Tuesday, January 10, 2017
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!
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!
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Friday, January 6, 2017
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
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!
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!
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