[ARCHIVED] Where to go to post/read user generated problem reports

[hesspe]

I  just got a report from a faculty member who has been using Canvas for a while that he "had a bunch of information for students in posts on this discussion and they have just disappeared!"

I checked his site and can't find the posts he said that he posted.  I checked Incident Reports and found nothing related.

Before filing a ticket or contacting my CSM, I'd like to see if anyone else has reported anything similar within say the last 48 hours.  It seems to me it would be efficient if there were a place like that.  Is there?  If not, could there be, and what would be the best place to have it?

I have cross-posted this to the HigherEd discussion.

Thanks,

-Peter

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

Hi  @hesspe ​,

This is a great question.  To skip to the answer, no, we don't have an officially designated area in the community for this sort of inquiry.  For one thing, our support folks are really good and sorting and linking support tickets as they come in - they are there doing that 24 hours a day and if there is a reported trend or pervasive issue, they'll let you know.  Also, filing tickets rather than first posting in the community cuts down on the number of places support folks would need to look as issues that were initially posted in the community would inevitably be referred to in support tickets.  Filing a ticket from within Canvas also gives Support access to diagnostic information not available when someone posts in a community forum.  Plus, many distinct issues look similar on the surface.  That could mean that if one person posts a description of an issue in the community, someone else coming along might see that and assume that the first person went on to post to Support and that there isn't need for them to put in a ticket on the same issue, when in reality there are two different problems.

Again, great question and thanks for asking.

PS; two semi-related tips; in the scenario you describe, I will often check the course in beta or test and see if there is content in there that was deleted in production since the last time beta/test striped over from prod.  Also, you noted that you cross posted this in two places in the community.  Rather than making two copies.  You could post in one place and then share the post into other spaces as well, thus setting up one common set of comments on the post.

Cheers,

SD

[hesspe]

Thanks Scott. First thing I did was check Beta and Test, but the posts

were submitted today. We did, after further investigation to confirm that

we had no good explanation for what happened, file a ticket, and that is

what we usually do. But we try to make sure it's a real problem and one

without an obvious solution before doing so.. Your reply is a good example

of why I still think it could be useful to use the community to filter out

on frivolous or not-so-well informed problem reports before they go to your

support staff. You gave me several concrete suggestions of things to try,

which, had they worked, would have freed support up to handle other

matters. Also, sometimes you don't entirely trust a report you get from a

single user and can't replicate the problem, but don't want to ignore it

because often enough the reported problem turns out to be real. I suppose

the bottom line is that I don't want Canvas support to think of our

institution as one inclined to make unnecessary calls for help, though they

are usually pretty nice about handling even those requests. -Peter

On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 6:53 PM, Scott Dennis <instructure@jiveon.com>

[scottdennis]

Most definitely you want to do your due diligence before reporting an issue.  Perhaps a more useful topic for the admin group would be what steps to take in troubleshooting?  I'm troubleshooting at issue with discussions and I've tried  x, y, and z...  what else do others try?  I know I would have loved to have that as a resource when I was an admin.  What we had was a listserv, which seemed great back then, but...

[kmeeusen]

That listserve is still the best, Scott, and we miss your participation!

[scottdennis]

Thanks, Kelley.  I miss you-all too.   Here, though, I was talking about the good ole  ANGEL-L that I think it was IUPUI that hosted.