Within a Language Pack, you can change any of the default links to Blackboard Help to point to other pages on the help site or to other resources, such as your institution's support site. To change the target of these links, edit the links in the documentation.properties file.

More about Help in other formats


Working with language packs

Help links in Learn automatically append each link with the language-locale code of your site or the user's selected language pack. Depending on the language-locale code used as the base of that language pack, the help links may or may not work.

If the language pack name uses as its base a language-locale code for a language that Blackboard supports, the help links will work.

Example: If your language pack is named "en_US_ST" (noting the en_US as its base), all of the help links will point to the US English version of the help site by default. The end of each help link ("@[email protected]@X@") would be appended with en_US_ST, but the site will ignore the "_ST" following "en_US" and point help links to the US English version of the site.

If your custom language pack name uses as its base a language-locale code for a language that Blackboard does not support, the help links will not work. For example, if your language pack is named "es_CO" or "es_CO_ST" and you want to link to the Blackboard Help site in Spanish (es_ES), you would either:

  • Change the name of language pack to "es_ES_CO"
    ​​-OR-
  • Replace the variable at the end of each help link ("@[email protected]@X@") with "es_ES."

Doing either would point help links to the Spanish version of the site.

Upgrading Blackboard Learn or just the Language Pack can result in broken links to the documentation resources, so always make sure to check your links after doing either.


Edit documentation links in a language pack

The following procedure details how to edit the links using the Language Pack Editor. These links may also be edited by using a text editor.

  1. On the Administrator Panel, under Tools and Utilities, select Language Packs.
  2. Select Edit in the language pack's menu.
  3. Scroll down to accept the terms and select Submit.
  4. Search for the documentation.properties file and select Edit from the menu.
  5. Edit the field URLs as appropriate.
    Documentation Properties
    Field Description
    documentation.href.help_home The link to the main landing page of Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.online_admin The link for the Blackboard Help text on the Administrator Panel under Help. By default, this text links to the administrator section of Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.cp_online_manual The link for the Blackboard Help text on the Control Panel for each course under Help. By default, this text links to the instructor section of Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.student_manual The link for the Blackboard Help text on the Tools page in any course page. By default, this text links to the student section of Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.cs_manual The link for the Help text on the Content Collection tab available after selecting Tools. By default, this text links to the content management user section of Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.online_outcomes The link to Outcomes Help under Learn on the Outcomes tab available after selecting Discover. By default, this links to the outcomes assessment section on Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.label online_outcomes The label for the link to Outcomes Help under Learn on the Outcomes tab available after selecting Discover. By default, this text is "Outcomes Help."
    documentation.href.sis_help_key The link for the Student Integration Services Planning Documentation text on the Data Integration > Student Information System Integrations > Sample Documents page. By default, this text links to the Planning SIS Integrations topic in Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.help|video_... The links for help topics and videos that appear in the Sample Content included with the various Course Structures provided by Blackboard for creating courses.
    documentation.href.ultra_ui_doc Available for SaaS deployments only: The link to Blackboard Administrator Help for the Blackboard Learn SaaS deployment.
    documentation.href.ultra_ui_release_note Available for SaaS deployments only: The link to the Release Notes for the Blackboard Learn SaaS deployment.
    bb.collaborate... The links for help topics that appear in the Blackboard Collaborate Launcher.
    documentation.href.saml.page.instructions The link for the More Help text on the Administrator Panel > Authentication > SAML Authentication Settings page. By default, this text links to the SAML Authentication Provider Type topic in Blackboard Help.
    documentation.href.help.index The link for the Blackboard Help site on the login page. By default, this link points to the Blackboard Help site in English because Learn cannot determine the user's language pack before the user has logged in.
  6. Select Submit.