidden from view. Check your environment and be sure that also these files are uploaded
  5. Launch http://www.yourwebsite.com/upgrade (of course you should type your domain, not “yourwebsite.com”)
  6. Follow upgrade instructions.
  7. As a final step of the upgrade, the procedure imports and updates all languages previously defined with the standard translations.
  8. At the end of the upgrade, go to the “Administration panel/Language” to import your own language files
  9. To secure your installation, at the end of upgrade, remove or rename the install and upgrade folders.

The procedure may change the config.php file for you, or it may ask you to download it and upload to the web root folder, if not writable.

Upgrade to version 4.x

Forma 4 introduces a completely rewritten install and upgrade component based on the Doctrine ORM.
Since it is a migration, upgrading to Forma 4 will be only possible starting from version 3.3.25. Upgrading from previous versions you’ll need to upgrade to version 3.3.25 first, and then to Forma 4. An external legacy upgrade component is planned to be released to manage direct upgrades from previous versions.

Upgrade from version 2.xx

During upgrade from forma.lms 2.x to forma.lms 2.2 and later, pay attention to
a) Template
Template 2.0 and 2.1 are not compatible with 2.2
During the upgrade, the site template is updated to “standard”.
Minimum template version required (see release notes)

Upgrade from version 1.xx

During upgrade from forma.lms 1.x to forma.lms 2.xx, pay attention to
a) Database
after upgrade the DB are not full compatible with forma.lms 1.xx, and there is no path to go back.
Made a backup before upgrade
b) Template
Template 1.xx are not compatible with 2.xx
During the upgrade, the site template is updated to “standard”
c) Dropped feature
d) Customscripts
All customization made through customscripts/ must be reviewed and ported to the 2.0 current
version. forma.lms does not check base version file with your customized version in customscripts
folder. There is no version check support for customscripts files

e) The update detects the use of the mysql / mysqli driver and changes the configuration appropriately

At the end of the upgrade process, check all the system configuration settings to validate your needs. The update procedure tries to keep the settings, but new options have been added and others have been removed

Please, double-check the above release notes before upgrading

Upgrade from docebo ce 3.x, docebo ce 4.x

You can directly upgrade your old docebo (either series 3.6.x and 4.x) installations to forma.lms 2.x
The config.php file is completely changed from D36 and with more config options since D4.x
The upgrade procedure changes the config.php for you and writes it (if writable), or requires you to download it and upload to the web root folder.
Coming from D36, review the config.php and add your own settings, if needed.

Forma LMS Basics

General architecture and definitions

Login and Registration

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Main Layout Elements 

  1. Language Selector
    Change language for the login and registration page. This automatically detects the user browser language. Upon login, language will be set to the user profile language.

  2. Course Catalog
    Opens the catalog of courses. Feature must be enabled from System Configuration elearning settings.

  3. Login and social login
    Standard login form. Social login features can be activated from the plugin manager.

  4. Privacy Policy
    Default privacy policy text can be edited in admin settings

LMS Frontend & User Panel

The frontend of the application hosts all the learning related features for both students and teachers.

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Main Layout elements

1. Main Menu: this is the main navigation menu, for all the general sections of the platform

2. MyCourses Tabs: access different areas of the MyCourses section, if enabled

3. Filters panel: here a user can filter and search among the courses he is subscribed to:

User Panel

This panel displays personal info and features for the user:

1. Profile: if allowed by configuration, user can edit his own profile

2. User features:

3. Career: some basic stats about user activities

4. Language selector

Backend Administration

This is the area of the application where most of the administrative operations happen, such as user management and course creation.

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Terms and Definitions

USER LEVEL
it's the main permission level that determines which part of the application a user can access, and his level of permissions. In Forma LMS users might be registered as one of the following levels:
1. User
can only access the frontend
2. Administrator
can access the backend with limited functionalities and permissions over users and courses
3. SuperAdmin
is a "GodAdmin" that can access both the frontend and the backend with full permissions

User ROLE
users of any level can be subscribed to courses with different roles, determining what they can do and see within a course based on course menu configuration and their level
Admin Profile
the admin profile defines which features an admin can access in the backend menu, and what he can do. The admin profile works together with admin permissions that can be set over specific courses, catalogs, user groups, user nodes, etc.

Registration
user is registered to the platform with a specific level
Subscription
user is enrolled to a course with a specific role

Configuration

List and description of the main configuration settings and features

Configuration

System Configuration

Main system configurations are available under:

Admin > System configuration > Settings

From each tab panel, you can access a different configuration section with different groups of options

Most of the options are self-explaining, we will describe the most important and critical.

Main Options

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General Settings

This group of options includes the main basic configurations for your Forma LMS installation

Page Title

The name that appears in the user's browser;

Default Template

The default template assigned to the installation;

Website URL

The web address of your platform (must finish with a /)

Default language

The default language for the platform labels, if a user specific language isn't defined

Sender email for alerts

The e-mail address from which notifications are sent to users

Visual HTML Editor

The visual editor used for text formatting

Site Owner

Text to be shown as custom footer credits in your template

Email Options

 Set-ups for the general email settings for the platform

Prefix for helpdesk
Enter a text to prepend to the helpdesk email subject. 
Add CC or CCN Addresses

All the emails sent by the system will also be sent to these addresses. If you want to use multiple email addresses in those fields, please use a comma (,) followed by a space as a separator.

User

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General Settings

Main settings for user related configurations:  from this section, it is possible to edit:

Password

Main settings for password related configurations

Register

Settings for platform registration modes and features

Registration Types

Free self registration
Users can self-register directly to the platform, receiving just their credentials if a notification event is enabled (Check Event Manager for notification settings)
Free registration with double OPT-IN
Users will receive an email with a confirmation link upon self-registration
Moderated self registration
User registration must be approved by an administrator
Only administrators
Only administrators can register new users. Registration link on login page is disabled

Advanced Registration

Select the option “Use advanced registration form” to:

  1. Split registration for custom fields: users will be asked first to fill the main registration fields, while all the custom fields will be prompted on a following page
  2. Enable self registration to Groups: upon registration, users will be prompted with a list of groups and will be automatically added to the selected groups

Registration Code Usage

This feature extends the registration form, asking the user to select or insert a code.

This will:

Other Options

Limit the user to only one node
Select to avoid users to be registered in multiple nodes
Mandatory customfield
mandatory customfields will be required also in administration user edit

E-Learning

This section includes some configuration options for frontend LMS and courses

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General Settings

Home Page
Select the page to be shown to users after login
Send user to catalog if not enrolled
Redirect user to catalog if MyCourses page is set as home page but is empty
Hide Empty category
In the catalog page, empty categories are not listed in the side tree categories listing
Show login catalog
A button to the courses catalog will be shown on the login page
Exclude completed courses from the view "all open": in the MyCourses page, the "All Open" filter will hide course already completed by the users. Useful if you have too many courses and need to filter the completed ones for better bage browsing

 

Ecommerce

Settings for the ecommerce features. You just need to enter your PayPal account and, if you actually want to sell courses, unflag the “sandbox” option. The sandbox would be used to run tests without actually completing the transaction, obviously when you are ready to sell your courses you don't need a sandbox anymore. 

Important: if you want to use the ecommerce functions, you also have to do 2 more things

  • enable the course catalog
  • flag the “sell course” option when you create or edit your course, and put a price on it.

Videoconference

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Advanced

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General Settings

Session
The period of inactivity, after which a user is disconnected (session length)

Domain template assignment
Set the template to be assigned to specific domains. Add one domain per row, like: [www.yourdomain.com],[template]

File uploads

 Set the default folders for different types of asset.

Caution. Changing these paths may lead to link and display errors.

Twig Cache

 Use this button to empty the Twig Cache folder in case of visualization problems after plugin install or template changes.

Debug Options

 Options to enable code and language debug features

Google

 Settings for Google Analytics integration

Newsletter

Settings to avoid blacklisting and antispam issues when sending emails with the newsletter feature

 

Report Settings

 Use these settings to configure automatic report sending conditions

Some security related options:

IP control
If this option is selected and the user changes connection during the same login session, he will get an error
Disable simultaneous access
The same user cannot be logged from different devices at the same time

API & Authentication

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Check the API & Integration documentation for details

This section was introduced with Forma 4.0

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The option "Security Related > Keep a list of deleted users" has been removed since Forma 4.2 and will be automatically active

SMS

This feature has been REMOVED SINCE FORMA 4.0

You can also send SMS from Forma. We have an integration with the popular Skebby service. Just create an account with them (click on the button), purchase credit from them and fill the required fields with the account information you will receive from Skebby.

