More Assignment View Issues - loss of "Active" filter
Our faculty are now expressing their heartfelt animosity to almost every aspect of the new faculty view for assignments in K12. Today's email barrage was prompted over the disappearance of the "active" filter from the old view.
"We no longer have "active" as an option. The default is "this week" but that isn't really what we want to see. That is problematic. Because maybe I want to post an assignment today, but my students aren't going to see it until Monday. It is not active. But on my view, I can't differentiate. I can't tell if it is active or not without drilling down. There is a HUGE range of things on the faculty view (This month, this week, next week, etc.) But not "active." This is resulting in my having to make 8 clicks instead of 1 to see the information I want. Why are they making this more difficult to use?"
and
"Not having the active option is extremely problematic and actually leading to issues with assignment completion/double entries on my part. I would love a remedy for this."
and
"Yeah, sorry to pile on here, but that new view is not ideal. I'm not sure why it's the default, and I'm having to jump through a few more clicks here and there to make it just workable.
I think the real problem is that the "filter" function is what's driving the view, and you can't get around it. Scott, I tried setting that to the "year" view and logging out. That works OK, but it 's not the active view that everyone misses."
I am dying here guys. I am spending so much time fielding angry emails from faculty frustrated with their current lack of options in this new view to helping them try to find work-arounds that I am falling behind on other critical, time-sensitive projects. I know Angie Addison has brought all of this to the development team for the current sprint - can we get a possible timeline and exactly what is will be fixed/changed/restored when the sprint is released. I am about to dig a moat around my office - and in south Louisiana, that is a drastic step.
Scott
"We no longer have "active" as an option. The default is "this week" but that isn't really what we want to see. That is problematic. Because maybe I want to post an assignment today, but my students aren't going to see it until Monday. It is not active. But on my view, I can't differentiate. I can't tell if it is active or not without drilling down. There is a HUGE range of things on the faculty view (This month, this week, next week, etc.) But not "active." This is resulting in my having to make 8 clicks instead of 1 to see the information I want. Why are they making this more difficult to use?"
and
"Not having the active option is extremely problematic and actually leading to issues with assignment completion/double entries on my part. I would love a remedy for this."
and
"Yeah, sorry to pile on here, but that new view is not ideal. I'm not sure why it's the default, and I'm having to jump through a few more clicks here and there to make it just workable.
I think the real problem is that the "filter" function is what's driving the view, and you can't get around it. Scott, I tried setting that to the "year" view and logging out. That works OK, but it 's not the active view that everyone misses."
I am dying here guys. I am spending so much time fielding angry emails from faculty frustrated with their current lack of options in this new view to helping them try to find work-arounds that I am falling behind on other critical, time-sensitive projects. I know Angie Addison has brought all of this to the development team for the current sprint - can we get a possible timeline and exactly what is will be fixed/changed/restored when the sprint is released. I am about to dig a moat around my office - and in south Louisiana, that is a drastic step.
Scott
7
Comments
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I'm right there with you Scott. I have never had to handle so many help desk tickets. In addition to all the complaints, my inbox is full of emails and tickets from teachers (one titled Blackbaud is the devil) about what isn't working correctly. I currently have multiple support tickets open because some feature that used to work isn't working now - retake assessment not working, certain SKY lists not working, can't copy/paste pictures in assessment questions, student assignment view of day, due, list doesn't populate correctly. Oh and my favorite of the week so far, now I have faculty, that are also parents of a student in the same division, have their child's classes showing up as options to post assignments to through the assignment center. All the changes have created so much more work for us when we have so much more work already because of COVID. It's like having a totally new job on top of the old one. I'm drowning and there is no land in sight.3
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I have had a few issues reported to me as well:
One example is that the teacher assignment center does not seem to designate if there is an attachment or not in the assignment, and some assignment details are clickable and some are not. What makes the assignment detail a clickable link?
Another issue is that the Download size for a file in assignments is now limited to 4mb. When was this change implemented? I can't see anything in the help docs that spells out this limitation.
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Hi Scott Chrysler in the list filters isn't there a filter option for published status? Maybe I'm missing something here but in the use case of the teacher wanting to look at the ones due in a certain time frame but only if the student is seeing them i.e. they've been published could you add the published status to your filter? We are currently working on teacher preferences for their saved default view, that should be coming out soon and hopefully will help. Happy to get on the phone and talk about what other enhancements we can make to alleviate. The original feedback we got I believe on the list views (and what drove the changes) was that the terms weren't intuitive - i.e. what did 'active' mean? So we were trying to be explicit with the filters on timeframe and status. But we could certainly continue the conversation! Susan Ott I believe I've seen all of the issues you mentioned come up to us so they are on our plate to fix imminently (with the exception of SKY lists I will have to defer that one to the SKY team). I was so sorry to see your message though, it really saddens me that you're getting that kind of feedback. We are working on fixing the bugs you noted, but if there's anything we can do as far as getting on the phone with your team or otherwise let me know. Jim Robb I have not seen the one about designating attachment, hopefully you have a ticket in for that in which case we will get it escalated to us I'm sure if it is a bug. The assignment details being clickable or not we do have an it is in dev as well as the size limitation on files. That is coming soon. Thanks for your patience all in this very busy and stressful time. We'll crank out the fixes as soon as we can.3
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Thanks for the reply Angie Addison. I hope I speak for many when I say we know you are here for us and our voice to the dev team. Let me see if your idea of using the Published filter helps quell this latest surge of concern from the faculty.
