[Notifications] Formatting of Announcement Notifications

[ddilkes]

It would be great to see more information in the announcement email notifications. At the moment, the formatting and images are all stripped from the notifications. The email notification also does not include information on who posted the announcement- it would be great if they included the poster and even the profile pic by default.

Could we please maintain formatting and images in email announcement notification?

[milesl]

@Stef_retired Given the age of this feature request, and that instructure devs haven't weighed in in several years, I'm worried that merging my request here isn't the best outcome.

I'd really like to see some improvements made in this area, and if instructure isn't interested in taking on the entire project of email formatting, perhaps there are small improvements that could be made, such as mathml support, or alt text.

The feature request @thompsli linked on the first page sounds promising, but I get an error when I follow the url (https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10870-include-alt-text-for-images-in-emailed-announcement-noti...

Can you help me track that down so that I can escalate it to our CSM?

[Stef_retired]

@milesl The feature request to which you linked did not receive robust support and so was moved to an old ideas archive over three years ago, which is why it is no longer visible. By all means, we hope you will contact your CSM to discuss how your requests for enhancements to email notification formatting might be incorporated into the roadmap.

[jbm]

@Stef_retired The key here is "without any indication anything has been removed."  It has been years that new users have had to experience the headache of miscommunication with their students and hours lost, all because Canvas can't provide a simple warning to users of email announcements that all formatting, math and images will be stripped.   This is basic lack of respect of the users. 

[thompsli]

@milesl : I also no longer have access to my old feature request since Canvas has chosen to ignore it and remove it from view entirely, but to my recollection is was to include the alt text for the removed image and some kind of notation to indicate that it was the alt text for the removed image, since inclusion of additional plaintext would presumably be fast to code compared switching to proper HTML emails. Best of luck in your pursuit of this issue.

[milesl]

Currently, when a notification containing an image, equation, or other content generates an email, the email automatically strips everything except plain text. See this example of a message containing math equations:

Message when viewed in Canvas:

 

Message when viewed in email:

 Note that everything other than plain text has been deleted, and there is no indication in the email notification that the message has been altered or is incomplete.

The same thing happens for images and other embedded content.

In order to address this, Canvas should automatically insert alt-text for anything that cannot be properly rendered in email.

All math equations automatically include alt text. Images use their filename as the default alt text, and custom alt text can be entered via the UI.

If an email notification contains alt text, the link to view the announcement/message in canvas should be modified to communicate that the link will render missing content.

Using alt-text as a placeholder for content not rendered in email will minimize confusion when recipients miss content that they do not know is embedded.

[milesl]

@Naomi @Stef_retired 

Can you please unmerge my comment and restore it as a separate feature request?

Instructure has stated that they do not intend to solve this broader issue, so I purposefully created a separate, smaller feature request in hopes that it has some chance of being considered.

[Stef_retired]

@milesl  We appreciate your wish to have your idea that proposes a different solution considered separately, yet your idea is part of the same problem statement as the one that is intrinsic to this long-standing idea. When our product team works on announcements and inbox notifications generally, they—and our members—will be better served by having the threads unified.

[jbm]

@Stefanie  It does not appear that you are appreciating what @milesl is communicating.

@milesl is not proposing a fix to the problem of the stripping content, he is proposing a fix in how Canvas communicates the existence of this problem to its users.

By not notifying teachers and their students that they are stripping content from their messaging, Canvas is needlessly creating headaches and hours lost to end users from miscommunications. I myself lost many hours fixing a problem.  Now multiply that by your user base. It would take less than 30 minutes for developers to implement what  @milesl suggests.

[tvannorman]

One of the responses from Canvas above was a recommendation to contact our CSM.  I had contacted my CSM earlier today and the recommendation was to upvote this item.  Unfortunately it does not appear to allow upvoting.

This is important.  Faculty using Canvas need to know that their material is going through when they contact students.  A key component of this is using Email.

Please format and include any images/embeds/etc. that are included in the Announcement, in the email that is sent to the students.

[SamanthaEastman]

This is a persistent problem and it needs to be addressed.