Then you'll be able to send Forma notifications with an SMS instead of an email. Every automatic event can be configured with email or SMS from the event manager. For the manual communications, you can decide what to use from time to time.

Of course, you need to have the mobile phone number of your users in an additional field, and you need to set the correct field for the mobile number in this section.

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SMTP settings

SINCE FORMA 4.0 this feature has been MOVED under settings > system configuration >mail settings 

If you want to send trusted and authenticated emails with one of your email accounts, remember to set these 2 parameters as “on” during the installation of Forma Lms

$cfg['use_smtp_database'] = 'on';
$cfg['use_smtp'] = 'on';

If you select that you will use the SMTP, a new tab will appear in your general settings, and you'll be able to insert your account information in your User Interface (host, port, password, username, security…).

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Configuration

Plugin Management

Plugin Manager

From this page, you can manage available plugins and install new ones

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ACTIONS

Settings
Edit plugin settings, if available
Install
Here you can install or uninstall available plugins
Purge
Completely removes the plugin from the installation
Activate
While installed, a plugin can be activated or deactivated. When deactivated, plugins will be ignored by the system
Priority
In case of conflicts here you can set the load priority for the plugins

 Install a new plugin

The steps to add new plugins are:

  1. Upload: upload a plugin package directly from your computer. After upload the new plugin will be added to the available plugin list
  2. Install: this will actually install the plugin features
  3. Activate: to make the plugin features really effective
Configuration

Time Periods (Course credits)

Forma allows the creation of time periods related to course credits:

Admin > Settings > E-Learning Configuration > Time periods

Click add button to insert a new period: 

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The period is shown in the list:

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In order to use time periods, enable Credits  

Admin > Settings > E-Learning Configuration > User area in LMS

Click on 'Credits' and be sure that the tick is green:

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Insert credits in a course:

Elearnig > Courses > Courses > Edit a course

In the section 'Details' you can assign the number of credits

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Users can check their credit balance in the log in frame in the tab 'Time Periods'

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Configuration

Codes

Forma allows the creation of subscription codes:

Admin > Settings > System configuration > Code

Click add button to insert a new Code: 

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Code features

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1 - Code list: Administrator can add new codes and set an unlimited use.

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Code list shows used codes, username and unlimited use. Used codes cannot be redeemed anymore.

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2 - Generate new codes : Administrator can generate new codes, insert the number and selecting unlimited use, 0-9, a-z or A-Z

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3 - Import code from a CSV file

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4 - Course selection

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5 - Code assignment: Administrator can assign code to the users using the organization chart and company roles

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6 - Administrator can edit code title and code description

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7 - Administrator can delete the codes

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Once the code has been created and assign, the user can redeem it from the login frame:

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Configuration

Event Manager

Forma LMS allows notifications to be automatically sent to users.

Notification events can be set from:

Admin > Settings > System Configuration > Event Manager

Notifications Settings

This is the list of available notifications:

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Platform
Part of the system where the notification is generated
Name
Description of the event that will generate a notification
Not Used
Notification won't be sent
Mandatory
The selected notification will be sent to involved users, based on event type
Email / SMS
Define whether the notification should be sent by email and/or SMS.

Note: for SMS to be sent, a dedicated service must be configured. Check SMS configuration

Recipients
Description of the type of recipients for each notification


Notification Text

The text of automatic notification events can be modified through the Language Management feature:

Admin > Settings > Language Management

Just search for part of the text you need to edit

Configuration

I/O Tasks Connectors

The I/O (Input Output) system allows Forma LMS data to be exported to and imported from other applications.

It is available under:

Admin > Settings > System Configuration > I/O Tasks

It provides the functionalities to configure and schedule a set of tasks for reading and writing .csv or .xml files to be exchanged in a shared FTP folder.

Basic workflow for managing import/export of data in automatic mode:

Examples of usage

Tasks configuration

Three steps to create a task and automate some activity:

  1. Create a CONNECTOR
  2. Create a CONNECTION
  3. Create and schedule a TASK

NOTE
Here below a brief general description of the three features, for further details and examples please refer to the Extended Connectors Guide

Connectors

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Creating a connector means to activate it and make it operational (there is a file that manages a certain type of data)

There are pre-programmed tasks files that perform the following activities:

Connections

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Creating a connection means to assign a certain task to a connector, namely where to write or retrieve certain data, whether these are read from a file or stored in a DB.

Tasks

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To create a task means to associate the source connector to a destination connector and explain where to store (importing or exporting) certain data. For instance, writing data on a CSV file or a database beginning with data in another database or CSV file.

Configuration

Question Category

You can create an unlimited number of categories that can be used globally to categorize any question in any test or in the question bank.

This feature is available for administrators under:

Admin > Settings > Elearning Configuration > Question Category

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Configuration

Additional Fields

Additional fields can be associated to users, or to other platform entities such as org-chart nodes, courses and learning objects

Additional Fields (Users)

User additional fields can be created and managed under:

Admin > Settings > Additional Fields > Additional Fields

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Different field types are available:

Tip:
You can assign different fields to different orgchart nodes, and create custom registration forms using the advanced registration

Custom Fields (Other items)

Can be configured under:

Admin > Settings > Additional Fields > Custom Fields Manager

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Two kinds of field are available:

You can associate custom fields to different platform items to extend their configurations:

These fields will be then available in reports

Configuration

Privacy Policies

Default Privacy Policy

By default, users will be required to accept a privacy policy statement both on login and registration.

The default privacy policy text is defined in language management:

Admin > Settings > Language Management

The language key to be edited is: _REG_PRIVACY_POLICY

This option can be disabled from:

Admin > System configuration > Settings > User > Register

Privacy Management

Alternatively, you can set a new Privacy Statement from the Privacy Management:

Admin > Setting > System configuration > Privacy Policy

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Edit the default page and flag it as default:

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Multiple Policies

It is possible to manage different Privacy statements and assign it to one or more orgchart nodes:

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Configuration

Manage Menu

You can create and manage menu templates from:

Admin > Settings > Elearning Configuration > Manage Menu

Menus are “templates” applied upon course creation, so changes applied here won't affect existing courses. To apply changes to existing courses use the course management features

It is possible to edit menu configurations also from within each course, affecting only the course specific menu: this will give you maximum flexibility with menu management and customization.

TIP: create just the menu template that you most commonly use to differentiate coure types, i.e. you coud have a menu for elearning and another for classroom courses, and only when needed add further customizations directly in the course

Manage Menus

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Manage Areas

Menu items are grouped in “areas”, that you can create, order, rename and delete:

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Assign Modules

Within each area, you can assign or remove modules.

At the bottom of the page, you can see the list of available modules to assign to the selected area.

When you delete a module from the menu, it will appear again in the available modules list.

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Set role permissions

Click on the edit icon for each module to:

  1. Edit the menu item name
  2. Assign the available permissions for all the user subscription roles

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View Permission for administrators

Some modules presenting a list of users have a special “view all” permission checkbox, that applies only for users of level “administrator”:

Superadministrators and standard users will see all users in any case.

Configuration

Language Management

Language manager

You will find the language management features under:

Admin > Settings > Language Management

Here you will find a list of the available languages in your platform

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From this panel it will be possible to:

  1. Edit existing languages
  2. Import language files
  3. Add new languages

Edit existing languages

To edit existing language translation keys, click on the highlighted icon in the previous image to get to the language editing page:

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In this page you will find a list of all the available translation keys 

1. Filter the language keys:

2. Search language translations: search any text in all the listed key translations (doesn't search in key names)

3. Edit any translation, just by clicking on the translation text

4. Add a new translation key for all the available languages

Import language files

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Import Modes:

Options:

Add a new language

Create an empty new language

User Management

Features for user creation and management: organization chart, groups, administrators, custom fields, roles, competences,...

