Smart Dashboard User Guide & Administration Manual

A comprehensive, step-by-step user guide and administration manual for the Smart Dashboard for Moodle (local_smartdashboard).

Built for Students, Teachers, Managers, Parents / Mentors, and Site Administrators — transforming Moodle from a passive repository into an intelligent, real-time command center.

Overview & Core Architecture

The Smart Dashboard (local_smartdashboard) aggregates critical data across courses, submissions, grades, student risk metrics, and financial records into a unified, responsive interface with native dark/light mode support.

Supported Environments

Installation & Setup

Option 1 — Download ZIP

1. Download the latest release ZIP from your client dashboard or repository releases page.
2. In Moodle, navigate to Site Administration → Plugins → Install plugins.
3. Upload the ZIP file and click Install plugin from the ZIP file.
4. Follow the on-screen upgrade prompts to finalize database tables and capabilities.

Option 2 — Git Clone

If you have SSH/terminal access to your Moodle server:

cd /path/to/moodle/local
git clone https://github.com/Smartlearn-edu/moodle_local_smartdashboard.git smartdashboard

Then visit Site Administration → Notifications to complete the installation.

Important: The folder inside /local/ must be named smartdashboard.

Accessing the Dashboard & Navigation

Direct Access URL

Users can access the dashboard directly at:

https://your-moodle-domain.com/local/smartdashboard/

Automatic Dashboard Redirection

When configured by an administrator, Smart Dashboard can seamlessly replace the default Moodle /my/ dashboard for selected roles upon login.

Theme Appearance Toggle

Smart Dashboard automatically adapts to the administrator-configured color palette (Dark Mode or Light Mode), matching your institution's branding seamlessly.

Student User Guide

When a student logs in, the Smart Dashboard dynamically personalizes their view to surface essential tasks, progress, upcoming deadlines, and grades.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  👋 Welcome back, Alex!                                               |
|  [ 📚 Library ] [ 📝 Assignments ] [ 🏆 Badges ] [ 💬 Messages ]     |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  📚 My Courses (Progress Cards)                                       |
|  +-----------------------+  +-----------------------+                 |
|  | Biology 101           |  | Computer Science 200  |                 |
|  | [============ 75%  ]  |  | [====== 35%         ] |                 |
|  +-----------------------+  +-----------------------+                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  ⏰ Upcoming Deadlines              |  📈 My Grades Summary           |
|  🔴 Critical: Lab Report (Today)    |  Biology: 92% (A)               |
|  🟡 Due Soon: Quiz 3 (In 2 days)    |  CS 200: 84% (B)                |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  📅 Today's Agenda & Adaptive Plan                                    |
|  [x] Read Chapter 4 (20 min)  -  [ ] Complete Practice Quiz (15 min)  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Personalized Welcome Banner

• Displays the student's full name, profile avatar, and contextual greeting.
• Displays active enrolled course count and quick status badges.

Customizable Quick Shortcuts Grid

• Up to 10 customizable shortcut buttons configured by the site administrator (e.g., Course Catalog, Digital Library, Study Groups, Calendar, Student Support).
• One-click navigation to frequently used resources with intuitive FontAwesome icons.

Course Progress & Completion Cards

• Visual Completion Bars: Real-time progress percentage calculated from Moodle's activity completion engine.
• Course Summary Info: Number of enrolled students, course category, and quick links directly into the course home.

Color-Coded Deadline Timeline

Categorizes all upcoming assignments, quizzes, and deliverables by urgency:

• 🔴 Critical (Within 24 Hours): Marked with an urgent red badge to draw immediate attention.
• 🟡 Due Soon (1 to 3 Days): Marked with an amber badge for upcoming milestones.
• 🔵 Upcoming (> 3 Days): Marked with a blue/neutral badge for future planning.
• Direct Submission Link: Click any deadline card to jump directly to the submission page.

My Grades Summary & Academic Drill-Down

• Performance Snapshot: Shows letter grade, current percentage, and maximum possible points across all active courses.
• Detailed Drill-Down: Click on any course to open the interactive breakdown modal displaying:
  • Individual assignment, quiz, and discussion grades.
  • Weightings, grade ranges, and instructor feedback comments.
  • Category totals and overall course totals.
• HTML / CSV Export: Export your complete grade report with one click for offline review or portfolio records.

Today's Agenda & Adaptive Study Plan

• Synchronizes with Moodle Adaptive Study Plans (mod_adaptiveplan).
• Breaks down your daily study schedule into bite-sized, actionable tasks with estimated completion durations.
• Interactive checklist to track study progress throughout the day.

