Moodle LMS Consulting, Hosting & Support
Moodle, looked after properly
PortNW is a web studio in Tumwater, Washington that installs, customises, hosts and maintains Moodle for schools, training providers, nonprofits and businesses that deliver courses online. One person who knows the platform, answers the phone, and is still there in year five.
Tell Us About Your MoodleWhat we do with Moodle
Moodle is the most widely deployed open-source learning platform in the world, and it rewards being set up with a bit of forethought. This is the work we take on.
Installation and setup
A clean install configured around how you actually teach: course structures, cohorts, enrolment methods and the permissions your staff need.
Custom themes and branding
Moodle out of the box looks like Moodle. We build themes that carry your identity without fighting the platform or breaking on the next upgrade.
Plugin selection and integration
Choosing the plugins worth carrying and leaving out the ones that will cost you maintenance later, plus the integrations that connect Moodle to the rest of your systems.
Upgrades and migrations
Moving a neglected installation forward safely, staged with backups and rollback points, and migrating from another LMS with the courses, users and history intact.
Managed hosting
Moodle on infrastructure we run and monitor, with patching, backups and the capacity planning that stops enrolment week from being the week it falls over.
Custom reporting and dashboards
The numbers your staff and board ask for, built so people can read them without elevated permissions. One of ours is in the portfolio.
How we work on it
- ✓ We host what we support. Our general rule is that we only take on platforms we can maintain on hosting we control, because a Moodle site we cannot reach is one we cannot keep secure or fix at short notice. Where you already have infrastructure worth keeping, we will assess it honestly rather than insisting on a move.
- ✓ Upgrades are planned, never improvised. A Moodle upgrade touches themes, plugins and the database at once, so we take a backup, work from a staging copy and keep a rollback point. You should never find out an upgrade went wrong from a learner.
- ✓ Documentation, not dependency. Standard Moodle, standard plugins, and notes on what was changed and why. If you ever take the site elsewhere, any competent Moodle developer can pick it up. That is deliberate.
- ✓ We tell you when it is not us. If your needs are larger than a one-person studio should carry, we say so and bring in the right people rather than scaling up on your budget. Custom software around Moodle sits on the custom applications page.
Questions we get asked
Do you host Moodle, or do we? +
Either way. Most clients prefer us to run it: we install Moodle on a server we manage, keep it patched, back it up and monitor it, so nobody on your side has to think about it. If you already have hosting and want to keep it, we will work with what you have and tell you plainly whether it is good enough for the enrolment numbers you are planning.
Our Moodle has been neglected and is well out of date. Can you take it over? +
Yes, and that is a familiar job. The first step is an audit: what version you are on, which plugins are carrying weight, what a safe upgrade path looks like, and what will break on the way. From there we plan the upgrade in stages, with a backup and a rollback point before anything changes, rather than upgrading live and hoping.
Can you customise Moodle beyond the standard setup? +
In most cases, yes. Custom themes, plugin selection and configuration, enrolment and cohort structures, custom reports, and integrations with the systems you already run. Where a request would be better served by an existing plugin, or would create a maintenance problem you would pay for every year, we will say so before you pay for it.
We need more than one person can deliver. What then? +
We say so, and we bring in help. Kershner Educational Development Group is an education company we build for, and for implementations larger than a studio of one should take on, they are who we hand the work to. You get someone who can scale the project, and you do not get a small studio quietly pretending to be a large one.
What does Moodle support cost? +
Scope and volume first, price second. Hosting and routine maintenance are usually a monthly arrangement, and project work is quoted before it starts. We will set out what the support covers, what it does not, and what a break-fix request would cost, so there is no argument about it later.
Moodle is one of the services on the services page, alongside the rest of what the studio does.
Tell us where your Moodle hurts
An upgrade you have been putting off, a site nobody can log into, or a course you need online this term. Describe it and we will tell you what it takes, including when the honest answer is that you should do it yourself.
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