D2L Brightspace: Intelligent Agents

Overview

Intelligent Agents in D2L Brightspace are automated tools designed to enhance course management and student engagement.

  1. Activity Monitoring: Track login activity, course activity, and specific release conditions on course activities as set by the instructor.
  2. Automated Warnings: Intelligent Agents can send automated emails to users based on predefined criteria, such as notifying students who haven't logged in for a certain number of days or who have grades below a specified level.
  3. Engagement Encouragement: By sending reminders and alerts, these agents help keep students engaged and on track with their coursework.

Article Sections

Settings: Name and Reply-To

Navigate to Intelligent Agents. From the Settings page, instructors can set custom values for the Name that emails come from and Reply-To address for responses so that the automated emails appear to come from you, the instructor, instead of from a helpdesk. Students can reply directly to the IA emails and replies are directed to you, the instructor.

Update Name and Reply-To from Settings

  1. Navigate to the Intelligent Agents tool.
  2. Select the Settings link on the top-right of the tool page.
  3. Select the Set custom values for this course radio button.
  4. In the Name that emails come from field, enter your name in the field.
  5. In the Reply-To address for responses, enter your email address for students to reply to when replying to an intelligent agent email.
  6. Select Save.

Notes:

  • The settings will be used for all Intelligent Agents in the specific course only. The instructor needs to enter the desired settings in each individual course. The settings don't get copied forward in the Copy Course Components process.
  • If you have emails sent to students via Intelligent Agents and you have not set up your Name and Reply-To, those emails will come from online.learning@metrostate.edu. Your D2L Admins will not know the answer to your student’s questions that inevitably will come, all you will be doing is delaying student communications. Go to settings and put your Name and Reply-To if you are going to use Intelligent Agents.
  • These settings will affect all future emails sent by an agent.

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Creating an Intelligent Agent

Navigate to Intelligent Agents Tool

  1. Select the New Agent button
  2. Enter a name in Agent Name.
    • Optional: Enter description
    • Optional: Create categories to organize agents.
  3. Select the Agent is enabled checkbox. (This step is most likely one you will perform AFTER you have created and tested your agent.)
  4. Expand the Scheduling accordion to set the frequency at which the agent should run.
    • Select One-Time Run to specify a date to run the agent.
    • Select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly to have the agent run on a regular schedule. Specify the repetition, scheduled time, and scheduled date.
    • Do not select Hourly, please.
    • Note: Intelligent Agents can be scheduled to run before the course start date. Scheduled intelligent agents stop running and are automatically disabled if the course is past its end date. You can still set up a practice run or a manual run of an agent at any time in a course after the end date has passed.
  5. Expand the Criteria accordion to select who is included when the agent runs and the activity or release conditions that will trigger the agent to act.
    • Role in Classlist
      1. All users visible in the Classlist
      2. Users with specific roles (such as only Students)
    • Take Action on Activity
      1. Login Activity: the agent searches D2L logins. Select either User has not logged in or User has logged in.
      2. Course Activity: the agent searches for course access. Select either User has not accessed the course or User has accessed the course.
    • Release Conditions: the agent searches for specific activity in your course. Create a new release condition or Browse to select an existing condition.
  6. Expand the Actions accordion to select Repetition and Email settings.
    • Repetition: take action once when criteria are met or take action each time the agent is run and criteria are met.
    • Email: sends an email to users when criteria are satisfied. Note: Review Settings: Name and Reply-to to update the Name that emails come from and the Reply-To address.
  7. Enter {InitiatingUser} in the TO field, so it identifies and contacts the student(s) who met the criteria.
  8. Add additional emails in the CC and BCC fields. Copying yourself is often helpful to know what is sent and see the volume at which the communications are being sent.
  9. Enter a Subject. You can use special replace strings in these fields.
  10. Enter the body of the email in the Message. Again, you can use special replace strings in these fields.

Note: The Message field has an unlimited character length.

  1. Choose whether to add an attachment to the email.
  2. Leave the default HTML for the email format. (If you choose plain text no links will be live in the email.)
  3. Select Save and Close.

Make sure to return to Step 3 and activate your Agent.

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Practice Run and View History for an Intelligent Agent

Select Practice Run for an intelligent agent to generate a list of students who met the specified criteria. Students identified in a practice run are not notified or emailed. A practice run does not count as an action. The Practice Run option works on enabled or disabled agents.

  1. Open the context menu next to an agent and select Practice Run.
  2. A confirmation popup will appear, select Run.
  3. An email will be sent to you to tell you when the agent has completed its practice run.
  4. Within D2L, and the Agents tool, select the “<number> users identified” link under Results of Last Run.
  5. Review the results of the practice run to view who met the conditions of the intelligent agent.

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Run an Intelligent Agent Manually

Typically, intelligent agents are set up to run automatically. When you run an agent manually, it sends a confirmation email to the user that requested the run.

  1. Open the context menu next to the agent and select Run Now.
  2. Select Run in the confirmation window.
  3. On the Manually Run Agent Confirmation page, click Done.

Replace Strings for Intelligent Agents

Replace strings can be used in the subject line or message field to personalize Intelligent Agents. For more on Replacement Strings, please see D2L’s knowledge article. The strings in the D2L article can be used throughout Brightspace.

Three replace strings can only be used with Intelligent Agents, and cannot be used elsewhere in D2L Brightspace:

  • {LastLoginDate} – The date the user last logged in to the site or "Never" if they haven't logged in. The date format is Tuesday, September 20, 2023 9:39 AM CDT, for example.
  • {LastCourseAccessDate} – The date the user last accessed the D2L Brightspace course or "Never" if they haven't accessed the course. The date format is Tuesday, September 20, 2023 9:39 AM CDT, for example.
  • {OrgUnitId} – The unique ID for the course, referred to as the course OU number.

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Delete an Intelligent Agent

1. Navigate to the Intelligent Agents tool.

2. Open the context menu next to the agent’s name and select Delete.

Restore Deleted Intelligent Agents

The Restore Agents page allows the instructor to restore deleted agents. All restored agents maintain existing properties and history.

  1. Navigate to the Intelligent Agents tool.
  2. From the Agent List page, select More Actions.
  3. Select Restore.
  4. Under the Action column, select the Restore button.

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Additional Resources

Microsoft Copilot was used to provide the Summary and Overview of this knowledge base article.

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