Skype

I very busy at the moment with other work, but will investigate the possibility of adding this capability, when I get the chance.

Thank you very much for the quick response. I was hopping for a group call straight from my skype activity inside my course with all enrolled students, just like you do when you click in a user's "create conference" button.

Thanks Raisa for helping out with a reply.

Hi Rafael Ferri,
This was the response I got:
"The Skype plugin for Moodle installs as a block. It only acts like a phone book for any user that has a Skype account added into their Moodle profile. The functions provided are to Create Conference, Create Chat, Send Voicemail, Add Contact, and Send File. When I recently took over development for the plugin, I added Group capability and some other stuff, mostly code cleanup to meet Moodle standards.
When a user clicks to use Skype from within Moodle, it actually just starts the regular Skype application, which HAS to be installed on the device from which the user is accessing Moodle. The actual capabilities depend on the type of account the user has for their Skype account. To make a video call, you have to have a camera. Without a camera, you are limited to audio only. As for as making sure that only the professor can start a call, after the course teacher/professor adds the Skype block, hide it. The teacher/professor will still be able to see the block and use it, but it will not be visible to the students in the course."
So it is not possible the way I wanted it to function, but maybe this helps you.
Regards

Hello AL,
I happen to have the same question as Raisa Retif, where I want to have video conference with all students at the same time. Also if it is possible to only allow teachers and admins to start it. Thank you in advance.

Answered via email.

Hello All,
I have a question regarding this plugin.
How do you make a videocall with all the students enrolled in the course? is this possible or it is just for 1 on 1 videocall?
Also, how can you make sure that only the professor can start the videochat?
Thank you in advance

Hi Al! Take your time!
Hope a quick recovery of your wife's health.
Here the requested information : Moodle 3.8.3+ (Build: 20200602); Skype 3.6.0 (Build: 2020052000); Centos 7.7.1908; PHP 7.2.28; Maria DB 5.5.65.
In your case, when running cron after deleting a skype activity the emails sent from forums is working?
In my case the cron seemed to work, but then I realised the forum mailing won't came and in tasks log appeared that skype exception error message. As soon as I deleted that skype lines in database, some hundreds of mails from forums was shoted.

Hi Osvaldo, I am going to need some more information. To start, what version of Skype? What version of Moodle? What OS? What type of Database? I have tried deleting a Skype 3.6.0 activity in Moodle 3.8.4+ (Build: 20200713) and the cron keeps right on working ok. Further info - Centos 7.8.2003. PHP 7.2.2. MySQL 5.6.48.

Hi Osvaldo, You are correct, the current code for the Skype plugin does not have the code for handling backups. None of the previous maintainers tried to include it. I will try to get to it as soon as I can. Just please be patient as we just found out that my wife has an extremely serious health issue, and taking care of her is my main priority at the moment.

Hello, Al!
Just to report a problem that was blocking all my cron tasks.
Every time an skype activity is deleted, my cron tasks stops and looking at task logs I found that has an error with the "\core_course\task\course_delete_modules" which says "!!! Exception - Class 'backup_skype_activity_task' not found !!!"
The only way I could found to solve the problem was deleting the rows about skype module in "mdl_task_adhoc" database table.
Done this, my cron tasks started running again.
Regards!

Practically nothing. Moodle uses the Skype plugin just to give users a listing of any users that have a Skype ID listed in their profile. If a user decides to contact someone via Skype, the plugin actually links to and opens the Skype application on the users desktop computer.

What is the impact of this plugin on my server?

What you describe is what they should be seeing.

honored for this timely response. Thank you. no edit button....
that's what students see....
Time to Skype: Sunday, May 3, 2020, 22:43
Separate groups: All participants
Select Photo Name Skype ID Contact
name teacher image email@example.it skype@example.it button create conference - chat .....
name student image email@example.it skype@example.it button create conference - chat .....
is it right or should I just see the meeting link?
Thank you