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Steve_25 · ‎09-27-2022

Hi @audra_agnelly, That is indeed quite a significant refactor! This would require a significant rewrite of my script as it looks like React Native is now in use. I'm actually not sure that it would be possible anymore; it would certainly be much more of a mission than it was previously! It would be much easier for the Instructure devs to build it in, rather than trying to hack it in after the fact. I would encourage those who have been using the MSGOBS inbox feature to request that the ability to message observers be added to the Inbox, like it was with the grade book. Thanks all for your support over the years. I've really enjoyed contributing to this project and working with you to keep things working smoothly. Hopefully Instructure will be willing to come to the party on this!

Steve_25 · ‎08-18-2022

Hi @jsimon3 and @chadscott, The new Instructure interface looks fantastic! A big win for the K-12 community I'd say! If you'd like to keep using MSGOBS for the Conversations (Inbox) stuff while also using the new Instructure gradebook improvements, you'd just need to remove or comment out the following line (Line 75): if (location.includes('/gradebook')) { mode = 'gradebook'; }; I'll update Github to note this soon.

Steve_25 · ‎10-10-2021

Thanks for your message @travislape. I did have a look at adding the script to the New Analytics section; however, because the New Analytics frame is loaded from a different domain to that of the school's Canvas instance, I'm not able to either read the data from New Analytics, or not able to do the API calls to send the message to the observers. It's a web browser security feature that prevents this from working. A bit unfortunate. I suppose if this is a feature that many are missing, we could do something like having the user copy and paste the list of students from New Analytics to a field I could insert on the main instance page. Could work, but it sounds a little... janky.

Steve_25 · ‎04-21-2021

MSGOBS Version 1.02 is now available here https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs with the following fixes: - Fixed issue with gradebook 'Scored less than' or 'Scored more than' options not showing any students.

Steve_25 · ‎03-15-2021

Hi all, MSGOBS Version 1.01 is now available here https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs with the following fixes: Re-written for ES2020 and a slightly improved lookup speed. Fixed issue where students on gradebook with the same name could not be distinguished between. Fixed issue where that occurred when replying to a messages as a user with some admin privileges, but not all. In this scenario, MSGOBS now asks the user to select a course for observer lookup. Fixed issue with colour highlighting of observers after the insert observers button was pressed for a second time. Added warning message for replies in conversations that will create a group messages for all recipients. Added Observer and Student removal counts to success messages. Changed conversations behaviour as an admin sending a message. MSGOBS now asks the user to select a course for the observer lookup, rather than trying all enrolments for the user (which took a long time). Unfortunately I wasn't able to build in New Analytics, for for that overzealous promise, I am sorry. I didn't notice that the New Analytics LTI is hosted on a different domain which means that browser security features prevent the script from accessing what it needs. I'll keep an eye on it in the future. @DonLourcey Thanks for the feedback Don, I'm truly glad to hear about this positive effect! @christopher_gil I'm afraid that is the expected behaviour, as replies in conversations always create group messages rather than individual messages (the 'send individual checkboxes' element doesn't exist on a reply). Your feedback though inspired me to put a warning in for the teacher when they choose to include observers on a reply message. I'll address this problem further in a future update. EDIT: 1.01 fixes issue with Safari web browser.

Steve_25 · ‎02-14-2021

Hi @DonLourcey, I think in this case it's not user error! Are you seeing this problem when replying to a group conversation on the Inbox? If so, I have a fix in the works that handles this slightly awkward condition that occurs (when the user has admin privileges or previously was an admin) with a little more finesse. If you can hold on just a little longer I'd like to share that with you very soon! If it's not a reply message creating the issue, I might need to get a bit more information from you. Feel free to send me a direct message.

Steve_25 · ‎01-28-2021

You're not wrong @_-TheTiredDev-_ ! In this case I'm deliberately wanting the script to proceed slowly to avoid triggering Canvas's API throttling, which would come about by hitting the API for every course enrolment, for every course that a user is enrolled in for a list of users. It is not a great solution to a niche scenario where Canvas admins add single users to a recipient list. I've now re-written my script for up to ES2020 with proper code comments and support for New Analytics! I expect release this in February if you'd like to cast your eyes over a better version soon 🙂

Steve_25 · ‎01-20-2021

@lgibson3 Hey thanks for letting me know about that - I haven't looked at new analytics. I'm feeling optimistic about getting the script active there too, but I'll get back to you once I've done a bit of investigation.

