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Brightspace Tip #313: April Continuous Delivery Updates

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the April 2022/20.22.4 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Intelligent Agents – Create Agent page facilitates more flexible scheduling and frequency options

Building on the Intelligent Agents – Agent List page changes | Updated feature released in February 2022/20.22.2, this feature changes the Intelligent Agents Create Agent page to facilitate additional scheduling options and frequency options to allow for improved flexibility.

The changes to the Create Agent page include:

  • A modernized user interface. This is a visual upgrade and does not impact functionality.
  • Scheduling options have been moved to the top of the page.
  • The ability to expand/collapse each section on the agent creation page (Scheduling, Criteria, Actions) to improve usability.
  • Two new agent frequency options:
    • One-Time Run allows instructors to choose a single date and time to run.
    • Hourly allows instructors to choose a date and time to run between. If no dates are chosen, the Hourly agent runs every hour with the first time being "now" (that is once the agent is saved and enabled).
  • The existing Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annually options all now have a Scheduled Time option that users complete to determine what time that the agent will run on the dates scheduled for the agent to run.
  • The Subject line of the agents' emails now supports up to 128 characters. This brings it inline with the Email tool. Previously, the character limit was 100 characters.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page showing the Hourly option and IA will be run every 8 hours.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page showing the Hourly option and the IA will run every 8 hours.

This feature implements PIE items D7457 (increase Intelligent Agent email character limit to 128); D5830 (Allow easier 'once off' intelligent agent scheduling); D5208 (Add "Time' Option to Restriction to Schedule of Intelligent Agent); and D7726 (Ability to Run Intelligent Agents Multiple Times Per Day).

2) Group/Section Management – Asynchronous Group Creation

This feature moves group creation and enrollment to background task, minimizing risk of timeouts when creating large numbers of groups requiring enrollments.

When instructors create and save a new group category, the Groups tool displays the category and prompts instructors that their group or groups are being created in the background; further, it indicates that the instructor will be notified once the groups are created. The instructor who created the group receives a subscription alert in the minibar that indicates that the groups for their courses have been created.

While this is in process, the Brightspace UI indicates that "Group creation is in progress". While processing, users are unable to make changes to groups or enrollments.

To facilitate these changes, and the potential for allowing clients to make much larger numbers of groups in a category, this feature introduces pagination to the Groups tool, that limits each page to a maximum of 200 groups. In addition, the header row for the category has been moved to above the grid and the Delete and Email options are added to the Category dropdown menu.

The group creation confirmation popup window.
The group creation confirmation popup window.
The updated Groups page with the 'Group Creation in Progress' message highlighted.
The updated Groups page with the 'Group Creation in Progress' message highlighted.
The updated Groups page with the Category dropdown menu and the Delete and Email options highlighted.
The updated Groups page with the Category dropdown menu and the Delete and Email options highlighted.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the April Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform April 2022/20.22.4 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
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You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

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