I think you hit the crux of this whole situation when you wrote, "The original feedback we got I believe on the list views (and what drove the changes) was that the terms weren't intuitive - i.e. what did 'active' mean?" For our faculty, they knew what it meant - they either figured it out or asked me, and I attempted to explain. Their feedback would have been "don't change a dang thing." I did have some issues with the active filter because of how I thought it should function compared to how it did function. But this is going to be the issue with any enhancement - some will like it and some will not (think the Manage enrollment in scheduling situation). Hopefully, the majority will like it. I recognize it is impossible to get everyone's opinion, and it will always be a six of one and a half dozen of the other. Ideally, the feedback that decisions are based on is representational of the users of the platform. When there are 778 votes supporting the idea of "Give teacher a 'student view' option", I think that says something. I also appreciate that I do not know Blackbaud's entire roadmap for the platform and there are things you all need to do to set the foundation for the next part of executing your master plan. ( I am hopeful all of this assignment stuff fits in with the graduation requirement tracking feature that has been talked about for so long.)
When enhancements are rolled out, I wish there was a way to ease the faculty into some of these changes - once again the Manage enrollment solution comes to mind. The other thing that would help is to have solid support documentation available when the enhancement is rolled out. When the layout and navigation of K12 was completely designed two summers ago, the documentation that was pushed out ahead of the enhancement and that accompanied the release was tremendously helpful and alleviated some of the stress. Though I really enjoy experimenting with the new features to see how they work - when I have time - most of our faculty are not of that ilk. They don't want to explore the platform, they want to teach their kids. To give those of us who support them in this endeavor the documentation necessary to explain how use the recent enhancement and why it is an improvement (why was this change made) will help us in our endeavors. If this is available somewhere, and I have missed it, please tell me where to go. Most of all, we want this platform to make our lives easier. To me, that is why we spend the money and the overall purpose of technology.2 -
Well said, Scott Chrysler . To add, for us "Active" was not necessarily the problem, it was that teachers didn't have any control over what assignments they would see or when they would see them. What my teachers want, and have always wanted, was the filters to actually stick. The update that happened with the "sticky" filters is a teeny tiny bandaid on a gaping wound. My teachers want to set their assignment center to a view and they want it to STAY there forever or until they change it.
Although "Active" may not have been super intuitive, our teachers and students got used to it. Now that the teacher view doesn't at all match the student view, it's only adding more fuel to the fire to finding a way for teachers to see what their students see!
As to documentation, we spend a huge amount of money for all of our Blackbaud solutions but somehow it doesn't pay for clear communication and documentation on new features. Everytime a new feature comes out, I spend hours testing it out, submitting tickets to Blackbaud to inform them of the various bugs I've found, create new tutorials for my teachers/students (including where all the bugs are and what the workarounds are), and then answering so many emails from frustrated teachers. We currently have a "onCampus Known Issues" document and "onCampus Ideas" doc that I keep up because there have been so many problems and things we wish existed that I can't keep them straight.
I also appreciate your responses Angie Addison. You are the first person from Blackbaud that I've actually seen actively trying to work with customers when they bring up concerns.4 -
Thank you guys for being real partners in making things better. So appreciated. These things do keep me up at night, not in comparison with you I know but it does pain me to see the struggles folks are having and I'm on your side and working as hard as I can to get resolution and prioritize issues! There is a short list of reasons why we're seeing an increase of issues with the changes we pushed out to assignment center this summer, but I'd like without getting into the weeds to at least convey that it is not due to shoddy development or us not caring about the outcome or quality, I promise you that is not the case. I'm pushing really hard on this end for the teacher preferences for views to hit the streets, it is in current dev and I was hopeful that the team would be able to get it out for this coming Tuesday but I think we may end up a week behind and I'm sorry for that. I'm still crossing fingers for a hail Mary but the following Tuesday at the latest your teachers should see the below in their section assignment and assignment center preferences. Everyone can have what they want for their defaults (to your point Scott about no matter what we did half of the users would want something different so we knew it would come to this!), and what they set will persist. We knew the 'sticky' in session solution was a bandaid, I'm sorry we didn't have time to get the longer term solution in before the new year started but at least you can see proof that your continued pushing us, voting on ideas and getting it out here on the discussion thread does have an impact and we pulled it in and pushed other things out. As far as the issue of documentation that is also not falling on deaf ears, I know that our leadership team is trying to figure out the right recipe for getting things out there ahead of time and on demand and I am anxious as well to see what the solution there is. Hang in there everyone!