AI Performance Analysis & Strengths Review

• Instant Academic Insights: Powered by AI integration to deliver constructive evaluations of strengths and targeted improvement areas.
• Actionable Advice: Tailored study recommendations based on your recent submission scores and activity engagement.

Teacher & Educator Portal Guide

The Teacher Portal is designed to eliminate repetitive administrative navigation and bring all actionable items to a single screen.

Centralized Grading Queue

• Cross-Course Submissions Queue: Consolidates all ungraded assignments and pending essay submissions from every course you teach.
• Submission Counts & Urgency: Shows the number of submissions awaiting review, student names, and submission timestamps.
• One-Click Speed Grading: Click directly on any submission row to open Moodle's grading interface in a dedicated view without navigating course trees.

Student Progress & Completion Tracking

• Monitor enrollment numbers and completion percentages across all your classes.
• Filter students by course, group, or status.
• Identify students falling behind class pacing before examination dates.

Modular At-Risk Student Early Warning System

• Risk Score (0–100%): Automatically calculated daily based on weighted indicators:
  • Inactivity / Login Recency: Flags students who have not logged in for X days.
  • Course Completion Velocity: Detects stalled activity completion.
  • Grade Averages: Identifies students with failing or declining assignment scores.
  • Overdue Submissions: Counts missed deadlines.
  • Adaptive Plan Compliance: Tracks completion of assigned study plan tasks.
• Risk Level Badges:
  • 🟢 On Track (0–39%)
  • 🟡 Monitor (40–69%)
  • 🔴 At Risk (70–100%)
• Intervention Details: Click any at-risk student to view their detailed activity timeline and trigger outreach notifications.

Activity Completion Drill-Down

• Inspect activity-by-activity completion criteria for every student.
• View exact completion dates, viewing records, and submission requirements.

Parent & Mentor 360° Portal Guide

The Parent & Mentor 360° Portal provides guardians, academic advisors, and sponsors with a clear, holistic view of mentee academic journeys.

Mentee Switcher & Multiple Student Oversight

• Easily toggle between multiple assigned students or children using the intuitive dropdown menu.
• Role terminology can be customized (e.g., Parent, Mentor, Guardian, Academic Supervisor, Sponsor).

Program-Level Filtering

• For organizations using enrol_programs, mentors can filter students by specific academic tracks, degrees, or cohort programs.

Grade Progression Analytics Charts

• Visual multi-axis chart showing academic performance trends over weeks or terms.
• Compare individual assignment marks against the course median and maximum possible scores.

Subject Mastery Radar Graphs

• Multi-dimensional competency radar visualizes strengths across different subjects and skill domains (e.g., Mathematics, Humanities, Science, Programming).

Weekly Engagement Heatmaps & Study Streaks

• Daily Activity Density: Visualizes student login activity and interaction frequency throughout each day of the week.
• Study Streak Counter: Displays consecutive active study days to encourage consistency and positive study habits.

KPI At-Risk Indicators & Alerts

• Real-time badges highlight critical items requiring parental or mentor support (e.g., missed deadlines, declining attendance, low quiz scores).

Administrator & Manager Guide

The Administrator Hub equips decision-makers with institution-wide intelligence, revenue monitoring, and automated AI data reporting.

System-Wide Enrollment & Category Analytics

• Total Enrollments & Direct Sums: Track overall active enrollments with duplicate and unique student breakdowns.
• Category Performance Breakdown: Compare activity and student density across faculties and academic departments.
• Student-to-Teacher Ratio: Visual indicator of faculty workload and cohort distributions.
• CSV Data Export: Export complete institutional enrollment snapshots for reporting and compliance audits.

Revenue & Payment Analytics

• Actual vs. Estimated Revenue: Interactive bar and line charts comparing projected revenue against collected payments.
• Category ROI Filtering: Analyze which course categories generate the highest financial return.
• Custom Time Ranges & Currency Toggles: Filter records by All Time, Today, Past 7 Days, Past 30 Days, Past Year, or custom date ranges with multi-currency support.
• Exportable Accounting Datasets: One-click CSV downloads for billing and auditing.

AI Magic Reports & SQL Insights Hub

Transform natural language questions into secure, optimized SQL queries and dynamic visual charts.

1. Asking a Question:
   • Type your prompt in plain English, for example:

     "Show me the top 10 most active courses by student completion in the last 30 days"

     "Which courses have the highest number of overdue assignments?"

