by Clint Lalonde | Desire2Learn in ,

Personalize D2L content using variables

Online Course Peer Review at Lake Superior College just posted a nice D2L tip on how to personalize content in a D2L course.

By inserting {firstname} into any HTML spot in your courses (news, content, release conditions, etc), D2L automatically places your students’ first names into your message.  This just adds an element of personalization to your class.  This also works if you’d like a student’s last name or username inserted — {lastname} or {username}.

I have tested a few other variables and have found that these work as well.

  • {OrgName} will show the name of the organization (in our case, Camosun Online).
  • {OrgUnitName} will show the name of the course.
  • {UserName} will show the login name of user.

I have checked the D2L documentation and can’t seem to find any reference or list of available variables so there may be more. Remember to include the brace symbol ‘{‘ and ‘}’ at the beginning and end of each variable.

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Clint Lalonde

Just a guy writing some stuff, mostly for me these days on this particular blog. For my EdTech/OpenEd stuff, check out https://edtechfactotum.com/.

 

5 thoughts on “Personalize D2L content using variables”

  1. FYI – These are called Replace Strings, and there is quite the handful that can also be used in custom widgets, navbar links, etc. They are documented, although maybe not where one would expect…custom widgets is where you'll see them referenced.

    There are also some undocumented ones like {rolename}, {rolecode}, {userid}, {orgunitid}, {orgunitpath}, {orgdefinedid} and probably some others i'm not getting off the top of my head, although they don't all work everywhere.

    These can provide nice lightweight methods for integrations as well, depending on the level of security required when you want to communicate this information.

  2. There are a number of other variables listed as email elements in the Intelligent Agent, but only the three you listed seem to work on the Navbar.

    {OrgName} – The name of the organization.
    {OrgUnitCode} – The code for the Org Unit.
    {OrgUnitName} – The name of the Org Unit.

    {OrgUnitStartDate} – The start date specified for the Org Unit.
    {OrgUnitEndDate} – The end date specified for the Org Unit.
    {InitiatingUserFirstName} – The first name of the initiating user.
    {InitiatingUserLastName} – The last name of the initiating user.
    {InitiatingUserUserName} – The user name of the initiating user.
    {InitiatingUserOrgDefinedId} – The Org Defined Id of the initiating user.
    {LoginPath} – The address of the login path for the site.

    {InitiatingUser} – The user who performs the actions necessary to satisfy the agent's criteria.
    {InitiatingUserAuditors} – The auditors of the user who performs the actions necessary to satisfy the agent's criteria.

    1. Thanks for that, Ian. I haven't actually tested any variables on the nav bar other than {firstname}, {lastname} and {OrgUnitName]. I suspect that the variables have limited scope within the application.

  3. The "{" some-var-name "}" is how Atlassian's wiki Confluence inserts data values and code blocks into pages.

    THINK
    think different
    Think Open Source

  4. The "{" same-var-name "}" is how Atlassian's wiki Confluence inserts data values and code block into pages.

    THINK
    think different
    Think Open Source

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