User Management

Users and organization chart

Overview

The user management page is split into two main parts:

  1. Organization Chart: this tree-like structure of folders (nodes) represents the core logic for user's organization, and will be used by most of the other features of the LMS. To simplify user's selection and automate massive operations.
  2. User List:  this is the list of the users in the selected folder. Select the root folder to list all the registered users.

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Organization Chart

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  1. Add node to the organization chart
  2. Import Users
  3. Waiting Users
  4. Deleted Users
  5. Assign Users
  6. Assign Fields
  7. Edit Node
  8. Delete Node

Add Node

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Code: Add an alphanumeric code that can be used by other features like registration with code or I/O task

Default Template: assign a specific template for the users in this node

Name (language): Name for this node, a different field for each language will be shown

Import Users

This feature lets you import a list of users from a .CSV file.

Check the user import guide page for details

Waiting Users

It will display a list of users that either:

You will then be able to approve or delete the user

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Deleted Users

Access a list of deleted users. 

Forma < 4.1.x:

In Forma LMS until version 4.1.x, activate this feature to keep a list of deleted users, find this setting under:

[Settings > System Configuration > Settings > Security]

The list is just a plain log and it won't be possible to recover deleted user

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In Forma 4.2 or later

In Forma 4.2 this feature have been completely refactored and acts as "Trash" area for the deleted users.

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The system will automatically store deleted users as trashed, and it is now possible to:

If you are upgrading from a Forma version prior to 4.2 and the deleted user list was active, all the deleted users will be reported in the new "trash" area adding a ".deleted" suffix to the username, and it will be then possible to completely remove them from the database

Assign users to a node

Click this icon to select users that you want to assign to this node

By default, users can be assigned only to a single node.  It is possible to assign users to multiple nodes, although this is strongly discouraged to avoid possible undesirable or unpredictable behaviors in other platform areas (i.e., reports, administrators assignments, or other). To enable multi-node user assignment, check the relative option under advanced configuration

Assign Field to node

 This feature lets you define which custom fields must be assigned for users in this node:

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Assign Field: the selected fields will be available in the profile of users in this node

Descendants: the selected fields will be available in the profile of users in the subnodes of this folder

Mandatory: filling this field will be mandatory in the user registration form

Invisible to user: the selected field will be hidden on user registration form

User Inherit: all users of this node will get the same value. If you change the value for a user, it will be sett for all the others.

Users' List

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Add new user

Click to insert a new user in the selected node.

  1. Details Tab: fill user fields
  2. Organization chart Tab: select the nodes to assign the user to

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Search Users

Show also child nodes content: the list will show also the users from subnodes of the selected node. If you are displaying the root node, all users will be displayed.

Show also suspended users: show or hide suspended users from the list

Search: will search on any of the visible field in the user list below

Advanced Search: will display an advanced search form with possibility to add search over specific fields and conditions:

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Dynamic columns

Select from the dropdown which data field to show in the correspondent columns, and sort for the displayed data.

The search engine will search over the displayed data.

User Actions

Actions you can take over each user:

View user profile: opens a pop-up window with user information

Remove from node: user will be removed from the selected node, but remain registered to the platform

Activate/Suspend: lets you suspend or reactivate users. Suspended users will be still visible in reports if needed, but can't access the platform

Delete: user will be deleted from the platform. This action can't be recovered

Massive Actions

Lets you massively apply actions over all the users selected in the list.

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User Management

Import Users

Use this feature to easily import a list of users with custom fields from a CSV file.

The CSV file doesn't require a specific structure, the import schema can be set manually for each file upon import.

File Options

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Import Options

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Send new login credentials to users
If flagged, the registration email with user credentials is sent to each imported user

Node
All the imported users will be added to the selected node. You can still import users to different nodes at a time, check the schema options below.

Action on users
Define what to do if a user is already present or not: create new and update existing, just create new users ignoring existing ones, just update existing while ignoring the new ones.

Require password change upon next login
Define if the user should be prompted to change password on next login. They will need anyway to know a default password.

Set password
Choose if you want to load the password from the imported file, or set it with the following method (automatic or manual).
Note: If “load from file” is chosen and the password field in the imported file is left empty, the password creation method will be used instead

Password create
Automatically sets a different random password for each user,
Manual password: this will be the default password for all users

Import Schema
Select the forma field in which import each file column

Folder Name: you can use this value in the import schema to insert users in different org-chart nodes. Add a column to your import file to specify the folder wher you want the user to be inserted.  Field values must correspond to existing org-chart node names

Language: You can set the language for each imported user by mapping a column to the Language field. The value must be the language name written in full (e.g., italian, english). Do not use language codes — only the plain language name is accepted

User Management

Groups

Groups are an alternative way to organize users, that can be used in example for cross-node grouping or temporary grouping to simplify some operation.

The groups feature can be managed from:

Admin > Users > Groups Management

Create Groups

Use the “new” button to create new groups

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Add Users

Clicking on the icon in users column, you can:

  1. Select and add users to the group
  2. Import a list of existing users as a CSV file containing the usernames (users must already exist)

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User Management

Administrators

An “administrator” is a user that can access the LMS backend with limited visibility and permissions over features, users and courses.

You can have an unlimited number of administrators.

Three basic steps to set up an administrator:

  1. Set some user with the level “administrator”
  2. Create or edit an administrator profile, with assignment of the respective permissions to each profile
  3. Assign to the user the desired administrator profile
  4. Associate the users and course to be managed by each administrator

Create an administrator

Any existing user can be configured as an administrator by setting this level in his personal user profile, from the global user management area.

Administrator Profile

From this page you can create and manage Administrator Profiles

A Profile is a settings template that can be assigned to multiple users. Changes to a profile will affect all the users assigned to that profile

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Special Settings

Click on the “Special Settings” icon to set some global configurations for this admin profile:

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Edit Settings

From this page, you will be able to define the permissions on most of the backed features for the administrators assigned to this profile:

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Language Settings

Give this user edit permissions on some specific languages in the language management area

Manage Subscriptions

See a list of the users assigned to this profile

Administrator Management

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Assign Profile

Click to assign a profile to this administrator

Assign Users

Select which users this administrator will be able to view and managed, based on his profile settings. It's possible to assign:

Assign Courses

Select which courses this administrator will be able to view and managed, based on his profile settings.

There are three assignment options:

Assign Locations

Select if this administrator can manage some location configurations

User Management

Competences

Manage Competences

Forma LMS lets you create and manage a list of skills and competences required by your company roles and assigned by course and test completion.

Find the competence management under:

Admin > Users > Competences

You can group competences in categories, and for each category you'll be able to set:

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Assign competences to users

Assign by course completion

Users can obtain a competence by completing a course. Each course can assign one or more competences, see the Course Management guide.

Assign by test completion

A user could get a competence score by completing a test. See feedback management in the test learning object guide.

User Management

Company Roles

Overview

Forma provides another method to organize and define users by their company role.

Company Roles can be defined in:

Admin > Users > Company Roles

 

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Role Groups

Company roles can be organized into groups of roles:

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Company Roles

Each company role can be assigned to multiple users.

Users

This column shows the number of users assigned to this role.

Click on the user icon to see the list of assigned users.

Click on the chart icon for each user to see his skill-gap analysis report:

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Competences

This column will display the number of competences required by this role.

Click on the icon to manage the competences required for a company role:

Assign: opens the list of available competences

Properties: set the minimum required score for this competence and the number of days of validity

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Courses

This column will display the number of courses assigning the competences required by this role

Gap Analysis

See the gap analysis report for all the users in this company role:

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Course Administration (Backend)

Backend Course Administration features: subscriptions, courses, categories, catalogs, coursepaths, etc.

Course Administration (Backend)

Course Management

Overview

Course management is located under:

Admin > Elearning > Courses > Courses

The course management page is split in two main parts, as for the user management. 

  1. Categories: a tree-like structure for content categories. 
  2. Course list: a flat list of all the courses assigned to the selected category

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What is a Category

 A category is a container for courses, generally used to group courses by topics.

Categories will be shared among catalogs and other parts of the platform.