     "Show monthly revenue distribution by course category for 2026"

2. AI Query Generation:
   • Uses local_aihub (with fallback to Moodle Core AI \core_ai\manager) to translate the prompt into an executable database query.
3. Interactive Visualizers:
   • Automatically renders query results into interactive charts (Bar, Line, Pie, Radar) or formatted data tables.
4. Report Management:
   • Save Report: Save custom reports with custom titles and descriptions.
   • Saved Reports Library: Re-run, inspect, or delete saved reports anytime.
   • SQL Inspection: View and verify the generated SQL query for full data governance.

Modular Risk Rule Engine Configuration

Configure risk calculation parameters under Site Administration → Plugins → Local plugins → Smart Dashboard:

n8n Automation Webhook Setup

Automate external alerts (SMS, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Email) when students trigger at-risk thresholds.

1. In your n8n instance, create a Webhook trigger node with HTTP POST method.
2. In Moodle, navigate to Site Administration → Plugins → Local plugins → Smart Dashboard.
3. Under At-Risk Student Alerts, enter:
   • n8n Webhook URL: https://your-n8n-instance.com/webhook/smartdashboard-alerts
   • n8n Webhook Token: Your secure Bearer authentication token.
4. When student risk levels are evaluated, Moodle dispatches JSON payloads to your workflow:

{
  "event": "student_at_risk",
  "timestamp": 1787665313,
  "student": {
    "id": 42,
    "name": "Jane Doe",
    "email": "jane.doe@example.com"
  },
  "course": {
    "id": 15,
    "fullname": "Advanced Data Structures"
  },
  "risk": {
    "score": 85,
    "level": "high",
    "reasons": ["Inactive for 12 days", "Assignment 2 overdue"]
  }
}

Dashboard Replacement & Automatic Redirection

Configure whether Smart Dashboard replaces the default Moodle /my/ page:

• Enable Dashboard Replacement: Toggle on/off.
• Roles to Redirect: Select specific roles (e.g., Student, Teacher, Authenticated User).
• Redirect Site Administrators: Choose whether site administrators should also be redirected.

Parent/Mentor Terminology Customization

Choose how the relationship is labeled throughout the user interface:

• Parent
• Mentor
• Partner
• Academic Supervisor
• Guardian
• Sponsor

Customizing Student Quick-Access Shortcuts

Configure up to 10 icons in Site Administration:

• Icon Name: Label displayed beneath the icon (e.g., "Library", "Schedule", "Help Desk").
• Icon Class (FontAwesome): FontAwesome CSS class (e.g., fa-book, fa-calendar-check, fa-graduation-cap, fa-life-ring).
• Link URL: Full internal or external URL target.

Adding Standard Moodle Blocks to the Dashboard

To make any Moodle block available to be added to Smart Dashboard pages, add 'local-smartdashboard-*' => true to the block's applicable_formats() method:

// Inside blocks/<blockname>/block_<blockname>.php
public function applicable_formats() {
    return [
        'course-view'            => true,
        'site'                   => true,
        'my'                     => true,
        'local-smartdashboard-*' => true, // <-- Enable for Smart Dashboard
    ];
}

Note: After modifying any block file, navigate to Site Administration → Development → Purge caches to refresh Moodle's block registry.

Workflow Transformation: Moodle Default vs. Smart Dashboard

External Web Services API Reference

All Smart Dashboard endpoints are securely registered under the service local_smartdashboard_webservice with strict capability checks:

Troubleshooting & Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Why do I see a blank page or outdated styles after an update?

A: Moodle aggressively caches JavaScript AMD modules and CSS. Go to Site Administration → Development → Purge caches and click Purge all caches, then hard-refresh your browser (Ctrl + F5 or Cmd + Shift + R).

Q: How do I make the dashboard the default landing page for students?

A: Go to Site Administration → Plugins → Local plugins → Smart Dashboard, enable Enable Dashboard Replacement, and select Student / Authenticated user in the Roles to Redirect list.

Q: Why is AI Magic Reports not generating queries?

A: Ensure you have configured either:

1. The AI Hub plugin (local_aihub), or
2. Moodle Core AI (\core_ai\manager) with an active AI provider configured under Site Administration → General → AI settings.

Q: Where can I see when the At-Risk calculation task runs?

A: The risk engine runs automatically via Moodle's scheduled tasks. You can view or trigger the task manually under Site Administration → Server → Scheduled tasks → Calculate at-risk student scores (\local_smartdashboard\task\calculate_risk).

Q: Can parents see other students' grades?

A: No. Access control is strictly enforced via Moodle's context and capability system. Parents and mentors can only view data for users assigned to them via Moodle's official mentor/parent role assignments.

License & Support

Smart Dashboard is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

• Website: smartlearn.education
• Documentation: services.smartlearn.education/docs/smart-dashboard
• Issue Tracker & Feature Requests: GitHub Issues