README

A Moodle admin tool that bulk-schedules gradebook lock-after dates across a course's gradable activities on a timed-session basis. Pick a module type (quizzes, assignments, and any other activity with a gradebook grade item), split the activities into sessions, and the tool writes each session's lock date straight into the activities' own grade items' native locktime — core's grade-lock enforcement takes it from there, no custom locking engine involved.

Requirements

Moodle 5.0 or later

Installation

Copy the plugin directory into <moodleroot>/public/admin/tool/timelocker/
Visit Site administration → Notifications to run the upgrade

How it works

From a course's administration menu, a teacher or manager opens Time locker, picks an activity type, and sets a schedule start date, session length (in days) and how many activities go in each session. The tool splits the course's activities of that type into sessions in course order, and for each selected activity writes a lock date onto the end of its session window.

Applying the schedule calls set_locktime() on every itemtype = 'mod' grade item belonging to the selected activities. It does not lock anything itself: core's \core\task\grade_cron_task scheduled task periodically scans for grade items whose locktime has passed and flips them to locked, exactly as if a teacher had set the lock date by hand in the gradebook. This mirrors how Activity dates writes native module open/close dates rather than reinventing availability.

Activities left unselected are untouched by default, but can optionally have their lock date cleared ("Reset unselected").

Each course keeps a single Time locker schedule. Switching to a different activity type and saving replaces the previous selection: any student notes for the previously selected activities stop showing, although lock dates that were already written to those activities' grade items remain in place (clear them in the gradebook, or via "Reset unselected", if no longer wanted).

Student note

Optionally, an activity can show a note on its own page telling students when its grade will lock (or that it has already locked). The note is added via the Hooks API and always reflects the grade item's live locktime/locked state — so it stays accurate even if a teacher subsequently changes the lock date directly in the gradebook.

Where the note appears depends on the Moodle version, as the header-extras region it prefers ($PAGE->add_header_extras()) was only added in Moodle 5.2:

Moodle	Note placement
5.2 and later	Near the activity's dates, in the same region as other activity-page notices
5.0, 5.1	At the top of the activity page

Settings

Site administration → Plugins → Admin tools → Time locker provides site-wide defaults for the scheduling form: session length, activities per session, and whether the student-facing note is shown by default for newly selected activities.

Privacy

This plugin stores only course-level scheduling configuration (which activity type, session settings, which activities are selected, and their note toggles) — it does not store or process any personal user data, and implements Moodle's privacy null_provider.

Acknowledgement

This plugin was inspired by, and adapts the session-scheduling approach of, Driprelease by Marcus Green, and of Activity dates. Where those plugins control access or write module-level open/close dates, Time locker writes native gradebook grade-item lock dates instead, letting Moodle core's own grade-lock enforcement do the work.

License

GNU GPL v3 or later — https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

adamjenkins / moodle-tool_timelocker

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