[Account Settings] More intuitive term sorting/presentation

So, my impression is that terms are sorted based on date and, perhaps, name. But it doesn't seem consistent. For example, here's the term order on the admin Terms page, which appears to be in descending order by start date, with terms with the same dates sorted alphabetically. Which makes sense.

38274_Screen Shot 2015-04-19 at 11.48.16 AM.pngScreen Shot 2015-04-19 at 11.48.16 AM.png

But now, when I go to a term pull-down menu, that order is reversed, putting my active terms at the bottom of the list:

38275_Screen Shot 2015-04-19 at 11.50.12 AM.pngScreen Shot 2015-04-19 at 11.50.12 AM.png

I see three key improvements to be made in the presentation of terms:

  1. Let's be consistent and use the same order in every listing. Doesn't matter what order -- but it should be the same. I don't have the bandwidth to re-figure this out every time I look at it.
  2. Let's make sure the active terms are most readily available. This probably means that they should stay at the top of the Terms page and move to the top of the drop-down menu.
  3. Let's mark active terms so that they're more readily apparent. For example (as you can see below), I use some CSS to highlight active courses in user details -- that visual cue for active terms would be great. And in the drop-down, there could be a divider between the active terms (top of the menu, ideally) and the inactive terms (bottom of the menu, ideally).

38276_Screen Shot 2015-04-19 at 11.54.05 AM.pngScreen Shot 2015-04-19 at 11.54.05 AM.png

(As an aside… what on earth order are courses listed in? I mean… jeez. Also, obviously, I fiddled with the CSS of the div that holds the course listing so it autosizes to include everything, rather than just display 3 or 4 courses.)

45 Comments
kfullman
Community Explorer

**This idea was first generated in 2015 so it would be nice to know of any status updates.**

It would be great to have the option to sort alphabetically, by term beginning date, or by term end date as a start.

It would also be nice if we could group terms by subaccount, future terms, and past terms, or by some other parameter. We have two primary accounts we operate under - one for our degree program and one for continuing education so being able to sort by one of these options would be great.

As you can see below our terms are currently a jumbled mess!

Thanks!

Screen Shot 2022-04-04 at 1.47.25 PM.png

Gina_Hutchens
Community Participant

These are all great ideas.  Let's make this work.

Code-with-Ski
Community Participant

I haven't personally experienced the issue of the long terms list yet, but it is only a matter of time.  It would be nice if there was consistent sorting/presentation of terms.

I have been working on a side project to make a Chrome extension to use with Canvas LMS and I have some features that may be useful related to ideas shared here.  It adds a search field to the Terms page in Accounts to hide terms that don't match the filter.  I also added filters to the user's list of enrollments for role, term, and state.  This can make it a lot easier to see just active enrollments or enrollments for a specific term.  I also recently added filters/sorts to the all courses page.

Here is the blog article that I posted about the Chrome extension that I'm creating if you would like to check it out: Creating a Chrome Extension to Use with Canvas LMS 

Chrome extension: Canvas LMS Mods (Basic)

KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: New
 
KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: Added to Theme