How to Setup a Chat Activity

How to Setup a Chat Activity

Idea
Overview
The Chat activity in Moodle enables real-time, text-based conversations between students and trainers within a course. It's useful for live Q&A sessions, tutorials, or scheduled support times, especially in online and blended delivery. Chats can be logged for review, helping with engagement tracking and evidence of interaction. Best practice is to schedule chat times clearly, enable session logging, and use group chat modes if working with multiple cohorts.

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps to set up a chat activity.

Notes
Step Tutorial
InfoNOTE: You need Teacher or Manager access before you can perform this action.

Step 1: Turn Editing On

  1. Log in to your Moodle site as a Trainer or Manager.

  2. Navigate to the course where you want to add the chat.

  3. Click the "Turn editing on" button (usually top right of the course page).



Step 2: Add the Chat Activity

  1. In the desired section/topic, click “+ Add an activity or resource.”

  2. Select Chat from the list of activities.


Step 3: Configure Basic Settings

Fill in the key fields:

  • Name of this chat room:
    Enter a clear name, e.g. “Live Support Chat – Week 3”.

  • Description:
    Provide context for the chat session. You can include instructions, expected participation, or links to prep material.
    ✅ Tick “Display description on course page” if needed.


Step 4: Adjust the settings as needed.

General
Name* - (Required Field) Enter the name of the chat activity

Description – Provide context for the chat session. You can include instructions, expected participation, or links to prep material.

Display description on course page - (Checkbox) If enabled, the description will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the activity or resource.
Timing

Step 4: Set Chat Session Times

These settings help students know when to attend, but the chat can remain open beyond this.

  • Next chat time:
    Set the date/time for the scheduled session (optional if it’s always open).

  • Repeat sessions:
    Choose whether the chat session repeats:

    • Don’t publish: One-off session

    • At the same time every day/week: Good for regular drop-in sessions

  • Save past sessions:
    Recommended: Choose how long to retain chat transcripts (e.g., 30 days or never delete for review/reference).

  • Everyone can view past sessions:
    Useful if you want all users to see previous discussions. Otherwise, set to No.
Common Module Settings
Availability - If the availability is set to 'Show on course page', the activity or resource is available to students (subject to any access restrictions which may be set).
If the availability is set to 'Hide from students', the activity or resource is only available to users with permission to view hidden activities (by default, users with the role of teacher or non-editing teacher).

ID number - Setting an ID number provides a way of identifying the activity or resource for purposes such as grade calculation or custom reporting. Otherwise, the field may be left blank.
For gradable activities, the ID number can also be set in the gradebook, though it can only be edited on the activity settings page.

Force language - The teacher can force a language to be used in an individual activity, rather than for the whole course. An example is if students are studying a language and the course is in their native language but a particular activity such as Chat is forced to their target language, to encourage them to focus.

Include in course content download - Should this activity or resource be included in the zip file of course content available for download? File, Folder, Page and Label can be fully downloaded. For all other activities and resources, only the name and description are downloaded. This option requires download course content to be enabled in the course settings.

Group mode - This is set up on the course level. When course group mode is turned on and force is set to no, the group mode can be one of three levels on the activity level: no groups, separate groups or visible groups.
  1. No groups - There are no groups and all students submit their individual activities in one area.
  2. Separate groups - Each group member can only see their own group, others are invisible
  3. Visible groups - Each group member works in their own group, but can also see other groups
The group mode defined at course level is the default mode for all activities within the course. Each activity that supports groups can also define its own group mode, though if the group mode is forced at course level, the group mode setting for each activity is ignored.
Restrict Access
Access restrictions - Restriction can be based upon activity completion, course completed, date, grade, other course completion, password, etc. The 'Restriction set' button also allows for more complex criteria requiring nested conditions.
Completion conditions
This allows the teacher to set completion criteria in the settings of a specific activity. A check mark will appear next to the activity once the student meets the criteria. There are three available conditions:
  1. None
  2. Students must manually mark the activity as done
  3. Add requirements – Additional fields will appear. You can adjust the settings as needed.
Set reminder in Timeline – This field will appear if either ‘Students must manually mark the activity as done’ or ‘Add requirements’ is ticked. This allows teacher to set a reminder for students to work on this activity. 
Info
NOTE: A teacher may mark an activity as complete on behalf of a student from the Activity completion report if they have the capability to Override activity completion (which is enabled by default).
Tags
This is used for the searchability of the course.
Competencies
Course competencies - Course competencies linked to this activity.
​
Upon activity completion - Choose whether to Do nothing, Attach evidence, Send for review, or Complete the competency.

Step 5: After setting up the chat, click the available Save buttons below. You may tick the Send content change notification checkbox if you want the participants get notified about the new or changed activity or resource. Only users who can access the activity or resource will receive the notification.



Your Chat activity will now be displayed in the section where you selected ‘Add an activity or resource’.

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