NOTE:
If you need a way to assign groups of courses to specific users, check the catalog feature

What is a course

A course is a logical container, you can manage administrative features from this backend section:

Training features will be managed from the platform frontend instead:

Categories

You can:

Filter and Search Courses

Options that apply to the course list below:

Courses

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This list shows courses from the selected category, ordered by code, name or type. Here, you can control and manage the following features for each course:

Students

Simply shows the number of users enrolled to this course with level “student”

Waiting

Number of user subscriptions to be approved when “moderated” registration is active. Click on the number to manage the waiting users:

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Subscriptions

Number of users subscribed to the course. Check the “subscription management” page of this guide for details

Editions

Number of editions available for a “classroom” or “elearning editions” course. Check the “editions management” page of this guide for details

Certificates Assign

Assign a certificate template to this course

Certificate Release

Check the list of available and released certificate for this course

Competences

Click this icon to set the competences assigned by the course. Each course can assign one or more competences, click on the icon to:

Manage Competences
Check the Competences Guide to learn how to create and manage competences in Forma LMS.

Menu

Assign a different menu template to this course

Copy

Duplicate this course. You will be able to select which elements of the course to copy:

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Edit

Edit the selected course information and settings

Delete

Delete the course.

Caution!
This operation can't be undone!

Course Administration (Backend)

Creating and editing a course

Here you can see all the configuration settings available for a course. This same configuration page is used for both creating a new course and editing an existing one.

Most of them are self-explaining, we will provide descriptions and details where needed:

Main course information

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Selected Category: shows the selected category for the course. Can be changed upon course edit.

Code: enter an alphanumeric code that will help you identify different versions or releases of courses with similar titles, or to integrate course features with other applications.

Course Type: Select the course type:

  1. Elearning: standard elearning course
  2. Classroom: course with editions and classroom management
  3. Elearning with editions: course with edition management

Since Forma LMS 4.1.42 is not possible anymore to change the course type if users are already enrolled to the course. This and other conditions (subscriptions via API or import) led to some inconsistencies in previous versions, with "ghost" subscribed users on master courses converted from elearning to classroom or vice versa. Also, An automatic realignment algorithm ensures consistency between master course enrollments and classroom session enrollments by removing users enrolled only in the master course and adding those enrolled only in sessions. It operates on one or all classroom courses, respects overbooking rules, and safely handles repeated executions without side effects. It is also applied during upgrades to fix legacy inconsistencies. See the release article for details. 

Course Status: Select the status for this course:

  1. Under Construction: the course is only accessible to the users responsible for preparing its content (normally teachers, tutors, mentors and/or administrators);
  2. Confirmed/ Available: the course is accessible to the users. Confirmed is meant to be used for classroom courses, available is meant for elearning courses
  3. Concluded: the course is finished and only those users who have concluded it have access;
  4. Cancelled: the course is no longer accessible, and registration from the course catalog is no longer possible.

Directly play the first object: when clicking on the course “enter” button, the first LO will be automatically opened. Don't use this option if you have more than one LO, because it would be impossible to play the following LO's

Course Box Description: enter the text to be displayed in the “my Courses” boxes. You can also insert a link, provided you write it with the appropriate HTML Code

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The description will then be displayed on the My Courses page and in the Catalog

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Description: full description that can be shown in the “course info” module, or inserted in certificate templates with a tag.

Details

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Assign the menu: choose the menu template to be used in this course. If you don't select any different menu, the default one (i.e., the first in alphabetical order) will be used.

Course Language: Define the language used for course materials. This option will be useful to filter or select courses by language in catalogs, enrollment policies, administrator assignments

Difficulty: label to describe course difficulty level

Credits: credits assigned by this course, to be shown in reports and calculated through the “time period” option

Labels: assign a label to group courses with the “label” feature

Course Subscription

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Free: the course will be displayed on the “catalog” page, and the user will have the possibility of self-enrolling

On approval: the course will be displayed on the “catalog” page, and the user will have the possibility of self-enrolling. The request will have to be approved by a manager (an admin)

Only admin: the course will be displayed on the “catalog” page, but only admins will have the possibility of enrolling users.

It might make sense to describe those options in the course description, for instance, writing “ask your manager to enroll you”.

Code for automatic subscription: lets users self register to this course, entering this code upon registration or through the code field in the userpanel

Sell course: enable this course for ecommerce features

Display mode options

The following options will let you define some aspects related to course visualization and layout elements:

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Show Course To: The above section describes the course visibility options. Any course can be displayed or not to users who are not yet enrolled. Please also see the reference guide on Catalogs to learn how you can use catalogs, combining them with the displaying options.

Show on Course interface: choose elements to display or hide inside the course

Users Online in this course [Deprecated]: choose whether and how to display  the instant messenger.

Deprecated: the IM has been removed since version 4.1, and the options has been removed in forma 4.2

Users to show on Course Information module: you can choose by level wich users to display in the course info module inside a course

Deny Access to this course: Block access to the course for users in a specific status

Time options

In this section, you can configure options related to course scheduling and duration

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Days of validity:  course will be available to user only for the number of days defined in these fields. Time is calculated based on the date of user first access to the course.

Note: When “days of validity”is set,  the course closing date shown in the course boxes on the “My Courses” page will be dynamically calculated based on each user's first access date . If closing date is set and is prior than the user calculated end date, it will be displayed instead.

Average time for course: Estimated time for course fruition. It doesn't affect the user's stats, but can be used in course info and in reports. Decimal values are supported using a comma as the decimal separator (e.g., 1,50 to indicate 1 hour and 30 minutes).

Special Options

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Max number of subscriptions: once the limit is reached, course subscriptions by users will be blocked

Allow overbooking: once the max-subscription limit is reached, users will still be able to enroll to the course and put in a waiting list

Documents Upload

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Banners are only shown in specific settings (i.e., with one of our plugins).  The course logo should be 400 × 140 pixels.

Demo material can be anything you want, and it will be displayed in the My Courses page as well as in the Catalog, like this

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When you click on the three dots, you will see a clickable link allowing you to download whatever demo material you have uploaded.

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Course Administration (Backend)

Editions

Overview

In Forma, the idea behind editions is to have many separate issues of the same master course, with different start/end date and subscription groups.

All the editions of a course will inherit and share some features from the Master course:

To create a course with editions, you can select the desired course type upon course creation.

IMPORTANT: 
Do not convert an existing elearning course to editions: it won't be possible to manage the original subscribers that weren't associated to any edition

Add and Manage Editions

Click on the “editions” column in course management to add and configure your editions

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A list of the available editions will be displayed:

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Elearning Editions

You can use Elearning Editions to manage recurrent elearning or assessment courses requiring a start/end date and separate subscription

All the editions will share the same course materials, configuration, and certificate template.

Classroom Courses

Classroom courses extend the elearning courses with the ability so define for each edition:

Dates Settings

First, in the edition configuration, select one or multiple dates for the classroom lessons:

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Then in following page you will be asked to set for each date:

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Attendance

Use the “attendance” feature to flag the student that were actually present at each lesson day:

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Course Administration (Backend)

Subscription management

You can access subscriptions management from the course management page:

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Standard Subscription Management

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Fast Subscribing of a Single user

Use the “fast subscribe” field to easily add a single user to the course. 

Select the “Send Alert” checkbox if you want the user to be notified for the subscription

Subscribing multiple users

Click on the “Add” button if you want to add multiple users at once:

1. Select users: the system will open the user selection page, letting you select either:

On the same page, you can select whether to notify the selected users for the subscription

2. Select users' role in course:

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User Roles

Users can be enrolled to a course with 7 different roles, that can give different privileges in course frontend access and management depending on the course menu settings.

Available roles are:

  1. Administrator: usually a god admin with full permissions on all the course management feature
  2. Instructor: usually used for teacher, can upload learning materials and access course stats, but not configuration features (i.e., menu management, intro page edit, etc.)
  3. Mentor
  4. Tutor
  5. Student
  6. Guest
  7. Ghost: doesn't appear in some stats

Other Options

Subscribed users list features

The list of subscribed users lets you:

Multiple Subscriptions

With this feature, you will be able to:

1. Select users to be enrolled:

2. Select one or more courses to enroll the selected users to

3. Set the role for all the selected users on all the selected courses

Course Administration (Backend)

Catalogs

Global Catalog

By default, the catalog module will display a frontend list of all the available courses, and users will be able to self-subscribe or buy courses, depending on each course status and settings.

