[Account Settings] More intuitive term sorting/presentation

[SethBattis]

So, my impression is that terms are sorted based on date and, perhaps, name. But it doesn't seem consistent. For example, here's the term order on the admin Terms page, which appears to be in descending order by start date, with terms with the same dates sorted alphabetically. Which makes sense.

But now, when I go to a term pull-down menu, that order is reversed, putting my active terms at the bottom of the list:

I see three key improvements to be made in the presentation of terms:

1. Let's be consistent and use the same order in every listing. Doesn't matter what order -- but it should be the same. I don't have the bandwidth to re-figure this out every time I look at it.
2. Let's make sure the active terms are most readily available. This probably means that they should stay at the top of the Terms page and move to the top of the drop-down menu.
3. Let's mark active terms so that they're more readily apparent. For example (as you can see below), I use some CSS to highlight active courses in user details -- that visual cue for active terms would be great. And in the drop-down, there could be a divider between the active terms (top of the menu, ideally) and the inactive terms (bottom of the menu, ideally).

(As an aside… what on earth order are courses listed in? I mean… jeez. Also, obviously, I fiddled with the CSS of the div that holds the course listing so it autosizes to include everything, rather than just display 3 or 4 courses.)

[clong]

Yes that would be fantastic SHEBENE​

[faustj1]

Terms have long been a challenge, I think this is especially true for K-12.  I am beginning to wonder if what needs to happen is more of a config setting option at the org level: An indicator of whether the org is k-12 or secondary institution. I know that there are major differences that keep recurring in terms, gradebooks (size of courses etc.) and while I wouldn't want features to be turned off or inaccessible, it would be interesting if there were a preset of functions/assumptions that were activated based on the choice of k-12 or secondary for a particular instance.

[aaron_heath]

I am requesting 2 enhancements specifically related to the Term drop down list for the SIS Import when doing a Full Batch Update.

I can see that this list will be increasingly longer as time goes on, and I will need to hunt through the list for the term for which I want to do an import. I suggest the following:

1. Sort the terms by the start date of the term with the most recent date/term appearing at the top of the list. 
2. In Terms under the Admin account, include a check box labeled "Do not include in SIS Import." By checking this box, the term would NOT appear in the Term drop down list.

[Renee_Carney]

The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process.  You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities.  This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.

[donna_lummis]

Whenever a dropdown for term is presented, the sort order should be newest-to-oldest. That just makes sense. 

[dtod]

I can't believe this problem hasn't been fixed yet.

[dangruman]

We have 45+ entities, each with its own term definitions (fall semester, spring semester, summer, etc). 

In the Admin-Terms menu, we would like some options to sort and/or filter. For example, can we separate active terms, future terms, and past terms so that finding and editing term settings is easier to accomplish manually.

[DanBurgess]

@dangruman, good idea!  

We also have quite a list and it will only keep growing.

[abbyrosensweig]

Would love to see better sorting of drop-down lists (and am shocked that this hasn't been solved in the six years since the idea was introduced). Our term list is all over the place, there's no rhyme or reason to the order in which terms are listed. As we get more and more terms as the years go by, having organization to the Terms drop-down becomes ever more important.

[Andrew42]

My vote as well for alphabetical sorting.
(We're relatively new to Canvas and the first time I saw this list was unsorted II laughed.)

Bonus points for allowing admins to sort the list themselves. I'd suggest this would actually be the optimal arrangement since it allows for setups other than alphabetical if that's more appropriate. For example we have different teaching departments adding terms independently, so there is no consensus on a naming structure - the same time period can be named in different ways which would not be catered for by automatic sorting of terms names.

I'm also voting for the ability to hide and unhide older terms as per https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Hiding-old-terms-archiving/idi-p/487658.

Thanks

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UPDATE 16 JUNE 23: At a closer check, I've realised Canvas is sorting term lists based on the start date and time of the term.
Because we have a number of terms that start on the same day, I can now add each term with a slightly later time on the start date and this should make them appear in a more user-friendly order in the Term page and in e.g. course Term dropdowns.

Confirming I'd vote for the ability to optionally sort on start date and/or alphabetically in both the Terms screen and in term-related dropdowns across Canvas, as well as the ability to optionally categorise and archive terms.