A flat file is a text file that contains information from a database. The flat file method of student enrollment causes Moodle to read in a text file and use that as the source for enrollment information. The flat file method is especially useful if you need to enroll a large group of people who have records in another system.

For example, suppose that all the nurses at your hospital need to be trained in patient privacy laws. We can assume that the nurses have records in the hospital's human resource or payroll system. Alternatively, suppose all the teachers at your school need to be trained on new educational standards. These teachers will probably have records in the school's email or human resource system. If you can get a flat file, or text file, containing a list of everyone who needs to be trained, and that file contains their Moodle ID numbers, you are well on your way to enrolling them all at once. When you speak to the system administrator of the other system, you may ask them for an extract from the system.