Ready Release Notes (2020-04-18)

[#1]

Upcoming Canvas Changes
2020-05-02
End-of-Life functionality for all SMS Notifications except Announcements and Grading
                        
For more information, please see Upcoming Canvas Changes‌
                        

The following features will be available in the production environment on 2020-04-18:

Assignments

Due and Availability Date Bulk Edit

• User Role: Instructors
• Opt-in: Yes

Commons

Admin Featured Content

• User Role: Admins
• Opt-in: No

Courses

New Instructor Tutorial Page Additions

• User Role: Instructors
• Opt-in: Yes

Files

Multiple File Upload Enhancements

• User Role: All Users
• Opt-in: No

New Quizzes

Quiz Engine Option

• User Role: Instructors
• Opt-in: No

Release notes describe upcoming Canvas functionality and are subject to change.

• Follow the Ready Release Features document to be notified of updates
• For all release changes to this document, view the Release Notes Change Log
• If you notice any contrary functionality compared to the outlined behavior in these notes, please file a Canvas support case according to your institution's support protocol
• Deprecations and end-of-life announcements related to Canvas Platform Services (APIs, GraphQL, Canvas Data) are located in the Canvas Platform Breaking Changes page.

• New Features
• Assignments
• Due and Availability Date Bulk Edit
• Updated Features
• Commons
• Admin Featured Content
• Courses
• New Instructor Tutorial Page Additions
• Files
• Multiple File Upload Enhancements
• New Quizzes
• Quiz Engine Option

Release Notes Change Log

New Features

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Assignments

Due and Availability Date Bulk Edit

This feature is used in conjunction with an existing feature option in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                     

Feature Functionality Details	Assignment Bulk Editing Feature Options doc
Affected Canvas Areas	Assignments
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Assignments feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	assignments
Feature Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/2214-adjust-all-assignment-and-quiz-dates-on-a-single-page

Summary

The Assignments page supports editing all assignment, discussion, and quiz dates in a single page.

Change Benefit

This change allows assignment dates to be adjusted at one time in the same location.

Affected User Roles

Instructors

The Assignments Settings menu includes an option to Edit Assignment Dates. This option displays all existing assignments in a single page arranged by due date. Assignments with the same due date are listed in alphabetical order. The full name of an assignment is included in the hover text for the assignment.

Dates can be selected via the Calendar icon or by typing a date directly in the text field. Currently times cannot be adjusted within the page and are set to the default of 11:59 pm.

For assignments with multiple due dates, all due dates display below the Everyone Else date, and the student, section, or group is right-aligned in the assignment name column. Only due dates and availability dates can be edited in this page—details such as changing the specific group or section assigned to the assignment must be edited directly within the assignment.

Once all dates have been adjusted, changes must be saved via the Save button. The status of the page updates can be viewed in the status percentage bar, which displays the percentage of changes saved to the page.

The saving date process also validates availability dates, due dates, and course and term dates. Any errors are displayed in the page to be corrected so the dates can be saved again.

Updated Features

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Commons

Admin Featured Content

This feature is used in conjunction with an external tool (LTI) in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about LTI tools, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                 

Feature Functionality Details	Commons LTI
Affected Canvas Areas	Commons LTI
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Admins
Feature Enhancement Ideas	Existing Commons feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	Commons

Summary

Admins can edit a managed resource and share the resource as featured content.

Change Benefit

This change allows admins to manage featured content for their institution.

Affected User Roles

Admins

Admins can edit a managed resource and share the resource as featured content. Featured resources include a Featured banner as part of the resource, and Featured content displays at the top of the Search page.

Note: This feature does not affect resources featured by Instructure. Admins can choose to disable content featured by Instructure in Account Settings.

Courses

New Instructor Tutorial Page Additions

This feature is used in conjunction with an existing feature option in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                

Feature Functionality Details	New User Tutorials Feature Option
Affected Canvas Areas	Announcements, Assignments, Collaborations, Conferences, Discussions, Files, Grades, Course Home Page, Course Import, Modules, Pages, People, Quizzes, Settings, Syllabus
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	Existing Tutorial feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	tutorial

Summary

New Instructor Canvas tutorials have been added to Outcomes, Rubrics, and New Analytics. A tutorial is also included for the Zoom LTI integration page.

Change Benefit
This change adds feature overview information to pages that previously did not include tutorials.

Affected User Roles
Instructors
When enabled for an account, New Instructor Tutorials display for instructors in newly created courses. Tutorial pages display in Outcomes, Rubrics, and New Analytics pages to provide additional resources and information about these features. Additionally, because of the number of customers using Zoom as a conferencing tool, the Zoom LTI integration page also includes a tutorial.

Files

Multiple File Upload Enhancements

Feature Functionality Details	Files
Affected Canvas Areas	Files
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Files feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	Files

Summary

Course Files has been updated to clarify support of drag-and-drop functionality.

