Upgraded to Q2 2017 CU1 Saas 3200.0.1 FDO

Overnight our production system was upgraded to Q2 2017 CU1 which in 3200.0.1.

No slow downs, roles appear to be keeping the right permissions.  rubrics are still available. 

This is great since Summer Sessions begin Monday.

My only concern and I will continue to question this... the only way I know what 3200.0.1 means is to do a search on Behind the Blackboard.

The FDO page on help.blackboard.com,

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/About_Learn_SaaS_Deployment/Learn_SaaS_Plus_and_Advantage_Options/Flexible_Deployment_Option

is an appropriate overview but does not give me the details I need to understand what exactly what version I had.

I keep hoping for the "Code Book" ! 

May 12, 2017 - Last day of the semester

We are finishing our first semester on SaaS.  I am happy to say our move to SaaS has been a success!  

Yes, there were hiccups (custom theme and 2 3rd-party buildings not being as ready as they should have been).  AWS went down twice.  

Theme issue was resolved and should not be a problem for new SaaS clients.  Kaltura and EvaluationKIT B2s were fixed by Blackboard.

My "take-aways" from this first semester were: 

1. Appreciation for our faculty as they supported this move to SaaS with worked with me through the "hiccups".  

2. Ease of working with Bb Support in resolving issues.  Support's commitment to supporting us when we need them was and is outstanding!

FDO - Flexible Deployment Option - Be mindful, it is not as flexible as you may think.

If you review the following link from Bb Help
https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Release_Notes/Learn_SaaS_Release_Schedule#fdo_schedule

you will notice the flexible deployment schedule for 3200 (Q2 2017) has 3 scheduled dates only:

• 18 May 2017, 5:00 PM EST
• 25 May 2017, 5:00 PM EST
• 8 June 2017, 5:00 PM EST

This presents a dilemma for me because our summer course, our ONLINE summer courses begin May 22, 2017.  When is the best time for us to upgrade?

I am comforted that 3200 is already loaded on my Test server and has already been released to those on CD (continuous delivery).  Hopefully all the problems with the version have been found and then corrected before we move.

SaaS Versioning and "Lingo"
Our Test environment had been updated to 3100.11.0 which is equal to Q4 2016 CU1
The Test environment is on CD or "Continuous Delivery".

When it came time to upgrade our production environment which is on Flexible Deployment Option known as FDO the version was listed as 3100.0.2.

That took me by surprise and I immediately re-did all of my tool testing.  In searching Behind the Blackboard, I discovered an article 000043586 which indicated my version was Q4, 2016 CU1 with 2 security patches.  

I reached out to a few Blackboard sources and learned about how that in the version numbers:
- the first 4 numbers represent the "release" 3100 = Q4 2016
- first set of number after the first decimal (3100.11.0) represents the build for CD, continuous delivery build #11
- the second set of numbers after the second decimal (3100.0.02) represents the build for the FDO, flexible deployment .0.2

The SaaS Update Schedule is located at 
https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Release_Notes/Learn_SaaS_Release_Schedule#fdo_schedule

Our Custom Theme is back and working great!
Thanks to the good working of Product Development, the Web Tech team, and Bb Support, we have our custom 2012 theme working great again.

As you may recall from an earlier post, in our 2012 theme we use 2 small images, one of our College logo and another is the 1x1 transparency slide to hide the plus sign "+" image on the background of the Learn environment.  

In pleading my case to Blackboard that I want to be able to "brand" my environment, they adjusted the SaaS environment so that all of us can do that now.
We made the change during our Spring Break in March and I am happy to report all is working well now.

I know this took some work on Blackboard's part and i very much appreciate their efforts to provide what we needed.  I believe this will benefit everyone.

Back posting again!
I am so sorry for not taking the time to post in recent weeks.  Work and life have been very busy.  The next few posts are all great news.
Thank you for taking time to review.  I hope you find the information in the blog helpful!

February 28, 2017 - EvaluationKIT  - You will not believe this one!

We started using EvaluationKIT in the fall semester of 2016 while we were still self-hosted.  At that time, we talked with EvalKIT about our move to SaaS and they shared with us a link to their SaaS building blocks.  

I learned today that their link to their SaaS B2s were ... let's call them ambitious.  It seems their integration will use REST API not building blocks.  What they shared with us and what we had loaded on our SaaS environments are apparently not going to work so we wasted time and effort.

To our benefit, Blackboard Support Tier II appreciating our situation is riding in as my "knight in shining armor" and will work with EvalKIT's developers and help us deploy and test the REST API.  

