Organize the Term Selection Drop-down List

[jason_hill]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

 

  Idea open for vote Wed. November 2, 2016 - Wed. February 1, 2017  Learn more about voting...

As a Canvas Admin I need a more efficient method to select the term associated with specific courses when searching for courses in the Course Filtering section of an account page. Currently, the 'Show courses from the term:' drop-down list displays all of the terms in a haphazard way making it difficult to quickly select the needed term.

However, on the Grading page for an account (...accounts/000/grading_standards), the 'Attach terms' selection field (this field is visible when you have Grading Periods enabled and you're creating/editing a Grading Period) displays the terms beautifully by organizing the terms according to their current state (Active, Future, and Past - in that order) See my attached screenshot. I know this isn't really a drop-down list on this particular page, but similar functionality needs to be implemented when searching for a course on an account page. UVU is among the earliest of adopters of Canvas (best decision ever), and our Term list is getting as long as the list of reasons we had to switch from Blackboard back in the day .

Every time somebody up-votes this idea, a Panda smiles and is able to live a more satisfying life.

  Comment from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-12-10)

[Stef_retired]

 @swinter ‌, in line with the description in the idea, this filter was implemented in Courses (not in Terms, which is where it sounds like you are looking). The link to the production release notes, which includes an explanation and screenshots, is part of this discussion and contained in the Comment from Instructure dated 12/7/2016 upthread. Here it is again. And here's the documentation: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10850-421473677 

[swinter]

We are actually talking about two different things then. When I am on the Course Settings page, there is a dropdown box to pick a Term. I want that to be in alpha order. I am not talking about filtering courses. I am talking about the Settings page where you select the term (that is what the title of this help question indicated).

[Stef_retired]

 @swinter ‌, we've looked at this idea from every angle. The request was for the terms to be displayed according to their present state--Active, Future, and Past--and that's now the functionality. The implementation actually incorporated the additional feature of sorting the courses. Neither the title nor the body of the request ask for an alpha sort of the terms; it asks for better organization of the terms, and the idea was implemented in line with the title and the description.

If you'd like an alpha sort of the terms, please submit a new feature idea, after reading https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1330-how-do-i-create-a-new-feature-idea?sr=search&searchId=...‌

[swinter]

I guess I am not seeing what you are seeing then. In the drop-down I am talking about, they are not in that order either. They are in the order they were created. In the drop-down I am referring to, there is no Active/Future/Past like in the one for the filtering. If the settings drop-down was the same as the filtering one, that would also be ok with me. I was referred to this question when I proposed the idea. Clearly, I am talking about something else. 

[Stef_retired]

 @swinter ‌, can you provide a screenshot along with a description of the path you're taking to get to the place where you are seeing that dropdown?

[kmeeusen]

Hi stefaniesanders‌

I thing she is referencing the drop-down arrow, in the Term field, on the Course Details page in Course Setting..............

When I checked in mine, and we hardly ever use this feature, the lists of terms does not seem particularly useful. If the term is associated with a date range, they almost sort usefully, but any that are not are mixed in haphazardly.

Kelley

[Stef_retired]

 @kmeeusen ‌, since that screenshot is of the Settings tab of a course, I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the original idea, which was specifically for admins being able to see a better organized terms dropdown in an account page, was not requesting that particular change. I'm looking forward to hearing what  @swinter ‌ says about your screenshot. What you've described would be an entirely different idea: better organization of the terms dropdown in course settings.

[kmeeusen]

Me too!:smileysilly:

[swinter]

Yes, it is in Settings, like I described before. The screenshot Kelly provided is the correct one from Settings. I use that for every class because that is the only place you can set a term for a class. As far as I know, there would be no reason to use the Terms Filter unless you assign a term to a course in the first place. And because of the limit of how many courses can be seen on the main page for an account, you absolutely have to use Terms filtering in order to see all within a certain term. 

If both the Terms dropdown and Term filter dropdown showed the same thing, that would be a good idea. I would also like the Terms dropdown on the Settings page to list the Terms at least in alpha order and not how they were added to the Terms page (which also has no ordering ability). We are only going to keep adding more and more terms, so there needs to be some level of parallel organization to how Terms are dealt with. 

[Stef_retired]

Thanks for the clarification,  @swinter . Here, we're commenting on an idea that implemented changes to the UI for the admin interface, so if you'd like to see a change made to the sort view in course settings, that would need to be submitted as a new idea.