Activate the catalog

You can activate the catalog view by enabling the “Course Catalog” label in:

Admin > Settings > Elearning Configuration > User Area LMS

Catalog Settings

The behavior of the catalog module can be configured in 

Admin > Settings > System Configuration> Settings > Elearning

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Frontend View

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Multiple Catalogs Management

Multiple catalogs Management features are located under:

Admin > Elearning > Courses > Catalogs

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Add Courses

Use this feature to assign courses to this catalog

Assign users

Use this feature to assign users that will be able to view this catalog. You can select:

Subscribe users

Select users to be automatically assigned to all the courses in the selected catalog

Frontend View

If you use multiple catalogs, each assigned to a node or branch, each user will be displayed the catalog related to the node he is assigned to.

Course Administration (Backend)

Certificates

Certificate Management

The general certificate management features are available under:

Elearning > Certificates Management > Certificates

Here you can create certificate templates and manage and release certificates for all the courses

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Certificate Template

It is possible to create an unlimited number of templates, each of those can be assigned to multiple courses.

Certificate content can be easily created with a text editor, using placeholder “tags” where dynamic content should appear based on user and course information.

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Tags - dynamic fields

The certificate can include dynamic fields. The list of available tags can be found under the text editor: every field has its own description on the right. 

If you have added additional user fields, they will be listed as [userfield_1] etc. , always with the description on the right. 

Using the tags, the system will be able to dynamically add the user's name, the course name, the completion date and any other dynamic field you might want to add. 

 

Multipage Certificates

You can create multipage certificates by adding a page break, when you want the certificate to be split.

In the editor menu click on

Insert > PageBreak

The background image will be repeated on each page.

Background image

The background image should be an A4. In pixels, it can be 595 × 842 with a low image resolution, or up to 2480 px * 3508 px with a 300 dpi resolution.

Preview

Click this icon for a preview of your template

Release

Click this icon for a list of all the courses using this certificate:

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Click on the course title for a list of the users and their release status in each course:

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Available options:

Field visibility: add other columns to the table 

Advanced Search: add advanced search filters to table header

Generate all the selected certificates, to make them available for download

Download all the selected certificates in a single zip file

Delete a certificate and generate it again

Direct Course Access:
Please note this same user list is available from the course management for easier consultation(see below)

Administrator View:
This users list is automatically filtered on administrator assignements: each administrator will see only its assigned users

Edit

Change the name, code, and description of the template

Course Certificate Management

From the course management area, you can:

  1. Assign one or more certificates to a course
  2. Check and manage released certificates

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Administrators:
you can assign to an administrator profile both features, or just the certificate release management. Check the administrator guide page for details

Assign Certificate to a course

Click this icon to assign a certificate template to a course

You can assign different certificate templates for different user status.

Click on the “number of released certificates” to see the list of subscribed users and their status:

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Release

Click on this icon to see a list of the users and their release status in each course.

(See above: Certificate Management > Release)

Course Administration (Backend)

Enrolment Rules

Overview

With the enroll rules feature, it is possible to create automatic subscription rules based on different criteria.

You can set the enroll rules from:

Admin > Elearning > Enroll Rules

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Adding Rules

When you add a new rule, you can set:

Title: a name for the rule

Language: the rule will apply only for users with the same language set for their profile, or for all users

Type:  set the main criteria for selecting the users to apply this rule to. It won't be possible to change the rule type once it is saved. You can select users based on their:

Managing Rules

Click on this icon to manage the rule: 

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Selecting Users

You will be able to select the nodes, groups, or company roles to apply this rule to, based on the type of rule chosen upon creation.

When the rule is active, all the users added to the selected node, group, or role will be automatically subscribed to some course. 

Note:
Rules will automatically apply automatically only to users added to the selected nodes/groups/roles after its creation. To apply the rule also to users already within the selected criteria, see the "apply rule" button below 

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Selecting Courses

Here, you can select the courses to automatically enroll users. You can set different courses for each of the nodes, groups, or roles you selected

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Applying the Rule

Click this button to automatically enroll all the existing users based on the selected criteria.

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Logs

In this page you will see a list of all the applied rules. It will be possible to:

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Course Administration (Backend)

Reservations

The reservation module allows the creation of subscription events (i.e., in presence seminars, meetings, exams, etc.), where users can subscribe from within a course. Events can be created and managed in two ways:

  1. by course administrators having the edit permission set for their subscription level (I. Teacher, tutor, etc.). The “Reservation” item must be added to the course menu
  2. by platform administrators, from the forma admin section

Administration > Elearning > Reservation Management

Event Categories

Administration > Elearning > Reservation Management > Category

A category is a general classification for events, like “Exams”, “Seminars”, “Meetings”, etc.

Categories can be created only from the administration panel, and will be available for all events in any course on the same platform. For each category, you can set:

Events

Administration > Elearning > Reservation Management > Events

This section will let platform administrators add and manage events for all courses

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Course Features (FrontEnd)

Frontend Course Management for course administrators, teachers, and students

Course Features (FrontEnd)

Announcements

The “Announcement” module adds a news and communication board to your course.

The announcements area allows the teacher or person managing the course to publish a communication for the students, sending a personal notification to each user’s e-mail box.

View and manage Announcements

All the course users with view permissions on the module can read announcements 

Students will be able to read and archive under the “history” tab, announcements they can see.

This is the full view for user roles with edit permission on the module (i.e., course administrators, teachers, tutors):

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Insert an announcement

When adding a new announcement, you can define:

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Course Features (FrontEnd)

Report Card

This module shows to the user his own scores in tests, SCORM and classroom activities.

Visibility of each evaluation item can be set in gradebook module

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Course Features (FrontEnd)

Newsletter (Course)

This module allows course managers (i.e., administrators, teachers, courses) to mass-email users subscribed to subscribed users.

Features:

It is also possible to choose which users to send the communication to based on the language in which the platform is configured.

The communication can be sent either by e-mail or SMS (when this service is managed by the platform).

Check also the Global Newsletter settings

Course Features (FrontEnd)

Manage Menu

This module is generally assigned only to course administrators, with view and edit permissions, and located under

Teacher Area > Manage Menu

This module will let you:

Changes made here will affect only the present course specific menu, and won't reflect on general menu templates or any other course: this will give you maximum flexibility with menu management and customization.

If you need to apply changes to several courses, consider assigning or creating a menu template from general administration, or ask a god admin to do that.

Please refer to the general menu management feature for details.

Course Features (FrontEnd)

Course Forum

Course forums will be available to all course users, or only selected course users

The feature is usually located under the “Collaborative Area” menu, but you can use the menu management feature to:

Check the global community forum guide for details about forum creation and management

Course Features (FrontEnd)

Gradebook

REMOVED: this feature has been deprecated and removed since Forma LMS 4.2, replaced by the new Course Report module

The gradebook is one of the most important and useful course features, used to manage all the evaluation activities in a course:

Overview

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View Answer stats

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Edit test gradebook options

Use the “Edit” icon for each test to see a list of the scores for all the user. You will also be able to:

Configure:

Plus, for each user you can

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Test execution detail

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Add a new activity

Here, you can also manually add more scores to be calculated for the final course score:

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Detail

 

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  1. Score and Attempts: vote of each user in the last attempt for each evaluation item. Number of attempts is shown in brackets, click to see the full attempts hisoty
  2. Final Score: this column lists the final vote for each user. The score is calculated on-the-fly on page loading, manually edited score ar shown in brackets. Check this page for details on final score calculation and related behaviours.
    Click on the icons to:
    1. Recalculate final score for all user
    2. Round the vote to decimals
    3. Edit the final score

Attempts History

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Edit Final score

Click on the icons on the “Final score” column to:

Course Features (FrontEnd)

Course Stats

REMOVED: these features have been deprecated and removed since Forma LMS 4.2, replaced by the new Course Report module

Forma provides different stats to monitor course and user progress:

These features are usually located under the “Stats Area” of the course menu

Usage Stats

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Click on the username for a detail of the user's sessions in this course:

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User Stats

User statistics provide the teacher with a report on the activities of each individual, highlighting their level of progress in the course.

By clicking on the name of each user, their progress status for each course object can be viewed.

Displays:

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Filter for the desired criteria, or click on a username for details:

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LO Stats

In statistics by object, a comparison can be made regarding the status of all the users in relation to a specific learning object.

It is also possible to view the aggregated results of a survey.