Yes, I have to trail blaze once again but it is great Bb Support is there to help and support us.

In testing 3100.11, Q4 2016 CU1, we found a problem with meta data displaying in Users and in tables for users and courses in the GUI.  Put in a ticket with Support and found out our "custom theme" is causing the meta data to display.  It is another example of not being able to brand our environment.  

This apparently means for every update, we will have to rebuild the theme.  I really wish I did not have to do that.  

February 16, 2017 - Building Block in SaaS Will Require Change Management

In SaaS, one no longer has the ability to add or update building blocks.  From my chair, that is GREAT!  The wear and tear of keeping up on the Maintenance Guide and Groups A, B, C, etc. for properly updating B2s was a great deal of work.  I am MORE an happy to simply create a ticket and ask Support to add/update a building block.

One change I wasn't expecting was seeing in Saint Mary's collection of B2s non-licensed 3rd party building blocks such as Respondus Lockdown Browser.  It is listed but the status is inactive.  

For the SaaS environments, it appears all partner building blocks will be listed, it is just up to each client (institution) if they wish to license it and make it available.  We have been dealing with the Barnes and Noble for years this way so to me, this is no big deal.  I sort of like seeing who are "possible" partners!!!

A girl can dream!

February 16, 2017 - Changes in Privileges to Roles

I do not know when this happened but privileges to standard roles (instructor, course building, TAs) got changed along the way.  The student role was not affected.

I put in a ticket with Support and requested a report of our activity accumulator and Support was able to help find who had created accounts and what enrollments had taken place outside of our SIS feed files.  SaaS is checking to see when and why the privileges were changed.

Note to self... periodically check privileges.

February 7, 2017 - Themes  problem in SaaS.
I first posted about this a week ago and didn't want to update it until we have a fix.  Even though we are "running" okay for now, we are not where I want us to be.

I have always kept our Blackboard system very "vanilla".  When it came to branding, all I did was change the colors of the 2012 theme to use Saint Mary's colors, added the 1x1 transparency image to get rid of the pixeled plus sign Blackboard icons and a banner image file for the top frame so users knew they were at Saint Mary's.

We have been experiencing periods of slowness. Like 20 to 45 seconds to open a link, tool, etc.  For a cloud environment, that shouldn't happen.  

I put in a ticket and it was discovered that my 2 little image files are living on a part of the SaaS environment that is then populating, deploying every time someone clicks on something in a course.  So, the more users on the system, the more areas navigated in a course, the slower the system gets!

Moving my 2 files to a different location appears not to be a quick fix so.... I am having to use a Bb default 2012 theme and I cannot brand the theme to look the way I want.

So, I had to send yet another email to the faculty explaining I have to make the visual change, reassure them, nothing content-wise will be touched and say yet again, I am so sorry.

I do trust Blackboard will find a way to give me my branding back but how this wasn't discovered until now I do not understand.

This post will be one I will update as needed...

 I am testing a couple of issues so far.  
1. Left menu drag and drop not always working
2. Cannot change the text color of the left menu.  (This is a known issue.)
.

I am classification issues in 3 categories
I. Annoying but Have Options to Achieve Goal
II. Pain Point
III. Deal Breaker

For the issues we have found so far with SaaS

I. Annoying but Have Options to Achieve Goal
1. In System Admin > Courses > Show All does not work.  
        Have shared this issue with our BBPM.  Apparently it is a known issue.
2. Cannot change the text color of the left menu.  (This is a known issue.)
3. Left menu drag and drop not always working.  Had a ticket in with Support but they could not make it fail so we are monitoring for now.
   

II. Pain Point
1. My Media module keeps disappearing from the institution tab.  Blackboard Support has teams working on this one.  We asked Kaltura to help and their response is it is a Blackboard problem.

2. My custom theme, my 2 small image files for "Brand" our environment so users know they are at Saint Mary's cannot be used because of there the files live in the cloud and slows down performance, way, way down!  
Support is trying to find a safe location to move the files but they tell me it will take time like weeks!
For now, I have to use a generic 2012 theme.  No banners.  This is a visual change that I have to make my users aware of it.  I do not understand how this has not been discovered before.


III. Deal Breaker
1. Kaltura videos inside of courses will not display.  The thumbnail will,display, but when one
    clicks the button to Play video, it would not.  
    RESOLVED!
    Tier II Support found the problem and within 2 hours, had a script to fix the problem.

