Choosing Moodle Activity Completion: Manual vs Automatic vs Viewed

Problem: Choosing the right completion tracking for a large Moodle course

You're managing a Moodle course with 200+ learners and need every activity to mark as complete based on real progress - not just clicks. The completion criterion you choose affects grading accuracy, instructor workload, and the reliability of completion reports.

Decision and constraints

Moodle's activity completion feature offers three criteria: Manual, Automatic (Passed), and Automatic (Viewed). The right choice depends on course size, assessment goals, and the level of administrative overhead you're willing to maintain.

Criterion	When it triggers	Typical use case
Manual	Instructor or admin marks each activity as complete	Small courses, compliance, capstone projects
Automatic (Passed)	Learner achieves the minimum grade set for the activity	Graded assignments, quizzes with pass marks
Automatic (Viewed)	Learner opens the activity	Readings, videos, resource consumption tracking

Trade-offs at a glance

• Manual: High accuracy but does not scale; each learner requires an explicit mark.
• Automatic (Passed): Ties completion to assessment outcomes; may misfire if grading criteria change.
• Automatic (Viewed): Simplest to set; may count partial or accidental opens as completion.

Concrete implementation: setting the criterion via the UI and CLI

# Enable activity completion for the course
moodle config:set core_completion_enabled 1 --global

# Set the completion criterion for a specific activity (ID=123)
# Options: manual, auto_pass, auto_view
moodle activity:completion:set --course=INTRO101 --activity=123 --criterion=auto_pass

# Recompute completion for all participants in the course
moodle tool completion:update --course=INTRO101

Where to run: Server shell with moodle user ownership. Required permissions: Admin access to Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Activity completion, or CLI access as the Moodle admin user. Meaningful placeholders: Replace INTRO101 with your course short name and 123 with the activity ID. Expected check: After running the CLI, open the course as a student and verify the Completed checkbox appears only when the criterion is met. Relevant risk: If the site uses LDAP authentication, bulk CLI updates may not propagate to existing enrolments; re-run the update after syncing user data or consult the LDAP integration notes.

Verification and limitations

• Open an activity, complete the required interactions, then check the Completed checkbox under the activity drawer; the status should update according to the selected criterion.
• Export the course's activity completion report from the administration block and verify that the percentages match the chosen criterion.
• Grade category changes after activities are marked complete may require re-evaluation of completion status.