eFront eLearning (LMS) integration plugin v2 (Moodle alternative)

Discussion in 'Integration' started by skippybosco, Dec 19, 2010.

  1. skippybosco

    skippybosco CGI-Central Partner Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2006
    Messages:
    2,526
    eFront is an open-source, easy to use and administer, eLearning (LMS) system.

    It is free for both commercial and non-commercial usage under a Common Public Attribution License.​


    Similar to Moodle it is SCORM compatible and expandable via modules which are developed and supported by distributed development efforts around the world.

    eFront's visually attractive css based design and usability sits atop a modern technology stack (object oriented, Ajax, etc) supporting a number of features:

    • User management
      Standard and custom user roles can be used or created depending on your needs
    • Lessons, courses and categories
      Organize lessons at multiple conceptual levels called categories. Bundle several lessons inside a course
    • Content editors
      eFront includes a flexible visual content editor and internal support for pictures, sound, video, flash or java
    • File manager & digital library
      Upload, organise, use and share files with any other system user
    • Test builders
      Create tests by assembling questions from a question pool. Several types of questions can be created, used and re-used
    • Scorm support
      eFront is a SCORM compatible and certified platform. SCORM content can be imported or exported from the system
    • Projects
      Assign projects with deadlines to end-users and track their progress
    • Surveys
      Create, share and analyze responses from people inside or outside your organization
    • Reports
      Do you like high-level reports or you prefer a more detailed specific user or lesson info. Everything is included!
    • Access Rules
      Restrict or guide the users through the content
    • Progress tracking
      Several visual indications guide the user through the lesson and his current progress
    • Communication
      Out-of-the-box eFront includes support for forum, chat, calendar, personal messages, file sharing and user-comments on topics
    • Glossary
      All glossary items are silently merged with the real content
    • Certifications
      Build and issue your own certifications
    • Customization & usability
      Drag and drop components, select a new theme or the active components for your lesson. eFront is an elegant and flexible solution that does not look outdated
    • Search
      Search for anything, anyone and anywhere inside the system
    • Multilingual
      Unicode support and full language administration module. Adding a new language is easy!
    • Administration
      The administrator is still a human. eFront puts the same special care on his interface as well.
    • Security and access control
      Features like LDAP support or ip restriction helps building a secure and open system
    • Modular
      Want more? eFront can be expanded using small, or not that small, functional components called Modules!
    aMember integration automates user/product management and provides single sign on.

    Utilizing eFront's API this integration plugin allows you to associate a eFront lesson or course to an aMember product, automating the registration and de-registration based on the the product state (active or not). Integration also includes single sign on support.

    Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

    change log:
    2.1 12/10/10 - Upgraded to API 2, fixed minor reactivate bug, upgraded error handling
    2.0 06/01/10 - improved error handling, selectable expire action, curl instead of fopen

    Attached Files:

  2. linguaspectrum

    linguaspectrum Online English Teacher

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2009
    Messages:
    47
    After upgrading to the latest version of eFront, this plugin does not seem to be working properly. None of the courses or groups in eFront are showing in the Products on aMember.
  3. skippybosco

    skippybosco CGI-Central Partner Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2006
    Messages:
    2,526
    What version of eFront are you running? Are you pointing to API.PHP or API2.PHP?

    Depending on the version you are running there is a known bug in the eFront API regarding broken XML for the catalog function (what retrieves the courses/groups)

    See here for more info:

    http://bugs.efrontlearning.net/browse/EF-639
  4. jsello

    jsello New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2010
    Messages:
    3
    I am having the same problem where my lessons and courses are not showing in the Products in aMember. am pointing to API2.PHP. According to the bug report, this is supposed to have been fixed in ver 3.6.8. That is the version I am using. Please help.
  5. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    I am running efront community 3.6.8 build 9777 and the latest version of the plugin 2.1. It is not pulling the course or group information with either api. I would LOVE this to work.
  6. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    I'm using Efront Community 3.6.8 build 977 , amember 3.2.3 pro and Plugin ver. 2.1. It's pulling in my groups, but not the lessons in the configuration (I can live with that if I must).

    However when I create a member it is producing the following errors

    WARNING: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in line 70 of file efront.inc.php
    WARNING: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in line 70 of file efront.inc.php
    WARNING: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in line 122 of file class.smtp.php
    WARNING: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to :25 (php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known) in line 122 of file class.smtp.php
    WARNING: There was an error sending the email message in line 1371 of file common.inc.php

    It is not posting the new user into the efront database. Any insight would be very much appreciated.
  7. skippybosco

    skippybosco CGI-Central Partner Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2006
    Messages:
    2,526
    The new eFront 3.6.8 Build 9931 that was released today includes the fixed ap2.php which corrects the invalid XML bugwhich is causing those errors and will return the lessons to the product configuration pages.