On the initial screen, the objects for which the comparison is to be made can be selected by clicking on the magnifying glasses.

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Course Features (FrontEnd)

User/Objects Grid

REMOVED: this feature has been deprecated and removed since Forma LMS 4.2, replaced by the new Course Report module

The “User Object Grid” module allows:

Overview

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User Report

Click on a username to see detailed information:

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LO Details

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Course Features (FrontEnd)

Course Info

This module will disply a structured info page for the course:

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Users with edit permissions on the menu item will see the "EDIT" button and will be able to change some of the general course settings:

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Course Features (FrontEnd)

Course Report

Overview

The Course Report Module extends Forma LMS reporting capabilities by centralizing all course-related tracking data into a single, cohesive view. It enables administrators and trainers to analyze user progress, completion status, and performance at both course and participant level, supporting more informed decision-making. Built on the platform’s flexible reporting system, it allows customizable filters, detailed data selection, and export options. This module is designed to simplify monitoring course activities and improve the efficiency of training evaluation processes.

Upgrading from Forma 4.1.4

This module has been introduced with Forma LMS 4.2. If you are upgrading from older forma versions, this single module will replace all the following teacher area features:

During the upgrade process all these features will be automatically removed both from the course menus and from the menu templates in admin area. A link to the new module will be automatically created in the same menu area both for course menu and menu templates. trying to migrate the same menu permission for administrative roles as the old modules.

Permissions eventually set to users enrolled with the role of student, ghost or guest will be removed.

Check your menus item after upgrade. In case the new module is not present in a course, just re-apply to the course the menu template, making permissions changes if needed. View the menu management documentation for details.

Features

Dashboard

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  1. Filters Bar: allow filtering the below data by edition or course group. Not displayed if groups or editions are not configured for this course
  2. Users status Chart: Total number of enrolled users, and pie chart showing the amount of users for each status. Mouse over each segment to see the number of users.
  3. Course Info:
    • Start/End date, as set in the main course options. For classroom courses will show the dates set for the master course
    • Days Left: counts remainig days from today until the end date of the course. Only shown if the end date for the course is set.
    • Learning Objects: total number of LO in this course
  4. Quick Search by User: select a specific user or just start writing a username, and click the submit button to directly see his report details
  5. Quick Search by Learning Object: select a specific Learning Objector just start writing its title, and click the submit button to directly see the report details page for this LO
  6. Usage stats: usage stats for the last period. 

User Report

Main Page

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  1. Filters Bar: allows filtering the data below by edition or course group. Not displayed if groups or editions are not configured for this course
  2. Recalculate: recalculates the final score for all users
  3. Export: export the report in CSV or XLS format
  4. Search: search on the displayed data, enable advanced search, anable visibility of hidden columns
  5. Username: click on a username to display a detailed report of the status of this user on all the learning objects

User Report

Status and main tracking data for all the LOs for a specific user

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  1. Edit: edit the main informations for the user status on the course
    • Status
    • First Access
    • Last access
  2. Export: export the user tracking data in CSV or XLS format
  3. Learning Objects list: click on the object title to see user details for this learning material
  4. Scorm time tracking: the colums displays the total time spent by a user in each scorm object. Click on the "+" icon to see a detailed report of all the accesses

Learning Objects Report

Main Page

This page lists all the learning objects in the course with informations about the progress of users in the course

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  1. Filters Bar: allows filtering the data below by edition or course group. Not displayed if groups or editions are not configured for this course
  2. Gradebook Filter: flag this checkbox to filter the list of learning objects and display only those with scores and marked as "Use for final" in the LO Management - properties section
  3. Export: export the report data in CSV or XLS format
  4. LO Title: Click on the title of a learning object for a detailed report
  5. LO user status chart: this chart represents the progress status of all users on a learning object. Mouse hover a segment of the status bar to see the number of users with that status in a LO
  6. Answer stats: click on the istogram icon to see statistics for the answers in a test or poll learning object

Learning Object Report

This view features an overview of the status of all users on this learning object, and a list of all the users with their main tracking info

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  1. Learning Object Info: main information about the selected learning objects. Score settings like max score, use for final, show to user and weight can be set and edited by each LO properties and editing sections
  2. Test Metrics: only displayed for "test" learning objects:
    • User status: shows how many users have completed (passed or failed), not completed (not attempted or doing) an assessment, and the number of submissions waiting for a teacher validation (to check). Click on a label to filter the users in this status
    • Average score: calculates the average score for all users in this test
  3. Score status chart: pie chart displaying the score status of all users. Mouse hover a segment of the status bar to see the number of users with that score status in this LO
  4. User tracking details: click on a username to see the user status and tracking details for this LO
  5. Attempts: number of attempt of the users in a test

User Details

This page displays the available details and features for the tracking of a user on a specific Learning Object, and can be reached by navigating either the user report or the learning objects report.

The page features the following info panel, while the content will vary based on the type of learning object displayed: 

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  1. Info: main tracking information for a user on this learning object. Some details may slightly vary depending on the type of LO
  2. Edit: click to edit the status, dates and status of this user on this LOimage.png
  3. Reset: delete all the tracking for this user on this LO. Warning: can't be undone!



Test tracking details page

For learning objects of type "TEST" this page displays the last test submission made by the users, with the given answers and scores

  1. Submissions History: if the user made multiple attempts to complete the test they will be listed in this dropdown. The page will open by default from the last attempt
  2. User's Answers: display all the test questions answered by the user, for the selected attempt
  3. Edit: click this button to edit the user score for an answer and add a comment

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Edit a test tracking

For each user test attempt, it is possible to edit the tracking info including:

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SCORM Tracking details page

It the object type is SCORM, this page will display available info about user's sessions

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Usage Stats

Main Page

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  1. Usage stats chart: volume of browsing activity of the users in this course for a selected time period
  2. Time filter: choose time range and start data for the usage chart. Start date defaults to the first available tracking.
  3. Users list: click on a username for a detailed list of browsing sessions and actions

Usage Stats by user

List of all the browsing sessions of the selected user in this course:

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Course Features (FrontEnd)

Course Final Score

Overview

The Final Vote represents the overall score achieved by a user within a course. It is automatically calculated based on specific learning objects configured to contribute to the final evaluation.

How the Final Vote is Calculated

The final score is computed by considering only the course elements explicitly marked as "Use for final" in the LO settings

Each of these elements contributes to the final vote according to:

Calculation Logic

The system applies a weighted normalization formula:

Final Vote = (Sum of (user score × weight)) / (Sum of (max score × weight)) × Final Score Scale

Where:

Important Notes

Manage the Final Score (Forma 4.2 onward)

Object Inclusion Rules

Upgrading to Forma 4.2: when upgrading from a previous version to 4.2, the settings for existing materials in the gradebook (test, scorm or activities) will be mantained and migrated to each LO properties settings

When the Final Vote is Calculated

Benefits of the new behavior

Check the Course Report Documentation for further details

Editing the final score

TBD

Manage the Final Score (Older Forma version)

Object Inclusion Rules

When the Final Vote is Calculated

Check the Gradebook Documentation for further details

Editing the final score

TBD

 

Best Practices

Learning Objects

Management of Learning Objects, and detailed description of configuration and usage of each LO type

Learning Objects

Learning Materials Management

The Learning Objects management page is made by three tabs:

  1. Course Objects: list of actual LO of the course, available for students. They can be directly created from this area or imported either from MyObjects or Shared Objects areas.
  2. Shared Objects: a repository of LO shared among all the courses and users with permission to access this tab
  3. My Objects: personal materials' repository for the logged user. A private area for teachers in which they can store their own objects, create new objects or import objects from other teachers. It is an inter-course area in the sense that the objects placed there can be viewed from any of the courses managed by the teacher. 

In all the tabs, LO Objects can be organized into folders/subfolders.

Course Objects

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LO types

The following LOs are available until Forma 4 and REMOVED SINCE FORMA 4.1 and it won't be possible to create new ones. Previously created LOs will keep working but may be removed in feature releases. 
- FAQ
- Glossary
- Links

LO actions and features

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  1. View: open and launch the learning object. Actions will be tracked as for normal fruition
  2. Edit: access the edit page for this of learning object. Each type of learning object has a different edit mode.
  3. Properties: edit object properties for:
    1. Prerequisites
    2. LO Properties
  4. Assign: assign this LO only to specific users
  5. Categorize: Add description, category, and tags for the knowledge base
  6. Copy: duplicate the object
  7. Delete: Delete the object

Properties: Prerequisites

Click on the “Properties” icon to open the Properties > Prerequisites tab.

