This page contains features and updates currently on Learn SaaS Test/Stage and Production environments. Visit Archived SaaS Release Notes to see features and updates in older versions.
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Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on releases to client Production environments
We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:
- A maintenance update to client Production environments will take place on Thursday, June 24, to apply high priority fixes.
- The efforts to resolve the SCORM upgrade issues are still ongoing. Clients still running on 3900.13.0 will not be updated on June 24.
We aim to update all Production sites to 3900.17.0 on Thursday, July 1. This will include those clients who are currently on 3900.15.0 as well as those who are still on 3900.13.0.
We’ll provide new updates as soon as we have more information.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.17.0 (full release number 3900.17.0-rel.24+35b8869) to client Test/Stage servers on Friday, June 18, 2021
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, some building blocks didn’t launch correctly after a libraries' update. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, student preview users couldn’t access journals. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, students couldn’t access assessments with system-generated access codes, as they contained leading zeros or unnecessary commas within. Now the codes are properly generated. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on release to client Production and Test/Stage environments
We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:
- The release remains on hold for clients in the US-East-1 region while continuing to work with Rustici on the SCORM issue. We do not have a target release date yet.
- For institutions that have already received Learn SaaS 3900.15: there will be no further production upgrades until the SCORM issue has been resolved.
- For institutions that are still using Learn SaaS 3900.13: production upgrade to 3900.15 will not be performed until the SCORM issue has been resolved.
Two issues were identified during the 3900.17.0 release to test/stage on Tuesday. For the benefit of our clients, we're working on a test/stage update, scheduled for Friday, June 18.
We’ll provide new updates as soon as we have more information.
Highlight on bug fixes
The bug fixes in this Learn release include:
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In the Ultra Course View, manual grade columns were lacking a Post All grades button on the Submissions page. A Post All button is now present there for instructors to use. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Experience, Ultra Courses, Organizations, and Grades pages went blank on Safari, when the zoom was below 100%. Now, the pages display the courses the user is enrolled in. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Original Experience, the Content Editor wasn't loading randomly. Now, the Content Editor loads in all use cases. We've fixed the issue.
You can view all maintenance items in Behind the Blackboard. Our Known Issue articles provide information for individual bug fixes, and may include bug descriptions and which Learn versions were affected. You can filter bug fixes by SaaS release for easier navigation. View the 3900.17.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Course Role Mapping to LTI Context Roles
Some third-party integrated tools function better when users’ course roles are more specific to the responsibilities they have in their courses. Before, all privileged course users were sent to LTI tools with the context role instructor. Administrators can now edit course roles and choose from a list of LTI Context Roles that may be more appropriate for each.
Default and custom course roles, Original and Ultra courses, and older LTI 1.1 and newer LTI Advantage/1.3 tools are all supported.
To prevent possible disruption for current users, the old default role behavior wasn't changed. Administrators may wish to review all course role configurations after this release, and choose LTI context roles. Any given LTI context role mapping is specific to a course role and will apply to all LTI tools.
Performance tuning: 1M stack size increment for all SaaS sites
SH/MH customers may improve Learn thread’s capabilities, memory wise, by updating the bbconfig.max.stacksize.tomcat property value, within the bb-config.properties file to “1M”. This change will take effect when the instance is restarted and in case threads need the extra piece of memory that is being provided, they will have access to it.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Delay for release to client Testing environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.17.0 release to client Testing servers, previously scheduled for Tuesday, June 8, 2021.
We’ll provide more updates as soon as we’ve identified a new target date.
Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Delay for release to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021.
- Issues have been identified with the SaaS Downtime Maintenance Schedule (impacting INTL admins when the system locale is not en_US), and, for a few clients, a SCORM issue.
- The release has been rolled out for most clients.
- The release is being held for some clients on the US East Coast.
We’ll provide more updates as soon as we’ve identified a new target date.
Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.17+fc81d0d) to client Production servers on Thursday, June 3, 2021
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original and Ultra Experiences, users couldn’t download files attached to Organization discussion boards. Instead, they were redirected to Learn’s front page. We’ve fixed the issue.
Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.15.0
The bug fixes in this Learn release include:
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In the Ultra Experience, when Ultra Stream Notifications were sent to a specific, targeted role, the system announcement was sent correctly to the specific users with that institution role, but the Admin Announcement UI indicated the notification was sent to everyone. causing confusion for admins. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Experience, in tests, the student's browser needed to be refreshed manually in order to show them tests hidden by conditional availability, even after these conditions were met. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra and Original Experiences, there were software updates related to server performance causing customer email alerts: Administrators were receiving Failed to Phone Home emails for software updates on SaaS environments. They will no longer see those emails. Also, as part of this change, the Update Status column has been removed from the Installed Tools page for Building Blocks. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Original Experience, after a Learn user had disabled their profile image from view, other users were still able to see it as it remained publicly available. We've fixed the issue.
You can view all maintenance items in Behind the Blackboard. Our Known Issue articles provide information for individual bug fixes, and may include bug descriptions and which Learn versions were affected. You can filter bug fixes by SaaS release for easier navigation. View the 3900.13.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Reset Signed URL configuration
This feature improves content delivery, accessibility and performance for China users, serving all files via our CDN Servers. The server will auto-configure and set up the user’s session to use or not to use signed URLs during login. Administrators can manually adjust exceptions by contacting Blackboard Support.
Course Auto-Archive performance and efficiency improvements
This improvement fixes known issues causing archive-related instability and implements a safety-net to stop archiving courses that repeatedly fail. It also improves efficiency of auto-archives by adding more sources that the system can store as a reference instead of copying them as file data. Last but not least, it ensures that auto-archives are enabled for all sites as part of each release.
Looking for older release notes?
Check out the Blackboard Learn Release Notes Archive for more information on past releases.
