How to install a plugin in Moodle 2.3

When developing Courses in Moodle, there are ways to add functionality to Courses that the default plugins do not offer. Custom plugins allow the Moodle site to be customized according to the needs of the teacher. For example, The teacher can add a progress bar in the navigation that gives a visual graph of the students progress in the Course. There are many plugins like this that are available at the Moodle Plugins Directory.
In this article, a Progress Bar will be installed in the blocks plugin location. To complete this tutorial, Download the zip file from the following link. The file in this tutorial is named block_progress_moodle23_2012080600.zip.

Installing a Moodle Plugin

1. Log into cPanel or use an FTP client to upload the folder to the server. If the file is archived, it will need to be extracted; otherwise, upload the folder that was extracted from the zip file directly to the following directory: /blocks
   
2. Log into the Moodle Dashboard
3. Navigate to Settings > Site administration > Notifications. The Plugins Check page should display. Here is where the plugin is activated. Plugins waiting to be installed will show green "To be installed" in the status column.
   Click Upgrade Moodle database now.
   
   When the Block progress shows Success, Click Continue.
   
4. Install the Block on the Course. Once the Block is added and configured it should look like the snapshot to the right.
   This concludes the article on installing a plugin for Moodle 2.3.