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One more thought on this Scott Chrysler and Megan Day as you can see in the screenshot the preferences are for timeframe and column to sort by. We did not include the published status based on the discovery we did with schools that volunteered to have those calls with us. But now based on the thread above with the issue of only wanting to see ones that students see, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Is it fine to show all with the current filters that we have planned (the thought was teachers would want to see all of their assignment in that timeframe whether they're published to the students yet) but if they want to then ad-hoc add the additional filter of published they always can it just won't be in their default view, or is this going to be a major complaint that publish status was not included? It didn't come up as I said on our prior calls but back to the point of everyone wants what they want and we can only talk to so many folks....I like to crowdsource the discovery here too so if we need to add that in I can probably if I hear back and since we're delayed already squeeze that in.1
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Angie - I would say add the Publish Status filter. If it does not cause a conflict with other functionality, why not? If it is not there and people want it, they are angry. If it is there and people don't want it, they ignore it, or they fiddle around with it and discover a new way of viewing the data. This is my major complaint of K12 vs EE - in EE we could filter data 100 ways in one query. I could generate a list of every student born in a given month who had an even locker number, a GPA between x and y, and live in given zip code. We could then use the results of that query to generate another query or a list. I know we are not talking about queries here, but it is the same concept of providing the user the flexibility they want/need to see the data they want/need. Offer them options to customize the view exactly as they want it.
And will someone be so kind as to teach me how to reference a name in one of these posts so it becomes a hypertext link and the person gets notified they have been mentioned in a post.
Scott
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I agree with Scott. Why not? Allow teachers options but don't force any of them on them.
Scott Chrysler type the "@" symbol and start typing the person's name.
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I am wondering why the assignment view was changed for teachers as well. Since I weight my assignments, the view showing students and myself which category of assignments was assigned was extremely helpful. I could post 'project' and 'essay' assignment ahead of time, allowing students to see which categories were coming. Right now, half of the students have the 'old' view and the others have the teacher view--a LONG list of assignments just bundled together in which they have to change their filter--and so do I--every day to see what is coming. No one gets on to Blackbaud to check to see what is 'due today;' if they do, they are not following our teaching:) There should be an option for teacher view of assignments on the assignment page so if you want a long list you can have it, but if you want the 'assignment type' or category view you can have it. And change the default to 'due this week!' (I attached a screenshot of the 'old way' of viewing the assignment page and how they assignments are organized by category or type).
If this can be changed back in some way I am not seeing, please let me know. Thanks.1 -
Angie Addison (thanks Megan Day) - A long conversation and email exchange with several faculty this morning to wrap my head around their understanding of the old "active" view - and here is the difference between the active view and the published view:
Sometimes the publication date is in the future for the kids, but it still needs to show up for me. "Active" would select all the assignments that have been published but have not passed their due date. Now you have to guess at that to see what you want. For example, on Tuesday, September 1 I assigned ESSAY #1. It was due on Thursday, September 10. So, it would not show up the week of August 31-September 4 in my view unless I clicked something other than the default (which is "this week.") And it took me two weeks to figure that out. "Active" didn't require that manipulation. Maybe letting teachers set their own default will help if they do that.
Everything is "published." That isn't the problem. It is the fact that there are now a ridiculous number of filter options, none of which is "active," and the default is "This week." Everything I do on that system requires three clicks where it once required one. And stupid stuff doesn't work like extending deadlines for assessments this morning. I'm weary and I'm tired of trying to make it work. I'm cranky. I need to be grading papers but instead I'm trying to communicate with you about this unmanageable management system. I just want to give up.
Hope that helps clarify what our faculty are missing.
Scott3 -
Perfect example, Scott Chrysler!0
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Susan Ott:
I'm right there with you Scott. I have never had to handle so many help desk tickets. In addition to all the complaints, my inbox is full of emails and tickets from teachers (one titled Blackbaud is the devil) about what isn't working correctly. I currently have multiple support tickets open because some feature that used to work isn't working now - retake assessment not working, certain SKY lists not working, can't copy/paste pictures in assessment questions, student assignment view of day, due, list doesn't populate correctly. Oh and my favorite of the week so far, now I have faculty, that are also parents of a student in the same division, have their child's classes showing up as options to post assignments to through the assignment center. All the changes have created so much more work for us when we have so much more work already because of COVID. It's like having a totally new job on top of the old one. I'm drowning and there is no land in sight.We have also had faculty parents see their children's classes in Assignment Center along with the classes that they teach!