Steve_25 · ‎12-08-2020

All good questions sbevier. Looking back over the conversations of this thread should give a fairly accurate idea of the problems faced and their frequency. Between 2017 and 2020 there have been very few updates required. When Instructure updates Canvas, some small changes have been necessary, which for each change require your IT department to replace the script with a new version, but instances of this occurring have been few. Instructure kindly keeps most elements stable. The best way to check it out is to apply it to your test instance (yoursubdomain.test.instructure.com) and see what you think!

Steve_25 · ‎10-20-2020

Hi @paula_setserkis, I'm certainly open to questions! Regarding the installation of the script, if you do not have administrative access to Canvas for your institution, then the Tampermonkey method is for you, but if you are an administrator wanting to deploy the script for every teacher in your institution then the theme modification is where you should install the script. Only one of the two methods is required.

Steve_25 · ‎10-01-2020

New version 0.08 available here: https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs - Fixed a conversations (Inbox) issue for instances with the faculty journal enabled. @courtney_osulliApologies I missed your earlier post, I think I was unsubscribed from this thread after the community platform change. This version should fix the problem you reported.

Steve_25 · ‎04-20-2020

Cool, glad to hear that's working. @jsimon3 ‌, one solution to this problem appears to be to use Instructure's own method for inserting recipients to the form, rather than manually creating DOM elements (as I did previously). The function setTokens() of AutocompleteView.js accepts Instructure user objects and neatly creates the appropriate DOM elements, plus whatever else is required to validate the form correctly. You can read Instructure's nicely formatted and commented code here.

Steve_25 · ‎04-17-2020

Sorry for the delay (busy times!). The issue you're seeing reminded me of another problem that I hadn't got around to fixing. Now that I've cleared that up (latest version here), would you mind checking again to see if your issue persists?

Steve_25 · ‎04-17-2020

Thanks for pointing that out Audra. I've included your suggested endpoint change in the most recent update. Only a two year turnaround!

Steve_25 · ‎04-17-2020

New version 0.07 available here: https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs - Fixed issue where conversations (Inbox) recipients would become invalid after a recipient was removed.

Steve_25 · ‎04-01-2020

Hi Audra, Does this happen for all observers, or just some? I don't suppose there are special characters in the observers name? Might be a programming error on my part. I'll check it out. I believe you can send test messages on your testing instance at <institusion subdomain>.test.instructure.com without them being actually sent.

Steve_25 · ‎06-04-2019

Hi Matt, Do you have existing JavaScript customisations you were combining this with? Perhaps in your test instance (school.test.instructure.com), try adding only the msgobs.user.js file to your your JavaScript Customisations in your theme (from Admin > Themes > Current Theme Theme Editor > Upload, set Javascript File field to the msgobs.user.js file downloaded from the links above > Save theme > Apply). If that's successful, it might indicate an issue when combining with other scripts.

Steve_25 · ‎10-18-2018

Hi Cynthia, Glad to hear your teachers have been finding it helpful! Unfortunately it's not possible to include the name of the students without some coding intervention, but the good news is that including the student's name would definitely be possible. It would require a bit of a rework to a few elements as the script currently sends bulk messages and would need to have the ability to send individual messages, but nothing too strenuous. It's something I've had in mind for a while, but assumed that this functionality would get written into Canvas before I had the chance to do so (see this idea here: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/7919-message-observers-of-students-who-in-grade-books?commentID=107901#comment-107… ). What might work well is to have some sort of substitution method, where you could pop something like [student] to have the students name pop out in that spot, or [observer] for the parent's name. Then you could write sentences like "Dear [observer], I'm writing to inform you that [student] achieved an excellent grade in ..." Perhaps I can have a look at doing something like this in the coming holidays

Steve_25 · ‎10-15-2017

New version 0.06 available here: https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs - Fixes an issue with courses containing more than one hundred enrolments. Thanks Joe for discovering that one.

Steve_25 · ‎09-28-2017

Hi Joe, That's a bit odd! Couple of things we can try: Check there's definitely observers attached to those students in the course that you're viewing the grades in (Hit people on the course menu, check there are users with 'Observing ... ' under the role column for that course, and for the specific students in the message students who box). In Google chrome, press Ctrl + Shift + i to open the web inspector. Refresh the Grades page with the inspector open to the 'Console' tab, then try to include some observers. See if any errors appear in the console. If there's no errors, change the inspector tab to Network. At the bottom of the list of network transactions you should see something like this: For each one of the enrollments and sections requests if you could right click, then Copy > Copy Response and paste the result in a private message to me I should be able to figure out why it doesn't work

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