session timed out while creating assignment; lost everyhting

Donald Payne

I was creating an assignment in Blackbaud > Assignments > Grade Book > Add assignment. I spent a while editing the text.
My session apparently timed out. I was logged out without warning and lost everything.
To whom can we complain about this?
Is there a way to avoid our session timing out while editing an assignment?

Jess Moxsky

Donald - did you get signed out while actively typing in the window? If you had the window open but it was inactive, you would have been logged out due to inactivity. This is a security feature and is something set by Blackbaud.

Susan Ott

Happens to me ALL the time as I also keep RENXT open. If I haven't been working in RE, it will time out and throws me out of EM at the same time. Extremely frustrating - especially when you are building an advanced list.

Jess Moxsky

The BBID time out time is 90 minutes, non-BBID users can be configured locally in K12 through Authentication Settings. This help article lists the various timeout settings for web/hosted/non-hosted environments.

Megan Day

Happens to me often too. I definitely wish there was a “draft mode” function built in that would periodically save the working assignment.

What I try to do is if I know I'm going to have a lot of text for the description is I type it up elsewhere first (Google Doc usually) so I can come back to it when needed or if I'm interrupted by a student or faculty member who needs immediate tech help. Even if I don't have a ton of text, one of the FIRST things I do is put in the assigned date, due date/time and choose to publish on “Assigned Date” sometimes I even put “EDIT” in the title of the assignment. Then, I save frequently and if I'm timed out or need to come back to the assignment, I know which one is in “draft mode” and it doesn't show up for my students.

Donald Payne

I'm pretty sure I was in the middle of typing. I think I saw my Gradebook screen go away, to be replaced by the timeout message and login screen.

John Ronan

Not sure I understand. Are you saying, Jess, that if I am logged in via BBID, that I'd be kicked out of everything if I'm inactive in anything?