Moodle Integration Features: Full implementation guide

While the Moodle Instructor Setup gets your initial course navigation link live, this guide walks you through the comprehensive, chronological lifecycle of managing your integration—from day-one roster syncs to deploying your grading structure.

Phase 1: Student roster setup 

Ensure your student registry and course structure are correctly mirrored from Moodle.

Roster sync

You do not need to manually invite students. Each time you launch Perusall from Moodle, an automatic background sync occurs.

• Any student added to your Moodle course is automatically added to your Perusall roster (found under the Students tab).
• Students who unenroll from your Moodle course are automatically removed. 

Phase 2: Select your grade sync options

Perusall offers three ways to pass grades back to Moodle. We recommend choosing your approach before creating or linking assignments. 

Strategy 1: Summary column sync (single column)

Best for instructors who want a clean, minimalist Moodle gradebook. Perusall creates one single column in Moodle that dynamically updates with the student's rolling score.

The settings:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scoring > Basics, and select your summary column preference:
   • Average Score: Sum of all individual assignment scores divided by the total number of assignments.
   • Total Score: Cumulative sum of points across all assignments.
2. Once complete, navigate to Settings > Scoring > LMS grade sync > Grade sync to LMS, select Automatically sync students' average or total scores back to the LMS, and click Save. 

Strategy 2: Automatic column creation

Best for instructors who want Perusaall to automatically create LMS assignment gradebook columns for every individual Perusall assignment. Any changes made to assignment deadlines or score ranges in Perusall are automatically reflected in your LMS course. 

The settings:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scoring > LMS grade sync. 
2. Under Grade sync to LMS, select Automatically sync individual assignment scores back to the LMS.
3. In the new dropdown, LMS gradebook column management, select Perusall creates gradebook columns in LMS for each Perusall assignment automatically, and click Save.

Strategy 3: Deep linking (manual LMS assignment link creation)

Deep linking is the only way to create assignment-specific links in Moodle (links that open directly to a specific Perusall assignment).

This workflow gives you precise control to embed assignments directly into Moodle Modules. It also allows you to offer ungraded access to readings without creating unnecessary gradebook columns.

The settings:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scoring > LMS grade sync.

2. Under Grade sync to LMS, select Automatically sync individual assignment scores back to the LMS, and click Save.

3. A new dropdown will appear titled LMS gradebook column management. Select Instructor creates deep links in LMS; no Perusall gradebook columns will appear in LMS until deep links have been created.

Phase 3: Assignment linking

1. Build your library

Before setting up assignments within Perusall, you must populate your course materials. To do this, navigate to your course Library, click Add content, and select from the available options.

💡 Managing Materials: To learn more about uploading textbooks, multimedia resources, or organizing items into folders, see the comprehensive How do I manage my course library content? What materials can I use? documentation.

2. Setting up assignments links

Let’s get your LMS links ready for your students. Follow the quick steps below for your chosen gradebook setup.

If you chose summary column sync OR automatic column creation

The hands-off workflow: You do not need to create individual links in Moodle.

1. Create your reading or video assignments inside Perusall.

2. Navigate to your Moodle module page and enable Edit mode.

3. Click + Add an activity or resource, select Perusall, and click Add. (See screenshot)

4. Finalize: Name the activity "Perusall," enter the grade amount, and click Save and return to course. 

5. Instructors and students will access all materials by clicking this single link.

If you chose deep linking

You must create a specific "deep link" in Moodle for every individual assignment you built in Perusall.

1. Create your reading or video assignments inside Perusall.

2. Turn on Edit mode and click + Add an activity or resource. Select Perusall 1.3 and click Select content.

   🛠️ Troubleshooting: If you do not see Perusall 1.3 in the activity chooser, select External tool. Enter "Perusall" for the activity name and select Perusall from the Preconfigured tool dropdown.

3. A Perusall window will pop up. Under Assignments, click the dropdown to select the specific assignment you want to link.

4. Ensure Import grading information to LMS is enabled, then click Link to this assignment.

5. Verify the Maximum grade is correct. Click Save and display, then click Open in a new window to test the deep link and ensure it drops you directly into the assignment.

6. Instructors and students will access materials by clicking these links.

Troubleshooting & email white-listing

To ensure smooth communication and prevent missed grade sync notifications, please ensure your campus IT department whitelists the following email domains:

• @perusall.com
• @mg.perusall.com

For technical failures regarding grade communication, please review the guide on How LTI 1.3 integration grade sync works.

Known issues

Moodle’s LTI 1.3 integration does not support the LTI 1.3 launch workflow that avoids cookies. This can cause issues when Perusall is opened in an iframe in browsers that block third-party cookies, particularly during the deep link content selection process. To avoid this, instructors using Moodle should either enable third-party cookies or use a browser like Firefox that allows them. Moodle has been aware of this issue, and it does not appear to be in progress.