oat-sa/extension-tao-sync

TAO synchronisation for offline client data.

TAO Sync Extension

, _(*1)

, _(*2)

The purpose of this extension is to synchronize a local and a remote server., _(*3)

All types of data and results can be synchronized. All HTTP requests are required to be signed following the OAuth 2 standard, also are all data encrypted., _(*4)

Important note: While this article uses American spelling, some of the command line instructions are in British spelling for historical reasons, e. g. synchronisation instead of synchronization!, _(*5)

Installation instructions

These instructions assume that you already have a TAO installation on your system. If you don't, go to package/tao and follow the installation instructions., _(*6)

Add the extension to your TAO composer and to the autoloader:, _(*7)

composer require oat-sa/extension-tao-sync

Install the extension on the CLI from the project root:, _(*8)

Linux:, _(*9)

sudo php tao/scripts/installExtension oat-sa/extension-tao-sync

Windows:, _(*10)

php tao\scripts\installExtension oat-sa/extension-tao-sync

As a system administrator you can also install it through the TAO Extension Manager: - Settings (the gears on the right-hand side of the menu) -> Extension manager - Select taoSync on the right-hand side, check the box and hit install, _(*11)

Synchronization

Data synchronization

In preparation of a delivery execution, the synchronization process needs to fetch data objects of the following types from the central server:, _(*12)

• test-center
• administrator
• proctor
• test-taker
• eligibility
• delivery

Set the chunkSize parameter in the taoSync/syncService configuration to define the amount of data per request, $type refers to the list above, e. g. test-center, _(*13)

$ sudo -u www-data php index.php '\oat\taoSync\scripts\tool\synchronisation\SynchronizeData' [--type=$type]

When a delivery is published it exports a sanpshot of a QTI test package. This snapshot will be used during synchronization., _(*14)

Result synchronization

Once the Client Server has the delivery result, a script sends it to the Central Server. Only completed delivery executions will be sent, results will be submitted only once. When a delivery execution is sent, the synchronization history will be updated to log the action. You can set the deleteAfterSend parameter to true to delete results after the synchronization., _(*15)

To configure the amount of data per request, use the chunkSize parameter in the taoSync/resultService configuration., _(*16)

Execute the following command to synchronize the result:, _(*17)

$ sudo -u www-data php index.php '\oat\taoSync\scripts\tool\synchronisation\SynchronizeResult'

Synchronizing all data and results

To synchronize data and results at the same time, use the following command:, _(*18)

$ sudo -u www-data php index.php '\oat\taoSync\scripts\tool\synchronisation\SynchronizeAll'

OAuth credentials

Generating credentials to allow a user to connect to the platform

This command creates a consumer with OAuth credentials., _(*19)

$ sudo -u www-data php index.php '\oat\taoSync\scripts\tool\OAuth\GenerateOAuthCredentials'

The output of this command will contain the following data: - key - secret - tokenUrl, _(*20)

Note: Add the -cmd flag to this command to execute it on the Client Server., _(*21)

Importing OAuth credentials to Client Server

The following command will import the consumer you have created above into the Client Server. The arguments are the output from the previous command, $rootUrl is the domain name of the host server., _(*22)

$ sudo -u www-data php index.php 'oat\taoSync\scripts\tool\OAuth\ImportOAuthCredentials' -k $key -s $secret -tu $tokenUrl -u $rootUrl

Scoping synchronization to a test center identifier

To be able to bind a synchronization to the organzition ID of a test center, the platform needs to register a test-center property. The SyncService has also to register new synchronizers to process by organisation id., _(*23)

$ sudo -u www-data php index.php '\oat\taoSync\scripts\tool\RegisterSyncServiceByOrgId'

Note The test center organization id is http://www.taotesting.com/ontologies/synchro.rdf#organisationId_, _(*24)