Here you can select the LO in the course that need to be completed for the object to be unlocked

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Properties: Properties

Here you can set the general configuration settings for this object. Different LO types might have different option sets.

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General options, available for all types of objects:

Score Options

The following options are available only for LO types involving scoring logics:

The options weight, show to user and use for final have been migrated in this position since Forma 4.2. In prior versions they were set from the gradebook module

Assign to selected users

Here you can assign the LO only to selected users or groups. Other users won't see the object.

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Categorize

Use this form to categorize the object within the Forma Content Library

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Shared Objects

This is the area where teachers can share teaching objects with other teachers, can import them to their own homepages or directly to the courses section.

Note:

My Objects

Materials in this area can be viewed and managed only by the logged user, and are shared among all the courses where he has teacher permissions.

Learning Objects

File Upload

Select and upload from your computer any file to be used as a course material.

Downloadable files will be marked as “completed” once the users clicks on the download link.

You can set the “title” as the name to be shown for this object

Description can be entered but won't be shown with the existing platform features.

 

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Learning Objects

HTML Pages

Use the “HTML Page” learning object type to create a custom content page.

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Explore the editor feature to:

 

You can also attach multiple files for download

Learning Objects

SCORM

Upload SCORM Objects

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SCORM LO Properties

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Learning Objects

Test

Test Questions

Manage Questions

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Insert/Edit Questions

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Question Category: Select a category for this question. It will be possible to calculate category scores for each test compiling. Categories are globally defined for the whole platform in backend question category configuration

Difficulty: set a difficulty level that can be uses to automatically weigh scores calculation.

Question Types

This is the list of the available question types and test elements:

SC — Single Choice

MC — Multiple Choice

ET — Extended Text

TE — Text Entry

IC — Inline Choice

HT — Hot Text (Find the wrong term)

UP — Upload File

AS — Association

TE — Title

BR — Page Break

Test Options

Test display options

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Attempts settings

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Test Suspension: to avoid conflicts when using test suspension the option "number of views" in the LO properties should be set to infinite

Results page settings

The following options determine which information will be shown to the user after submitting the test:

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Time Management

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Score Management

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Feedback Management

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Insert Feedback 

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Learning Objects

Assignment

Overview

The “Assignment” LO has been introduced in Forma 4.2, and allows administrators or instructors to assign customized tasks to learners, who can respond with an essay, a file, or text directly within the platform.

Replacing the old Gradebook "Activity" elements

If you are upgrading from Forma 4.1.x, previously created gradebook "activity" elements will be automatically migrated and converted into "Assignment" learning objects, placed at the end of the list of training materials within the same course.

All the activity configurations (Title, max/required score, weight, show to user, use for final) will be moved to the new learning object, and all the user scores and teacher comments will be migrated and visible through the new "Course Reports" module introduced with Forma 4.2

Creating an Assignment

Assignments are created as any other material from the "Learning Object Management" module in the Teacher Area of a course

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Assignment Options

When creating or editing an Assignment the following options will be prompted

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Upload Mode

Define if this activity needs some upload by the user:

Completion method

Define how the assignment will be marked as "completed":

Assignment Score Properties

Score propertis for an assignment can be set from the LO properties page:

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User view and upload

When a user accesses an Assignement material, the following elements will be displayed:

  1. Title and description, as set by the teacher during the LO creation
  2. File upload area, if the assigment is configured fore single or multiple file upload. If the assignment upload method is set as "No Upload", this block won't be shown
  3. List of uploaded files, If the assignment is configured for "single upload", when a new file is uploaded it will override the previous one. It won't be possible to upload new files once the LO has been reviewd by a teacher
  4. Teacher review

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Evaluating an Assignment

Assignments will be listed in the Course Report module:

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Clicking on the LO Title teachers will then be able to see the list of students and:

  1. Check the files uploaded by a user
  2. Assign a score
  3. Add a comment

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Learning Objects

File Name Handling for SCORM Packages

Feature available from: FormaLMS 4.1.39 (March 2026) Subsequent improvement: FormaLMS 4.1.40

Why was it introduced

In the past, when uploading SCORM packages or attachments whose names contained special characters — accented letters, apostrophes, spaces, parentheses, symbols, or non-Latin characters — the platform could encounter errors in various operations:

To resolve these issues and ensure consistency across the entire platform, an automatic file name normalization system was introduced.

What the platform does

When a user uploads a file (SCORM package, forum attachment, quiz response file, course material), the platform automatically applies a series of transformations to the file name before saving it:

  1. Accents are converted to their base letter Example: lezione sull'età adulta.zip becomes lezione_sulleta_adulta.zip.

  2. Spaces are replaced with underscores Example: Modulo base.zip becomes Modulo_base.zip.

  3. Special characters and punctuation are removed Apostrophes, parentheses, dots, and various symbols are removed, keeping only letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens.

  4. Non-Latin characters are stripped out Ideograms, non-Western alphabets, and emojis are removed. If the file name consists entirely of such characters, the platform automatically assigns a safe fallback name, ensuring the upload never fails.

  5. The file extension is preserved Users will continue to see the correct extension (.zip, .pdf, .docx, …) to open the file with the appropriate application.

What this means for the user

Where normalization is applied

Normalization is automatically applied in all areas where users can upload files:

What happens to existing packages before the update

Platforms that already had SCORM packages, attachments, or materials with names containing special characters were handled through an automatic alignment procedure executed during the update to version 4.1.39.

During this process, the platform:

The procedure is designed to be safe:

Improvement introduced in version 4.1.40

In some scenarios — particularly when the same SCORM package had been copied multiple times across courses or repositories — the 4.1.39 alignment process could leave some references out of sync with the already renamed file.

Version 4.1.40 introduces a corrective step that automatically detects and fixes these remaining cases, ensuring full alignment between the file system and the platform.

Benefits for the end user

Version summary

FormaLMS Version What it introduces
4.1.39 Automatic normalization for new uploads and alignment procedure for existing archives
4.1.40 Fix for residual misalignment cases in SCORM packages copied multiple times
4.1.41 and 4.1.42 No changes: feature stabilized

Contents and Communication

Features to manage content and communication such as external web pages, communications, and mailings

Contents and Communication

Private Messages

The “Messages” feature allow users to send each other private message through the LMS, that will be notified by email.

Enable the messages feature

The feature can be enabled and disabled, even just for some groups of users, from the “User Area LMS” configuration page

Admin > Settings > Elearning Configuration > User Area LMS

Check the User Area guide  for details

Messages will be then accessible as a button from the user panel

Send and receive messages

The system directly displays a list of the messages received by the user, it will be possible to send messages to one or multiple users.

Please note that:

To send a new message, click “Send”, select the recipients from the list and compose the message.

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Contents and Communication

Community Forums

Forma provides a global “Community Forums” feature, independent of course subscriptions, and featuring:

 

Separate forums with same features can be created also within each course, reserved to course users. Check the Course Forums guide for details

Activate Community Forums

You can activate / deactivate the community forums from the “User Area LMS” settings page:

Admin > Settings > Elearning Configuration > User Area LMS

You will be able to assign visibility over the whole community feature to:

Forums

Create a Forum

Forums can be created by platform administrators

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For each forum, you can set:

Note
private discussion threads will be only visible to the user that opened the thread and forum moderators

TIP
use the “private threads” feature to create a private support board for your users

Manage Forums

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Here you can:

Discussion threads

For each forum, you can have unlimited discussion threads and messages

 

Add a new thread

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Manage Threads

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Manage Messages

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Contents and Communication

Web Pages

Web Pages

In Forma you can manage HTML pages to be displayed either on the login page or in a dedicated tab inside the “mycourses” area.

Web pages can be added and managed from:

Admin > Contents > Web Pages

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Click on the “ADD” button to create a web page and set:

 

Title: this is the title of the webpage, and will be used also as link text in the login menu for external pages

Language: the page will be visible to users viewing the site in the selected language. If a different language is selected, the link to this page won't be displayed. 