Faculty who have tried to add assessments via the Assignment Center are unable to save and post these.
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Checking in on this topic - my teachers are coming to me saying their in class assignment center view defaults to "Date due is in the future" for their view - not students - and they'd like the ability to set their view to remain the same session to session. Not to mention the number of clicks to get back to the view they want is frustrating to them.
Thank you for all of the updates and upcoming changes!1 -
I've also had a teacher express his desire for the old assignment page again, and I stumbled across a side effect that my user script has. For a while, it's had the ability to change which page the Classes menu opens classes to (bulletin board, topics, assignments, etc.), and because I haven't updated the script to use the new assignments link, it still opens to the old assignments page if that setting is selected. It seems like the old page is still active (hasn't been disabled), but I don't know how long that will be the case, and I don't know if using it has any adverse effects. Use at your own risk.
-Scott1 -
Bernadette Shilliam your teachers should be able to set their preferences with the new release by going to More from the assignment page then Preferences and then Assignment lists. It lets them set a default for the assignment center as well as the section assignments. I just sent an email to my teachers this week explaining the new options with instructions. I'll attach if anyone is interested. Also - be aware, teachers will not have access to these settings if you do not have the task "Manage Teachers" checked under the Faculty role.
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Susan Ott Interesting. We were just told by support that it's the "Manage Course Roster" task on the Teacher role that has to be added for them to be able to save their preferences now. Would have been nice if 1) There was explanation about this when the feature went live. 2) There was actual consensus on what the various tasks do. We did confirm that giving the teacher role the "Manage Course Roster" task allowed teachers to save their default filter.1
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Megan Day, that is interesting. So apparently there are at least two tasks that give this access. I did ask what the Manage Teacher task gave in addition to the preferences since we had it unchecked. I was afraid it would let them add teachers to classes but so far I can't tell that it gave them anything other than the preferences access.0
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We were told the same by support regarding the "Manage Course Roster" task. I also was concerned about the task allowing our teachers to adjust the roster. Support informed me that "The ability for teachers to manage rosters is a two step task. The first is having this task checked off and the second is having the option turned on by support. Currently, this is not turned on, so the teachers will not have access even when this task is enabled. This will only provide the ability to set preferences."
Support is also looking in to some potential caching issues when I'm impersonating someone and viewing their Course Assignment page or Assignment Center. My preferences show (I have mine set to "All Year") no matter who I impersonate. It does not matter what the teacher actually chooses and saves for their filters/preferences. It makes if difficult to help teachers with these settings when, under impersonation, they are not reflecting what the teacher has chosen. It doesn't work this way with the other SKY lists. The user's chosen and saved filters are visible to me under impersonation.1 -
Nancy Kierstead - I am curious about the ability for teachers to manage rosters and it being a two-step task. When I impersonate someone, I can see that they can add other people to their roster as a teacher. Not what we want. Do I have to reach out to support to have them "turn off" this task? Is that a school-by-school thing? I did have the manage Teachers boxes unchecked in the Faculty role (Core > Security) but have activated hoping other things would click in.
This issue with assignments has been truly frustrating for us as well. I will not reiterate what others have stated, but I am in agreement with all of it! I wish there was a way for faculty to save their filters from day to day, but I see that is not happening right now.1 -
Christine Nichols - Our teachers cannot add students to their rosters. I just double checked to make sure. I'd reach out to support. Feel free to reference our Case 018016380.1
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Thank you, Nancy Kierstead1
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Hi, Angie Addison.
I recently received a faculty request inquiring about the ability to save filter options in the Assignment Center between sessions. I know it was announced at the beginning of the academic year as an update, but I am wondering what the status is of this feature since this post?
Thanks in advance for the update.
Nissa0 -
Hi Nissa! Yes that was put in place a while ago. If they go to the More menu in the assignment list view (section or center) they'll see preferences and under that there's list view options and they can save their own defaults which will be the view that loads whenever they go back into the app. Hope that clears it up if not let me know. Or if something is not working i.e. they're saving their settings but it is not the view they see when they log in reach out to support hopefully they can clear up if there's a config problem or something else going on.0
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Thank you for your reply, Angie Addison. However, the issue is that the users are reporting that their desired defaults in the Assignment Center are NOT saving between sessions. I was hoping to learn that this is a universal issue, but based on what you are telling me, it sounds like it isn't. Do you have any additional advice?
Thank you kindly for your guidance,
Nissa0 -
Yes, just that I think you should if you didn't already log a support ticket and hopefully they can sort out if something isn't configured correctly or there's more going on here. I haven't heard any rumblings that it wasn't working from others or from support since we released late last year but I recently also transitioned off LMS to the Core team so it could be there's something new happening and I don't have the latest on so they're your best bet.0
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