2. Math Editor is not working #02439227
  RESOLVED!
    Tier II Support resolved the problem with 24 hours.  

This post last updated on January 31, 2017

January 19, 2017 - We are still struggling with the My Media module not operating as it should in Blackboard.  Bb Support has had teams researching the problem and asked me to ask Kaltura to help.  It took a long time to get a response to my tickets with Kaltura and today the "customer care" person from Kaltura reported back it was a problem with Blackboard.  

I had to ask that the focus please be placed on resolving the issue and not on pointing fingers.  Not very professional when you are supposed to be company partners.

January 17, 2017 - The Cloud Clogged
It is the 2nd day of our semester and many courses are meeting for the first time this semester.  I starting receiving complaints that Blackboard was running slower and slower.
I sat and watched as the system got slower and slower.  I reached out to Support and found out that Amazon Web Services was jammed up.  Who would ever think AWS would have such as issue!

I email the faculty with the subject line "The Cloud is Clogged".  At some point you just have to laugh.  I placed an announcement on the log-in page to Blackboard.  

Bb Support did a great job of keeping up up-to-date on the issue.  We were back operational within a couple of hours but the system was still slow.  By 6:15 PM that evening it was fast and steady.  

It is interesting to note even the might Cloud can jam up.

January 16, 2017 - First Day of Classes
Our SaaS servers were flying all day.  For a school of one 1,500 students and a faculty of 180, it seemed everyone was on the system.  

Bb Support continues to work on the My Media module.  I got a report this afternoon that they have found the problem.  Kaltura Support responded but didn't have anything of value to offer.  I asked for a conversation with one of their engineers but so far, no response.

One other issue we have discovered is when a rolling restart is performed, content areas throw an error.  This worries our users very much.  We are working with Support to figure that one out too.

For now, if we need to change anything on our services we will schedule down time so no one is caught off guard.

January 15, 2017 - The weekend before classes started was not fun.  Kaltura's integration with SaaS has been a challenge in the migration.  Lessons learned by Blackboard and us but now, every time we do a restart, the My Media module disappears from the institution tab.  Blackboard's Web Services and a representative from Support has worked the case all weekend.   I have 2 tickets in with Kaltura Support... so far, no response.

It was a very long weekend at the computer and on the phone.  I shared emails with faculty keeping them up-to-date and letting them know I was "on it".  I invited faculty members to email me if they noticed anything not working correctly.  Most of the emails I got were notes of support and appreciation.  

"Knowledge is Power" and faculty will handle anything if you keep them in the loop.

January 13, 2017 (Friday, January 13th, 3 days before the start of the semester)
I should have never gone out to dinner.  On the way home saw emails coming in saying Content areas were throwing errors.
I got home and called Support and we had to work the problem.  Turns out a process for basic SaaS clients was being run and our installation got caught in it by mistake.

It is good to know that there is an email address *support managers at blackboard.com*
The email goes to the Support managers on duty after hours.

* Not listing the actual email in this message to avoid the address being virtually spammed.

January 12, 2017 - For course copies, we allow faculty to perform the process themselves.  I share a set of written step-by-step instructions on what to do.  Today, I started receiving emails saying course copy was running really slow or not completing.
I checked and GUI and found a course had be in "running" for over 25 hours.
Put in a ticket with Support then called.
I was told a couple of other schools were affected and that the team was working on it.
I called back a couple of hours later and was told the ETA for a solution was before the end of the day.
I emailed the Faculty and told them to hang in there with me, I was on it.
At 6:20 PM, I got an email saying the problem was resolved.
I checked the logs and all the course copies in the queue were completed.

January 10, 2017 - Discovered today that Blackboard's users database was one of the resources we review before creating a new Saint Mary's user account.  As a SaaS client, we will no longer have access to that database.  Blackboard Support has offered to provide us a file of what is currently on our Blackboard but to have ongoing, we would need to pay for a new server.  I have recommended we just remove Blackboard as one of the systems we search.  All of the user ID come from Banner anyway so Blackboard does not have to be involved.  If there is ever a question about an account, I can check on the GUI.  We cannot automate it but for now, I think that is okay.

January 10, 2017 - Configuration Change Needed

January 10, 2017 - Pay Attention to this One!!!   Configuration Change Needed
The Math Editor is very important to many of our faculty.  From the first day of our new SaaS environment, I have been testing and testing the Math Editor.

When our SaaS environments were first created the domain was blackboard.com.  We wanted it to be saintmarys.edu and we were told that was possible.  However, when we switched our domain from blackboard to saintmarys, the Math Editor stopped working.  I had an instructor discover the Math Editor window would launch but none of the tools were visible.  I put in a ticket with Support then called in and was told their would work on it immediately.  It had to go to Tier II and the problem was solved within 24 hours.