Publish: Choose whether this page should be visible or not

Default page: this page will be used as content for the MyCourses “Home” Tab, and will be hidden on the login menu

Description: content of the page

External Web Pages

All the published web pages, unless set as default, will be automatically shown as a menu on the login page:

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Home Tab

The page selected as “default” will be used as a content for the “Home” Tab in MyCourses area, provided that Tab is active:

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 You can activate the home tab from the User Area management under:

Admin > Settings > Elearning Configuration > User Area LMS

The tab can be renamed from the standard language management area

Contents and Communication

Global Newsletter

The “Global Newsletter” feature will let you send massive emails to all or a selected group of users.

It is available under:

Admin > Contents > Newsletter

This feature is available only to platform superadministrators and administrators, and works in three basic steps:

  1. Compose your email
  2. Select the recipients
  3. Send the email

NOTE
if you need to send email only to a specific course users, check the Newsletter and Anouncement features in course management

Compose the email

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Sender: this field will be used as “reply-to” field. To avoid anti-spam and server security systems, the platform will send the emails with the default email and smtp setting.

Attachment: One or more attachments may be included in the newsletter.

Email/SMS: The communication can be sent by both e-mail and SMS. For SMS, an SMS service provider must be configured through the plugin system.

Language: choose which users should receive the email based on their profile language

 

Once you click the “SEND” button, you will be prompted to choose which users to send the communication.

Select the recipients

The system will open the user selection page, letting you select either:

Click “Save Changes” to proceed to the last step

Send the email

As a last step, the system will present the number of selected users, click “SEND” button to push your communication out.

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To avoid server anti-spam filters, the system will automatically split the massive mailing in multiple blocks of recipients, with a pause in seconds between each block.
You can configure values for blocks and pauses in advanced configuration settings

Reports

Administration reports creation and management

Reports

Report Management

Overview

Forma LMS provides a powerful and flexible report generation system, with these features:

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Public: when a report is flagged as “public” it will be visible to all administrators and superadministrators. Non public reports can be viewed only by superadministrators and by the administrator that created the report

View: view the report

Export in CSV or XLS format

Schedule the report to be automatically sent by email to selected users

Edit: modify configuration options for the report

NOTE: Users with level Administrator will be allowed to see and edit onlyy report flagged as “public”, or created by themselves. Within the reports, administrator will see users and courses based on their user assignements. See Administrators management guide for details

Create Reports

A four-steps wizard will guide you in report creation:

  1. Select the report category
  2. Select filter on the rows to display or data aggregation mode
  3. Select the report type: please note that it won't be possible to change the report type once saved
  4. Select column and criteria for the selected report type

Report Category

Forma natively provides three report “categories”, each based on a different logic for data displaying, and providing different report types. 

Available categories are:

  1. Users-Courses: will display different data type for a list of users. 
  2. Courses-Users: will display different data type for a list of courses.
  3. Aggregated: shows aggregated information for selected users and courses 

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User Selector

For each category, it is possible to select the users to be included in the report.

In most cases, the best option is including “all users” and simply filter by course:

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Report Scheduling

Reports can be automatically generated and sent by email to some users

You can create an unlimited number of schedules:

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Upon schedule creation and edit, it will be possible to choose the users that will receive the report and set the date/frequency and time with the following settings:

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Advanced Settings (Report Attachment)

Further settings to configure how the scheduled report might be attached to the sent email can be configured under:

 Adm > Settings >System Configurations > Settings > Advanced

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Set the "Max attached report size" according to your intranet or email account limits.  
If value is set to zero, users will always receive a link to the stored file.

Cron setting

For the file to be sent, you will need to set up a cron-job on your server, calling the file:

[root]/cron/cron.report.php

Reports

User Reports

Reports in this category will show a list of users and their status on different items

Relates users to courses

This is the most commonly used report, that shows the status of each user on each course, based on the filters defined for users and courses.

 

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Example of report relating users to courses

 

Report Options

 

Select Courses: select to include all courses or only some courses

Conditions on selected courses: apply filters to display only users with specified conditions date or score conditions (i.e., filter only users subscribed after a certain date)

Show users custom fields: select which user personal information will be shown in the report

Custom Org: show data from the user org-chart custom fields

Display courses information: select which course information to show

Additional fields for courses: show data from the course custom fields

Classroom fields: show specific course information for classroom courses 

Display user's information about courses: choose which information display about the user status on the course: status (i.e., completed, in progress), dates, scores, etc.

Progress: display user progress as percentage or progress bar

Other options: exclude suspended users, ordering options

Make delay analysis

This report will filter only users with specified completion status in a defined time range, to monitor user delays and send reminders.

Filter Options

It is possible to select users based on their status on the course:

And based on the time condition of course and subscription:

Relates users to Learning Objects

This report displays the status and progress of each user on the learning objects of one or more courses.

Report Options

Learning Objects types: choose which types of LO to include in the report

Select milestones: select to include or exclude milestones LO

Show users fields: show some information about the user

Display courses information: show some information about the user

Learning Objects Info: include information about the LO

Relates users to tests

Like the Learning Objects report, but filtered on test LO

Relates users to communications

Show if users have viewed communications

Relates users to corporate contests

Show user status on corporate contests

Reports

Course Reports

Relates courses to users

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Example of Courses Report

Report Options

Time period: filter data from a selected period or time range
Other options:


Display courses information: show information about the course

Additional fields for courses: show data from the course custom fields

Classroom fields: show specific course information for classroom courses

Display user's information about courses: shows further information about the course

Show statistics about courses: calculate course stats about user status and progress in each course

Relates courses with the teachers votes

Relates courses with users votes

Reports

Aggregated Report

This report will display aggregated data about users and courses

 

The following report types are available:

Layout & Templates

Managing Template & customizing forma layout

Layout & Templates

Templates

Forma templates are located in your forma installation under root/templates/[template]

Yon can create unlimited templates and assign them to different orgchart nodes and domains

Adding templates

To add a new template:

  1. duplicate the "standard" template
  2. rename your copy

Avoid editing the standard template, you may lose your changes during forma upgrades

Customizing Templates

  1. upload and overwrite images under \templates\[template]\images
  2. create a file named \templates\[template]\style\custom.css and add your custom styles

Template priority

When a user logs to the platform and multiple templates are assigned to nodes and domains, forma will load the template following this priority order:

  1. Template assigned to the domain

  2. Template assigned to the user node

  3. Default template

In any other condition or unexpected configurations will be used the default template

Layout & Templates

Dashboard Configuration

The main settings for the dashboard configuration (from Forma 3.x onwards) are available under: 

Admin > System configuration > Dashboard Configuration

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You can create a new dashboard or:

Creating a new dashboard

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Duplicating a layout

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Duplicate an existing layout and set its Name, Description, and status

Editing a layout

Adding a new block

You can delete blocks using the 'X' button, or you can create new blocks:

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The available blocks are:

Concerning the welcome message, we recommend using and/or customizing the default text in the language management, because it can include the user's first and last name, and it can be localized according to the user's preferred language.

Editing blocks 

For each block, you can set:

Block width and position

The dashboard layout is based on a grid of 4 columns:

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Viewing Permissions

Set the users, nodes or groups assigned to view each layout: with this feature you will be able to assign different dashboard layouts to different users.

Example

This is a good example

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Let's see how it's configured in the backend.

On the first row, two blocks of 2 columns each. The Welcome message has been customized here, so this will override whatever message is in the language management.

The banner is 600 × 120, and it's linked to a YT video. You can also use slightly different sizes: in general, the banner should have a rectangular ratio.

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Let's see the second row: three blocks, the calendar has 2 columns and the other blocks have 1 each.

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Layout & Templates

User Area LMS

From this area, you can activate and set visibility options for most of the frontend layout modules.

Admin > Settings > Elearning Configuration > User Area LMS

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Activate / Deactivate the main menu items.

Click on the user icon to assign visibility on this item only to some users or groups.

MyCourses Tabs

Activate / Deactivate tabs for the MyCourses section

Click on the user icon to assign visibility for each tab only to some users or groups.

Click on the “Home” icon to define the default tab to be shown when opening “MyCourses”

User Panel Blocks

Activate / Deactivate blocks and buttons in the side user panel.

Click on the user icon to assign visibility on this item only to some users or groups.