Group notification new page not working

[Gordon McLeod]

Notifications are not being sent for new pages added to group areas, although send notifications box is ticked - Mahara 1.40 on LAMP server. Goup notifications had been working on 1.3 version before upgrade - including existing groups where it has now stopped working. Pages submitted to individual portfolios ARE triggering e-mail notifications from same site & cron status report indicates it is running normally.

[Richard Mansfield (richard-mansfield)]

A group's "Send notifications" checkbox controls whether view access notifications are sent to all group members whenever a user shares a page with the group. It doesn't have anything to do with group pages. In 1.5 the checkbox is labelled "Shared page notifications" to hopefully make this clearer.

[Gordon McLeod (g-mcleod1)]

Sorry Richard,
I'm not sure this clarifes the problem.
In version 1.3, when a new page was created for the group the members recieved a notification. In version 1.4 (at least in our installation) they don't get the notification - despite the checkbox being ticked. Are you saying that in order to get the notification the user must actively add the group in the share page options? I thought the group was already added by default as shared if the page was created in that group area?
I welcome further clarification, because as far as I can tell our settings are correct but group notifications aren't being sent when new pages are created (but 'send notifications' is ticked). Is there something else I need to check to troubleshoot this (what/how)?
Thanks.

[Richard Mansfield (richard-mansfield)]

Hi Gordon, you're right, there used to be view access notifications for all new group pages. But are you sure you got them in 1.3? I think I've found the culprit (bug #627853, commit 473a309db4) - it basically suppresses the notifications for any view access that's added automatically during view creation (rather than access that's deliberately granted on the view access page).

This was changed before 1.3 came out though. So when I go back to the 1.3.0 release, I don't get the view access notifications for new group views, but when I go back a bit further to 1.3.0rc1 (or 1.2), I *do* get them (but in 1.3.0rc1 I also get view access notifications for the group homepage whenever a group is created).

We could add them back in, but I guess we'd still want to avoid doing it for the group homepage and we might want to think more carefully about unintended spammage, because these notifications would be sent as soon as the view is created, even if it's empty and/or unfinished.

In the meantime for 1.4, all you can really do as a workaround is generate notifications for a particular page by going to the access screen, removing access for the group and then adding it again.

[Gordon McLeod (g-mcleod1)]

Hi Richard,
The tutor who first reported the problem to me was one of our early adopters, and had been using Mahara since 1.2 - but he only picked up on the issue at start of term after we moved to 1.4, so it's possible it wasn't working earlier but I'd have thought it would have been noticed quicker as his group activity is prolific.

I guess having notifications sent to the group by default would be the prefered option (if the checkbox is ticked) as having to go in manually to remove then re-enable group share seems a bit messy. I agree about the notifications being sent too early though - had encountered that before. Would it be possible to suppress the notification until the page creator clicks save - and at that time trigger the notifications to any users added?

I'd wonder whether you'd actually need to prevent notifications on a group homepage - unless it triggers a new e-mail every time there is a change. Might be useful to be sent a link to the group homepage as soon as you're added to the group, but doing that during group creation would be tricky as when users are added depends entirely on how access is controlled.
Thanks, Gordon.

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hello Gordon,

I find that many users do not click "Save" when creating a page, but may just click on the back button. That's how many end up with "Untitled" pages.

In 1.5 the process of creating pages changes. When you create a page, you get to the title & description screen and clicking on "save" takes you to the page editor. But that doesn't mean that any content will be added.

Cheers
Kristina

[Richard Mansfield (richard-mansfield)]

Hi Gordon, yeah it's going to be a bit tricky to delay the access notifications because as Kristina says, we don't ever know exactly when a page is saved or completed. The page is created (with group access added) as soon as you click "Create page", but it's empty at that point. Maybe we could get around this with a notification type for new pages rather than access, and another checkbox option.

[Gordon McLeod (g-mcleod1)]

Hi,

Yes - fair point about not being sure when the page is finished. Have to admit the 'untitled' thing is a bit of a gripe I've come across - though not one I'd reported. I now make a point of taking users to that tab to fill in a title when running inductions, but it's easy to miss. Delighted to hear Kristina outline the change for 1.5, it makes complete sense. I look forward to that (and the other coming changes).

It would be nice to have an elegant way of adding group access to a new page and send notification automatically when the page is ready but there's no way for the system to know unless the user clicks a 'done' button. Appreciate you all taking time to feedback on issues.

Cheers, Gordon.

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hi Gordon,

In Mahara 1.10 we expanded the notification settings for group pages and pages shared with a group. See http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.10/groups/create_group.html#index-2

Cheers
Kristina