Announcements showing wrong date and time when delayed?

[arbobk]

Hi there, not sure if this is from a new Canvas update, but whenever I create my announcements, I usually select the delay post option.
I believe the option is now called "Available from".

Whenever the announcement is published and students are available to see, it does show up on the scheduled time, which is no issue. But the problem is that the time that it shows when the announcement was published, it shows a different time. Most likely when the original announcement was created.

As for the example above, the announcements should have the date July 21 and July 22.  The date that it shows, July 20, is the day when I originally created the announcement. The time is also wrong. Where the announcements should have been 1:00pm and 12:00pm, respectively.

Is there a setting I should change or is this a known issue right now?

Thanks,
AK

[Chris_Hofer]

@arbobk ...

The Announcements/Discussions Redesign was enforced for all Canvas schools this past Saturday, July 20, 2024.  You can read more about this at:

Canvas Release Notes (2024-07-20) - Instructure Community - 606797 (canvaslms.com)

[arbobk]

Unfortunately, I don't think this answers my question. I don't see anywhere on the guide that says the time displayed on the announcement will be different from the actual publish time. If you see in the article: How do I delay posting an announcement until a specific date in a course? It says:

You can set new announcements to post at a certain date and time. The delayed post information also displays directly in the Announcements page. Delayed announcements are not displayed to students until the intended date and time.

Per my example in the first post, I have set the announcement to publish July 22, 2024 at 12:00pm, but Canvas is displaying July 20 at 4:48pm. This can confuse the students on when the announcement was supposed to be shown to them.

 

Unless I am not seeing what you are talking about, this feels like more like a bug in the update?

Thanks,
AK

[Chris_Hofer]

@arbobk ...

Thanks for the clarification.  Sorry that I didn't include more information in my initial response.  I was mainly responding to your question where you had stated, "not sure if this is from a new Canvas update", and I wanted to share with you the Release Notes from this past Saturday that, yes, there was an update (in case you or others don't regularly follow the Release Notes).

I was able to re-create the example you described in my own sandbox course.  I created an delayed announcement that I wanted posted at 6:54 p.m. this evening.  I saved the announcement at 6:52 p.m.  When I looked at my "Announcements" screen, it said that the announcement I created was delayed until July 26, 2024 @ 6:54 p.m.  However, when the announcement actually appeared, the time displayed like it was posted on 6:52 p.m.

I'm honestly not sure if this is intended behavior or if it is a bug.  I'd recommend that you reach out to Canvas technical support to report this...just in case.  How do I get help with Canvas as an instructor?

Please report back once you get more information from the Help Desk staff.  Thanks!

[arbobk]

No worries! And thanks for actually testing that out, knowing that it's not just me, that's somewhat of a relief.

I will go ahead and submit a ticket then. I will also direct them to this thread if that's okay?

Thanks,
AK

[Chris_Hofer]

@arbobk ...

Yes, you can direct them to this thread if you like to use our conversation as a reference.  Thanks!

[Leslie-Dugger]

I also had this question because the last announcement I posted had timing issues but it looks like they fixed it, at least I can now see announcements posting at the time I scheduled them. Is it working for you? 

[arbobk]

Hi there! Yes it looks like it resolved this past weekend... but the only note I do have is that it still shows the original creation date on the post, which I do not wish my students to see. It also shows the time it will be published as the "edited" date. Not sure why this is a feature. why is this necessary? 

[Leslie-Dugger]

I see that too on mine, it is a little odd and unnecessary.  Chris_Hofer, is this another ticket to be submitted?

I just checked an announcement from pre-update and it also shows up the same way in the post. I never noticed it until now though. I agree with AK that there is no reason to see the original creation date on the post and could cause confusion for students. 

[Chris_Hofer]

@Leslie-Dugger ...

It's up to you if you want to submit a ticket.  However, if you do report it, that would give Instructure more information and examples to look at to see if their code needs to be reviewed and/or fixed.

[KM1543]

I just talked to Canvas about the issue of students seeing the two timestamps, the first being the stamp when the announcement was created, and the "Edited" timestamp showing when the announcement was released.

Canvas Support says that with this new version there is no way to hide the first date, aka. the "created" date from the students. This change does away with the entire point of delaying the announcement in the first place, so I am not sure why they decided to code an announcement release as an edited action.

Canvas Support suggested that we encourage as many teachers as possible to use this platform to request this to change in future updates.

