Desire Learn Overview

Quickguide: Intelligent Agents Tool

Intelligent Agents send an automated email when instructor-defined criteria are met. For example, instructors can email students who have not logged in recently, whose grades have fallen below a certain level, or who have viewed a specific content topic.

How to Access the Intelligent Agents Tool

1. Click Edit Course. 2. On the Course Administration page, click Intelligent Agents.

In This Guide
Creating Intelligent Agents Running an Intelligent Agent Manually Replace Strings for Intelligent Agents Emails

Creating Intelligent Agents

You can create, edit, and delete intelligent agents from the Agent List page. When you create a new agent, you must first determine What criteria it looks for The content for the email that the agent sends when its conditions are met How often it looks for students meeting its criteria Every time an agent runs, it logs information on its activities. It also sends an email to the instructor that lists the results of the agents running.

Figure 1

Create an Intelligent Agent

1. On the Agent List page, click Agent on the top toolbar. 2. Enter an agent name (required) and description (optional) (Figure 1). New

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3. Select Agent is Enabled if you want the agent to be active as soon as you save it. This setting only applies if you set your agent to run automatically on a schedule. See below for instructions on creating a schedule. 4. Determine the criteria the agent looks for: If you want the agent to send an email if a student has not logged in recently, select Take action when the following login criteria are satisfied. Enter a number in the User has not logged in for at least [#] days field to trigger an email to students meeting this criteria (Figure 2). If you want the agent to send an email when a student views or interacts with a specific piece of course content, click Create and Attach under the Release Condition section. Choose a condition that must be met, such as Submission to Dropbox (meaning a student has submitted an assignment to the corresponding Dropbox), that will trigger the agent (Figure 3). Click Create. Note: Release conditions are based on positive conditions, such as completion of a Checklist, a Dropbox submission, or a Quiz completion. They do not work with negative conditions, such as Quiz not completed. 5. Determine how the agent sends email when its conditions are met: Select one of the Action Repetition radio buttons to set whether the agent sends email once or any time the conditions are met. Note: If an agent is set to only run once, it will ignore future situations in which the rule would apply. If you want the agent to run automatically, select Use Schedule, and then click Update Schedule. Set the
Figure 4 Figure 2

Figure 3

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schedule in the Update Agent Schedule pop-up. Click Update in the Update Agent Schedule pop-up to save the schedule and return to the New Agent page (Figure 4). 6. In the To: field, enter the replace string {InitiatingUser} to send the student an email (Figure 5). See below to learn more about replace strings. 7. Enter a subject and message for the email sent by the Intelligent Agent. You can use special replace strings in these fields as well. 8. Click Save.
Figure 5

Edit an Agent
1. On the Agent List page, click the name of the agent you want to edit. 2. Make your changes and click Save. Replace String
{InitiatingUser}

Figure 6

Description
The user who performed the action that met the agents criteria. The auditors for the user who performed the action that met the agents criteria. The name of the course. The code for the course. The name of the course. The start date specified for the course. The end date specified for the course. The first name of the initiating user. The last name of the initiating user. The username of the initiating user. The Org Defined ID of the initiating user. The address of the login path for the site.

Running an Intelligent Agent Manually

If your agent is not set up to run on a schedule, you will need to run it manually every time you want the agent to check for students who meet the criteria and send out email. Click the blue Run icon next to an agents name on the Agent List page to run it manually (Figure 6).

{InitiatingUserAuditors} {OrgName} {OrgUnitCode} {OrgUnitName} {OrgUnitStartDate} {OrgUnitEndDate} {InitiatingUserFirstName} {InitiatingUserLastName} {InitiatingUserUserName} {InitiatingUserOrgDefined Id} {LoginPath}

Replace Strings for Intelligent Agents

Replace strings are specially formatted codes that you can put into automated emails to replace the need to enter information that might change from student to student. For example, you might want to send a personalized message to each student in your class of 60, but you dont have time to change the name in the salutation for 60 emails. Instead, you can use the replace string {InitiatingUser}, and the names of your

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students will be filled in for you, so you only have to send the message once. See the table to the right for all of the replace string options and the text they generate. You can also click the Insert Replace String button in the Message text box to see a list of replace strings (Figure 7). Here is a sample email using replace strings: Dear {InitiatingUserFirstName}, You have not logged into the {OrgUnitName} course site in the last week. Please remember that regular participation in course activities is essential for success in this course! Please log in to the course site as soon as possible. See you in class, Dr. Vincent DePaul

Figure 7

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