    These errors are unrelated to eFront but rather indicate your aMember mail server / configuration is invalid or aMember is unable to connect to the mail server.
  8. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    Thanx for the quick reply Skippy. I am having an issue with upgrading the efront software now. For some reason it is dying on the database upgrade. I think the fix will work once I get this done.
  9. jsello

    jsello New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2010
    Messages:
    3
    Thanks a million for the quick response Skippy. I will use the build 9931.
  10. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    Okay, I am using build 9931 now and it is communicating. My courses are not pulling over to the product in amember and it is not creating the user in efront.

    Here is the error log entry from my amember.
    eFront Plugin (146) : Communicated with server (http://training.foo.com/api2.php) but received empty or invalid response.
    Action: http://training.foo.com/api2.php?action=catalog&token=vkE5PXBs2Q8R6wFaNywmxkJ6kd2XrB
    Response:

    eFront Plugin (147) : Communicated with server (http://training.foo.com/api2.php) but received an error response.
    Action: http://training.foo.com/api2.php?ac...&group=2&token=vkE5PXBs2Q8R6wFaNywmxkJ6kd2XrB
    Response: Some problem occured

    1 eFront Plugin (147) : Communicated with server (http://training.foo.com/api2.php) but received an error response.
    Action: http://training.foo.com/api2.php?ac...=english&token=vkE5PXBs2Q8R6wFaNywmxkJ6kd2XrB
    Response: User does not exist

    I created the subdomain and it points to the /efront/www directory. I had to do this for server config reasons. I can change the path in the subdomain if need be. It is pulling the groups from efront so I'm confident that my path is correct. Any idea what it could be?
  11. skippybosco

    skippybosco CGI-Central Partner Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2006
    Messages:
    2,526
    I was able to reproduce what you are seeing in my dev environment running the latest version of eFront. They recently introduced some additional security to the API and it looks like it may have broke things for anyone using the API. The apidemo2.php that ships with aMember also does not work :-( It does not allow tokens to be authenticated.

    That being said, I have attached a copy of the api2.php that I am using in my production environment that appears to solve the issue for me in my dev environment. Unzip it to your efront\www directory and try to create a test user and add the subscription.

    This is obviously a short term solution until the new api2.php issues can be resolved.
  12. linguaspectrum

    linguaspectrum Online English Teacher

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2009
    Messages:
    47
    Great work! Everything works as it should in the new version of eFront - 3.6.8 9931. Courses and lessons now showing in aMember.
  13. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    I'm still having issues, I'm afraid it may be something with my server setup.

    Here are the two errors that seem to be causing the issue.

    eFront Plugin (147) : Communicated with server (http://foo.com/training/www/api2.php) but received an error response.
    Action: http://foo.com/training/www/api2.ph...&group=2&token=vkE5PXBs2Q8R6wFaNywmxkJ6kd2XrB
    Response: Some problem occured

    eFront Plugin (147) : Communicated with server (http://foo.com/training/www/api2.php) but received an error response.
    Action: http://foo.com/training/www/api2.ph...=english&token=vkE5PXBs2Q8R6wFaNywmxkJ6kd2XrB
    Response: Invalid language

    I think the one with Response: Invalid language is the real offender.

    Do I need to declare language files somewhere in both packages or do you think it is in the actual server setup?
  14. skippybosco

    skippybosco CGI-Central Partner Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2006
    Messages:
    2,526
    Possibly if you have disabled / deleted / modified your default language to something other than English?

    There is an open issue with eFront to allow language access to the API. As a result of that open issue the plugin currently defaults to english.

    If you are not using english as your default language you can edit the efront.inc.php file that is included in the plugin and replace instances of:

    Code:
    &languages=english
    With whatever your system language is.
  15. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    I installed english as the language within efront and that cleared up some of the issues along with installing without utilizing a subdomain on build 9931. I still have an issue with having to login to efront after joining, but at least it is creating the user now.
  16. skippybosco

    skippybosco CGI-Central Partner Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2006
    Messages:
    2,526
    @ssears: Is your aMember installed to a subdomain? If so, that might explain your login issue. A subdomain cannot/should not create cookies for peer subdomains or primary domains.
  17. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    It is and that could be the issue. I will re-install without the subdomain and test it.
  18. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    I have killed the subdomains and everything is working with one or two exceptions.

    1. It's not pulling in my courses and lessons....only groups

    2. When I login to amember and go to efront it requires me to login again. The logout function of course works fine.

    The users are being created during login correctly and subscribed to the appropriate group.
  19. skippybosco

    skippybosco CGI-Central Partner Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 22, 2006
    Messages:
    2,526
    @ssears: use the api2.php in my post above.. there is a bug with the current eFront version that is causing issues.
  20. ssears

    ssears New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    11
    GREAT!!! Thanx Skippy. In all the issues I had forgotten to install the new api in my live copy.

    I am still having an issue with Firefox. It works perfectly in IE now, but Firefox produces a Redirect Error.

Share This Page