How to Set Up a Luminis Automated Notification for the Group Request Queue: A Recipe
I just wrote a post on my personal blog about how to implement an automated notification system for use with the “Group Request Queue”.
Here's a snippet of that post (click on the link at the bottom to read the full post.):
If you are working at a university or other institution that makes use of the Luminis portal application delivered by Sungard Higher Education and you’re making use of the included Group Studio tools, you have probably noticed small a flaw with this section of the application. Luminis does not, by default, actively alert administrators when new groups have been requested by users of the system. This has been troubling for me because, in my opinion, all administrators are busy and shouldn’t have to visit the GUI of this system and have to go through multiple clicks to discover whether there are new group requests or not. If you’re like me, you would like to implement an automated notification system for use with the “Group Request Queue”.
Requirements to use this recipe:
- Luminis IV w/ Oracle Database
- Ability to access/edit cron tasks on the Luminis IV server
- Separate server that can run PHP
- PHP server must also have the OCI8 library available
See Installing PHP and the Oracle Instant Client for Linux and Windows for more details on this.
Good point
A small flaw? It pretty much guarantees that our Group Studio queue goes unchecked for months at a time. Its a terrible design, so good write up on how to fix it.
Group activity
We also have a similar script that notifies the group admin of new requests, and also notifies group and course leaders when people have uploaded files/photos that need approval:
http://paws.usask.ca/customizations/
Look for "Group Activity Notification".
Todd