Please note, that while the configuration was being changed, access to content was lost (not a good thing since I was teaching a workshop to faculty about using Blackboard) and those faculty who had the My Media module deployed lost it.  Each instructor will have 
re-add the My Media module back to our My Institution tab.  

I was assured this information was being added to the project plan "playbook" for future SaaS installations.  

Keeping all in perspective, these are not hard fixes.  It is important to let your users know there will be hiccups and glitches.  What you want to avoid is anything worse!

January 8, 2017 - It is still 1 week from the start of the semester but people are on the SaaS.  Over 130 at times. 

January 6, 2017 - SaaS is launched.
We were supposed to flip the switch at 8:30 but our campus network went down before that so the switch was flipped at 8:40.

Our cURL scripts for SIS integration broke because the url changed and we didn't catch that in our migration.  Put in a ticket with Support and within minutes... got guidance and resolved the issue.  

I pray all our "glitches" are this easy!

Stay tuned for comments has our faculty puts SaaS through it paces.

January 5, 2017 
There is an issue with Gmail and the Send Email tool - When I use the Send Email and send a message to a group of users, in GMail a question mark icon "?" appears saying something to the affect that Gmail cannot confirm this is coming from a scammer.

Blackboard provided 3 people from Support including an engineer to try and help us.  We are apparently discovering new ground with this and I was pleased how hard Blackboard is working to try and resolve this issue.  It isn't fix yet but we can confirm emails are successfully getting through to students.  I emailed the faculty what the issue is and we shared the information with our Helpdesk team.  

No faculty member (yet) has complained.  I believe "Knowledge is Power"

We will continue to work this issue.

January 5, 2017 - It is with great pleasure to share that the request for logs was quickly resolved.  It appears the 2 Support techs who were helping me did not quite understand the desired process.  

John Porter reached out to me and explained everything.  In the SaaS environment logs are going to be available for a "short time"  then they will be stored in a resource call 
Kibana Log Visualizer 
https://en-us.help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Kibana_Log_Visualizer

It is not expected that end users like me will use it but for true programmers, you may appreciate it.

Bottom line, I can request logs through Behind the Blackboard.

January 3, 2017 - We will be testing the attendance tool from Quickly this semester.  in testing the different settings in Qwickly version 3.6, we found a problem with setting to student self check-in.  Quickly Support asked for a tomcat file from Blackboard.  Now in SaaS, I do not have access to those files.  I created a ticket in BtB and was told to use Kibana.  I am not familiar with Kibana but tried to find what I needed and could not.  I then asked for help and was told that log files could not be dowloaded.  

It took a great deal of time and force to get a file and I am waiting to hear if that will help find the fix for the Quickly issue.

I am hoping this was just a misunderstanding on Support's part.  If not, we may have a huge problem!!!

UPDATE:
Please review post for January 5th.  It was truly a misunderstanding of needs.  Thank you Bb Support for all you do!

January 1, 2017 - My online course for teaching online starts tomorrow.  I sent an email message from my course to the faculty who are students in the course using the Send Email tool.  I set to receive a copy of the email.  When I checked the message in my Gmail account (Saint Mary's is a Google school), I found a question mark symbol "?" stating that Gmail could not confirm that it wasn't spam.  My worry was did the message go through.  I am working with my IT colleagues as well as Blackboard Support to try and find an answer to this issue.  

I reached out to our BbPM but he has not run into the problem before.  I cannot believe we are the first Google school to move to SaaS.

December 29, 2016 - Noticed when using Chrome on a Mac version 55.0.2883.95 I see a small Kaltura icon displaying over top the "normal" content media icon.  This is only appearing in Chrome on a Mac, Chrome on Windows 10, Windows 10 Firefox, Windows 10 Edge and Mac Firefox all display appropriately.

December 23, 2016 - Got a note from our BbPM, the Fall 2016 are now loaded in SaaS.  There were a few duplications so they needs clarification as to which file to load.
I researched and offered to load them myself.

December 22, 2016 - Sent an email to the Faculty about our move to SaaS.  Shared the current url to view courses in SaaS.  I shared a short list of new features.  Received several emails from faculty saying it looked good!

December 20, 2016 Our DBA batch archived our Fall 2016 courses and moved them to a location provided by Blackboard.  Blackboard started working on these courses immediately.  I created a spreadsheet of all the courses we wanted moved.  I cleaned out all course not used.