Ally 1.26 | Release to production 14 February 2019

New Features, Updated Features

Request help

As a follow-up from the configurable help content introduced in Ally 1.23, it is now possible to allow students and instructors to request help from the Ally alternative formats modal and the instructor feedback panel. With this feature, we’re intending to provide an easy bridge between Ally and resources/processes available at the institution already, as well as allowing Ally to be connected to a helpdesk system.

An email address for alternative format help requests can be configured in the Ally Configuration UI. When alternative format help is requested, an email containing the help request and details about the current course, content item and user will be sent to this address. Similarly, an email address can be configured for instructor feedback help requests through the Configuration UI.

The Ally API user for the Blackboard Learn integration needs to be given the "Administrator Panel (Users) > Users" or "system.user.view" permission to allow Ally to include the student name and email address in the help request email. The Ally API user for the Moodle integration needs to be given the “moodle/user:viewalldetails” permission to allow Ally to include the student name and email address in the help request email.

More on configuring Ally help settings

Institutional report improvements

Ally 1.26 introduces several institutional report usability improvements:

  • The comparison with the previous term/month/academic year in “Total courses”, “Total content created” and “Overall accessibility score” has been made clearer.
  • The total number of items with an issue in the “Accessibility issues” list has been made clearer.
  • “Document” has been renamed to “Word document” in the “Total content created” chart.

Ally 1.26 bug fixes and improvements

  • Fixed a bug that caused the highlights for tables without headings to show on the incorrect page in the content preview.
  • Implemented visual improvements for downloading the original file in the Instructor Feedback.
  • The accessibility issue type is now tracked as part of the usage data when clicking the accessibility indicator.
  • Implemented several accessibility improvements in the Instructor Feedback.
  • The accessibility indicator can no longer be copied and pasted into the WYSIWYG editor in the Blackboard Learn and Canvas integrations.
  • Fixed a bug in the Blackboard Learn integration that caused the accessibility indicator for a link to overlap with the preceding text in certain cases.
  • Fixed a bug in the Canvas integration that prevented embedded images from being processed when copying a page from a different course.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the CSV export for a courses with special characters in the course name to fail.