About
Pulse allows you to define custom mail recipients globally and reuse them across automations. This is useful when notifications should be sent to shared inboxes, departments, or external contacts that are not regular Moodle users.
You can find these settings under Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Pulse > Pulse notifications.
Custom recipients added here become selectable in the notification settings of Pulse automations.
Available settings
Custom mail - Recipients
Here you define one or more email-based recipients. Each entry creates a selectable recipient in Pulse.
Default last name
Define a default last name that is used whenever no last name is provided explicitly for a custom email.
Format of the custom mail - Recipients
Add names first, followed by a comma, and then the email address.
Examples:
HR Team, hr@company.de
John Doe, john.doe@example.comIf you add multiple names before the comma, all but the last are treated as the first name, and the last one as the last name.
If you add only one name before the comma, it is used as the first name and the default last name is applied.
If you add no name at all, Pulse uses the part before the @ symbol as the first name and applies the default last name.
Example:
hr@company.de becomes first name “hr”.
Note: Because part of the email address may be used as a user name, special characters such as + are not allowed.
Custom recipient handling in Pulse
Each custom mail recipient is stored as a Moodle user account with the authentication method set to “no login.” These accounts exist only to receive Pulse notifications.
Pulse always sends messages to a user account, not directly to an email address. This ensures consistent handling of recipients across automations.
Existing email addresses
If you add an email address that already belongs to an existing Moodle user account, Pulse links the custom recipient entry to that user.
In this case:
The existing user account is not modified or duplicated.
Removing the email from the custom recipient list does not delete the existing user account.
You can override the name shown in the Pulse recipient selector by adding a name before the email address. This only affects the display name in Pulse and does not change the actual user profile.
Removing the entry of custom mail recipient
If you remove a custom email address from the list, the associated “no login” user account is not removed from the database. Instead, it is marked as deleted, which hides it from selection but keeps the record for reference.
If you later add the same email address again, a new user account is created.
Deleting a created no login account
If you manually delete a user account that was created through the custom mail setting, this recipient can no longer be selected.
In the global settings, you will be prompted to save the configuration again to recreate the missing user account.