Revision of ILIAS mails for ECS users

1 Requirements

1.1 Initial Problem

ECS users always have to access courses shared via ECS from their home ILIAS. They cannot log in to the ILIAS from which a course was shared directly.

ILIAS generates all kinds of (notification) mails which (more or less automatically) contain direct links to the objects (course, groups, forums etc.) which triggered the notification (a common example is a lecturer writing to all course members).

In the past we found that ECS users, too, simply clicked on these links and then, of course, found themselves on the login mask of the "foreign" ILIAS—which in turn lead to all kinds of unnecessary support cases.

At one point in the past this was "hot-fixed" by forcibly harcoding ILIAS mail delivery for the ECS user role to "local only".

This, though, counters users’ expectations—they rightfully expect to receive notificaiton mails from the "foreign" ILIAS just as well as from their home ILIAS. Also they are not constantly logged into the "foreign" ILIAS and are extremely unlikely to notice the local delivery of new mails there. As a result ECS users will miss important information (e.g. course mails from their lecturers) and feel understandably disadvantaged.

1.2 Conceptual Summary

The following is consus within the SIG CampusConnect:

• Course/group URLs have to remain placeholders while composing a mail.
• The ILIAS mail system must be able to recognise ECS users and treat them differently.
• Ultimately mails to ECS users should be passed to the home LMS via ECS (instead of being sent out directly); that includes URL placeholders.

This should taken into account during the mail system overhaul which is planned anyway (see Use Mustache in Mail Template Configuration).

The SIG agreed on a two-step implementation:

1. Ad interim ECS users will receive the mails from the host LMS, but with a notification text instead of course/group URLs.
2. Ulimately the mails will be passed on to the home LMS via ECS instead of being sent out via the host LMS; them home LMS will then replace the placeholders with proper local ECS course/group link URLs.

Also see the minutes of the SIG CampusConnect’s jour fixe from September 12th, 2022.

2 Additional Information

• Idea / concept: Bogen, Christian [bogen], Universität Stuttgart
• Interest in funding: Universität Stuttgart
• Maintainer: (will be set by Jour Fixe / maintainer)
• Implementation of the feature is done by (will be set by Jour Fixe / maintainer)
• Testcases by: (please add your name if you want to create the testcases for this feature)

3 Discussion

4 Implementation

{please give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

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