These Release Notes contain a summary of changes made for the March 27-28, 2018 release of Echo360. For changes made in previous deployments, see the other Release Notes articles located in this Topic group, or contact support@echo360.com.
New Features
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The Echo360 Mobile Apps have lots of new goodies for us! The iOS and Android versions of the Echo360 Mobile App have some new features and some enhancements and some fixes, the highlights of which are:
- The Class List on mobile now separates Dated and Non-Dated classes for easier finding and sorting.
- Improvements to the student confusion flagging feature.
- Now add Bookmarks for slide and video locations using the new interactive UI.
- Use the new Notification area to easily see any confusion flags or bookmarks you may have added for slides or videos.
- View all your slide and video Bookmarks in the new Bookmark viewer.
- Use the Class-level study guide to see all the Bookmarks added for a class.
- Entering Short Answer activity responses is easier and provides more room for the text box on smaller (phone) screens.
- Students can now tap to select/deselect Multiple Choice activity answers, allowing for submission of multiple answers for questions where requested.
The UPDATES to the Apps should be available in the Google Play and Apple App stores by the first week in April (possibly earlier). Keep your eyes open for them, and review the notes provided with the update for a full list of changes.
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Cloud Usage Chart has a new Data Usage Type – The Cloud Usage Chart shown to Admins on the Dashboard now provides a break out of the data use for media viewed OUTSIDE of sections and classrooms. It is called ODA or On-demand Anonymous and simply refers to the data used by people viewing Echo360 videos through public or embedded links (views that occur outside of section/classroom views). The existing On-demand category now specifically reflects media (videos and presentations) viewed within sections/classrooms.
See Understanding the Admin Dashboard and Cloud Usage Details for more information.
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Providing access links for SSO users/institutions – Echo360 now provides a method for institutions who use PingOne single-sign-on (SSO) for authentication to better utilize private access links for sections. This new feature will allow institutions to not only authenticate and enroll existing SSO users into sections, but also to register new SSO-authenticated users into Echo360 if they don’t yet exist in our system.
Contact support@echo360.com to talk with a support representative for help completing the configuration process needed to streamline section access links for your institution.
Enhancements
- The Echo360 SDK has been updated to version 1.0.21 and includes the following changes:
- Removed the required state on several fields and updated the examples provided to reflect the changes:
- Campus Timezone
- Department Org ID
- Section Instructor ID
- User Timezone
NOTE: These changes will not break existing code. It simply removes restrictions so you no longer must include them.
- Added termId to the schedule model
- Updated LmsProfile with the new name for the external id, "courseIdField". "externalSystemIdRef" is no longer valid.
NOTE: Anyone referencing "externalSystemIdRef" directly in the LmsProfile MUST make this change to "courseIdField", as it happened at the API level. The initialization function did not change.
- Updated the included Newtonsoft Json parser to the latest .NET 4.5 version.
- Removed the required state on several fields and updated the examples provided to reflect the changes:
- Multiple Choice Activities now allow students to simply click to select and de-select answers. This removes the need to hold the Ctrl or Command keys while clicking in order to make multiple selections. It also allows Mobile App users to select multiple answers on activities where requested (as listed for the Mobile Apps in New Features above).
In addition, we have enhanced the visual indication of which answer(s) are currently selected, to make selected or submitted answers clearer for students. - Reply Texts to students submitting Activity answers via SMS have been updated to ensure they more clearly describe the problem when anything but a “success” response is returned.
- Documentation additions to provide clear steps on browser configurations needed to allow Echo360 to open inside of a frame, as well as for viewing LIVE streams. New articles for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox have been created, all contained in the General Requirements topic area of the online help.
- Other Documentation updates as requested.
Fixes
- New users entering Echo360 through their LMS are again having their First and Last Name populated by the LMS.
- Various fixes for the CSV Import for Section > Update LMS Course IDs, to include changing the header in the sample CSV file as well as making the “optional” fields truly optional, as long as data resides in one or the other of the two.
- The CSV Import for Enrollments is again working properly and provides a proper sample CSV file for downloading.
- PowerPoint Ribbon Add-on version 1.3.5 has been released, and includes the following fixes:
- Presentations not tied to Echo360 are no longer showing the notification dialog box when opened if the user is not currently logged into the ribbon.
- Publishing will no longer fail if the /temp/ directory is deleted while the Ribbon is running.