Change Benefit

This change helps users more easily discover how to upload multiple files to Canvas.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

All Users

The Course Files page and User Files page have been updated with minor adjustments to clarify support of drag-and-drop functionality in the main page and within individual folders.

Empty folders show how to upload multiple files within the page or how to choose files from a computer.

For existing folders that contain files, files can be added by dragging and dropping files anywhere in the folder window. 

New Quizzes

Quiz Engine Option

This feature is used in conjunction with an external tool (LTI) in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about LTI tools, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
             

Feature Functionality Details	New Quizzes LTI
Affected Canvas Areas	Quizzes, Assignments
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	Existing New Quizzes feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	New quizzes

Summary

Instructors using New Quizzes can set their preferred quiz engine for each course.

Change Benefit

This change allows a quiz engine selection to persist.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

When an instructor selects the Add Quiz button in the Quizzes page, the page displays a window asking which quiz type should be used to create a quiz: Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes. Once a quiz engine is selected, the next time the instructor clicks the Add Quiz button, Canvas displays the quiz creation page for the selected tool.

Note: This preference applies to each course individually. 

Instructors can reset the selected quiz engine through the Settings menu in the Quizzes page. This option resets the quiz engine so the instructor can select a different quiz engine.

Release Notes Change Log

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Date
2020-04-15	Release Notes Published

[blantons1]

The bulk date changer is great... but what about timestamp? Why is there no option to set the due *time* as well as date?

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Sarah,

Our team mentioned to me today that they have some additional plans for this feature they want to incorporate. So this is the first iteration of a few that could be coming! If you want to ensure our product team considers time adjustments in future releases, I'd recommend creating a feature idea just so your use case is documented.

Thank you!

Erin

[ChrisMedina]

BULK DUE DATES!! YAY and about time. 

[blantons1]

Thanks for your reply, Erin. You always answer quickly, and I appreciate that. However, adding a due time option should pretty much go without saying. That is how the due date/time works in assignments normally - it doesn't make sense for it not to exist for the bulk changer. Ah well.

[venitk]

Thank you for you for bulk date changer! We usually have 11:59 as the default, so that should work for us for now. It's helpful to know that the team is looking to add additional features like a time. We do have a few oddball courses with 11 pm due times.  @blantons ‌, if you create an idea for a bulk time changer, please share it here so I can vote on it.  

The targeted tutorials should be helpful as well.

[blantons1]

I have added the idea for due time here: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/16607-add-time-option-to-bulk-assignment-due-date-changer 

[korina_figueroa]

We've been testing the Bulk editing of assignment dates and found some unexpected behavior. Are others able to replicate this? How would we report the bug since it's not yet a released feature?

The issue is that the Bulk date editor will allow you to save an assignment with an "Available Until" date set earlier than the due date if you leave the "Available From" field blank. 

If you're using the regular / non-bulk way to set dates and try to do the same thing, you get an error:

If you set an "Available From" date while bulk editing and try to set an "Available Until" earlier than the due date, you get an error:

However, leaving the Available from blank, it goes through correctly and gives you the green "Assignment dates saved successfully" message:

[erinhmcmillan]

Thanks, Korina. Our team is already working to improve a couple of other behaviors so I've shared this link with them!

Erin

[korina_figueroa]

Thanks Erin! I'll let my team know.

[kmatson]

Hi Erin,

I am confused as the Ready Release Notes as say the feature will be on, but I don't see the Edit Assignment Dates on at our institution. It is on in Beta. I am confused about when it is an option in Feature Options and when it is something the Admin team needs to turn on.

Assignments

Due and Availability Date Bulk Edit

• User Role: Instructors
• Opt-in: Yes

Thank you for helping me find what I am missing. Maybe the Opt-in: Yes means our Admin team turns it on??

Hope you are well!

Karen Matson

University of Oregon

[Chris_Hofer]

 @kmatson ...

The "Assignment Bulk Editing" Feature Option is a toggle switch that can be turned on/off at the account level (by your school's local Canvas administrator).  When turned on, it will be available for all courses in your school's Canvas account.  In the above description, there is a link to this table which shows that admins turn this on: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-15124-feature-options-by-canvas-release#jive_content_id_Ass...

[kmatson]

Chris,

Thank you for this.

Can you explain one more thing please? I can't figure out when they are turned on by admin and when they will be a feature option. Does the Opt: Yes Always mean our admins turn it on?

Thank you,

Karen

[Chris_Hofer]

That's a question that erinhallmark‌ should be able to address.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Karen,

Opt-in means the feature option can be turned on at any time until July by an admin, yes. In the July 18 release, all the features will be enabled for all institutions.

Thanks!

Erin

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, all,

The document for this Saturday's release is posted now: Ready Release Notes (2020-04-25) 

Thanks,

Erin