Absorb 5: 5.55 Release Notes

This release is planned for deployment on December 17, 2017.
Please note: all features listed here are subject to change prior to deployment. Releases are deployed at 8:00 PM MST. Users may experience errors, or be logged out of their session when using the LMS at that time.

Admin

View Activity Permission
Admin roles no longer require the Edit Enrollment or Edit Activity permissions in order to view lesson activity. With only the View permissions granted, Admins will now be able to see non-editable lesson activity data.

Multiple Outbound SSO Support
Absorb now supports multiple Service Provider Initiated outbound SSO connections. Once set up by Admins, this allows end-users to access third-party sites and resources without needing to enter additional credentials. SSO setup has been moved from the Users tab in Portal Settings to the dedicated SSO area. Please read our Outgoing SAML 2.0 Single Sign-On for more information.

Admin

Department Impersonation (New Learner Experience)
Admins now have the ability to see how the portal appears as a Learner in a specific department, either during or after applying changes via the Template editor. Any changes saved will be view-able by the Admin, including dashboard layouts, menu, catalog page display, customized footer, etc. Navigating to pages in the Learner Interface will reflect these changes as well until the "Return to Admin Template" button is used. Please read the Creating Department Themes article for more information.

Tile Container Labels (New Learner Experience)
Labels can now be assigned to Tile Containers for the Public and Private Dashboards. This provides Admins more context on what is inside each container when they are collapsed. Admins also have the option to make these labels visible to Learners via a toggle next to the label definition, which will display as a heading for the container within the Dashboard.

Admin

Marking ILC Attendance Sort Logic
When marking attendance for an ILC, Absorb previously displayed names in alphabetical order by first name. This has been changed to sort by last name. 

Default Courses Displayed (New Learner Experience)
In the New Learner Experience, the default number of courses displayed in the My Courses and the Catalog areas has been increased from 20 to 30. Learners can opt to view the next 30 items by clicking on "Load More".

Admin

Default Logo URL (New Learner Experience)
The default URL which takes Learners to the dashboard, and is used for all logos uploaded in the Templates editor, is now locked until the Override Logo Default URL toggle is enabled. This avoids the URL from being unintentionally removed.

FAQ Search Improvement (New Learner Experience)
When a Learner submits a search request, Absorb will match keywords to both questions and answers. Note: Short answers will not be searched as they have been deprecated in the New Learner Experience.

MOV Files for Task Upload
Learners can now upload .MOV file types directly to Absorb for Task lessons. This provides Learners a simplified experience for uploading videos from iOS and other devices that use the MOV format natively.