[arbobk]

Thanks for contacting Canvas about it. More confusion of course ....

So there's no way to hide the first date? But it wasn't a thing before? 

Also do they want as many teachers to reply to this thread? Then they'll make a decision? Not all teachers use this feature. Or perhaps even notice what's going on here.

Also like @SteveSiedschlag  was saying, it becomes a problem with the To-Do lists are using the creation dates. The delay post feature has no benefit at all with the creation date.

[KM1543]

@arbobk You are correct. Apparently with this new update, there is no way to hide either the first date or the edited date.

And from a student perspective, since that first date does not specify if it means the created or posted date, it is very confusing and may make a student wonder if they are not able to view new announcements promptly. 

Canvas Support basically told me that the more posts and online chatter they see about this issue, the better, so feel free to use any of these threads or post/comment in the Ideas/Theme section.

@SteveSiedschlag brought up a great point about this issue impacting the To-Do lists too. Thanks!

[arbobk]

@Chris_Hofer 

@Leslie-Dugger 

Not sure why this post has been marked solved, but there are still issues with the date... (creation date and edit date)

Also, I did have a question regarding delayed announcements, that are edited. I am receiving the message "Would. you like to send a notification that the Announcement has been edited?" When the announcement was not even sent out yet. Does this mean it will also notify students that the announcement was edited? And if I click "Save and don't send" will they receive a notification at all?

Just a lot of confusion with the new announcement features.

[chriscas]

Hi @arbobk,

Just a quick note about the community here around the "solved/solution" bit.  That status helps identify questions/posts that have been answered.  The platform the community uses has the "solved" terminology, which I wish could be more easily tweaked, but t this point solved basically means answered.  For this thread, the "answer" at this point is to have people encountering these issues to contact support, as that's the best avenue to get bugs addressed.  We can chat about things and help direct people to guides and things in the Community here, but for genuine bugs or things that are basically broken, there isn't much the community can do to solve anything as almost all of us here are other Canvas users (whether admins, teachers, students or some other role).

I know the "solved" thing is confusing, but I hope this info helps a bit.  Any user can unmark an answer as the solution if they don't feel it's right, but there are definitely cases where the right answer is to go through a different avenue (like Canvas support).

-Chris

[Chris_Hofer]

@arbobk ...

I'm honestly not sure about the timing of those announcements, what happens when editing, and any notifications that get sent out.  I did find this Guide with some info in the light blue box at the top of the page which might be helpful:

How do I edit an announcement in a course?

Can I make a suggestion, though?  I'm not sure if you are familiar with this, but your school should have a separate "beta" and "test" Canvas environment.  These two environments are different than your school's Canvas "production" environment...which is the environment that you typically log into on a day-to-day basis.  The "test" environment is where you can do any kind of testing that you wouldn't want your students to see in a regular course.  The "beta" environment is where Instructure regularly releases updates and new features prior to their monthly Canvas Releases so that people can test new tools and provide feedback (good and bad) back to Instructure.  When using either of these environments, I always tell people to make sure to sign out of them before returning to the "production" environment...so that you don't get confused about which environment you are in.  Here is more info for you:

• What is the Canvas test environment?
• What is the Canvas beta environment?
• What is the Canvas release schedule for beta, production, and test environments?
• How do I access the Canvas test environment as an instructor?
• How do I access the Canvas beta environment as an instructor?
• How do I log out of Canvas as an instructor?

I mention this because you could use the "test" environment to go to your course and test out how the announcements work when editing...using a dummy student account.  However, if you are hoping to test out notifications via e-mail, that's not going to work in either "beta" or "test" (it would only work in "production").  In that case, you might have to try using a sandbox course with a dummy student in the sandbox course.  Or, you could maybe see if your school's local Canvas admin would be willing to do some test scenarios with you for your announcements.

I hope this gives you some things to consider...and some opportunities to do some testing on your own so you can see exactly how things work for your needs.  As always, if there are questions, feel free to post them here.  Thanks!

[SteveSiedschlag]

The problem is even bigger for us (multiple instructors and schools). If you create an announcement on August 1 and set it to be Available from August 15, it still shows up in the student's To Do list on their Home page any time after August 1. They are not able to open the announcement, but they can see the title. If the title is Class Ends Today it can be very confusing. I think that the To Do list announcements are using their creation date and not their Available date.

[arbobk]

Oh wow is this still an issue with the To Do lists?