Kaleidos - help from Kaleidos users needed on an alerts issue

[Andie]

Can someone using Kaleidos help save my sanity, as I'm in danger of going mad with this problem??

 

I didn't receive an email alert about an Interest Group created by our LEA. I just stumbled across it in my Personal Space. When I enquired about why I didn't get an alert, it was suggested that I didn't have my email address in my profile page. But I'd added that during the portal admin training - using the Settings web part on the Staff Home page.

 

Then another LEA user complained when they created Interest Groups in school no one was being alerted to the groups by email. They had added members as individuals, not groups, as the latter can cause problems with alerts, but no alerts had been generated.

 

So I raised this with RM. They think, after I hinted, that the likely cause is that users (myself included) haven't added their email addresses to their Personal Space profiles (as opposed to their profiles on the Staff Home). But that is because no one told them to do that in the training, I don't think it says to do that in the manual, and the Settings web part isn't on the Personal Space site by default - users have to add it.

 

I have been playing around with updating the Profile on both the Staff Home and the Personal Space, and they don't seem to update each other, which seems to be what users would expect as the information all relates to their username. The LEA Interest Group has loads of members, who have all done the portal admin training, but if you bring up the user list for that group only 5% show any email address against their name. Mine is only there because I added it in manually to the user list.

 

I have been going round in circles with this one with RM. I have created a test Interest Group on my Personal Space and added the users who have done the training, but so far no one seems to have received an alert.

 

Am I going completely mad?? Have I missed something fundamental about Interest Groups and alerts? Can someone else out there, using this package, give me a definitive answer to this issue? Or point me to the relevant part of the manual that tells you what you must do to get alerts working properly?

[russdev]

My understanding is you goto change profile information and then edit the settings and enter address in there.

 

If got any problems give me a buzz and will try and help you..

 

 

Russ

[Andie]

My understanding is you goto change profile information and then edit the settings and enter address in there.

 

If got any problems give me a buzz and will try and help you..

 

 

Russ

 

Sorry. Not making myself clear again.

 

I know how to enter my email address in change profile. I have done so on the Staff Home page. My issue/problem is that, having entered my email address into the profile on the Staff Home page, I am not getting email alerts when I am added to an Interest Group. Other users in this LEA are having the same problem.

 

This may be because I also have to put the settings web part onto my Personal Space, click on Change Profile, and enter my email address there too. But I can't find any place in the manuals, or was not told on the training that this was necessary, and I wanted a user of Kaleidos to try and confirm that I needed to do this. My belief was that Kaleidos was an integrated package, and that I would only have to enter information about myself once. It seems that I am now being told that I have to enter the same information onto every site I have access to, even though I log in with one username.

 

[russdev]

Sorry. Not making myself clear again.

 

I know how to enter my email address in change profile. I have done so on the Staff Home page. My issue/problem is that, having entered my email address into the profile on the Staff Home page, I am not getting email alerts when I am added to an Interest Group. Other users in this LEA are having the same problem.

 

This may be because I also have to put the settings web part onto my Personal Space, click on Change Profile, and enter my email address there too. But I can't find any place in the manuals, or was not told on the training that this was necessary, and I wanted a user of Kaleidos to try and confirm that I needed to do this. My belief was that Kaleidos was an integrated package, and that I would only have to enter information about myself once. It seems that I am now being told that I have to enter the same information onto every site I have access to, even though I log in with one username.

 

 

Well in theroy cant see why would not work as should just enter email you get the alert.

 

hmm

 

 

Russell

[Andie]

Well in theory can't see why would not work as should just enter email you get the alert.

 

hmm

 

Russell

 

My feeling exactly, but for some reason it ain't working as expected in this LEA at least. RM have agreed that something's not right, and are now investigating the issue. To be fair to their support guys, they have always responded promptly to my requests, and even if I don't like the reply (ie. "it can't be done or it doesn't have that functionality") I can't fault them for pursuing a problem and not fobbing me off straight away.

 

However, something odd is happening with profiles. I emailed one user of Kaleidos in this LEA directly using the address that came up when I clicked her name in a discussion board, and she emailed back to say that she had changed the email address in her profile days ago from her home address to her work address, and now realised that it wasn't updating elsewhere on the system!

 

Russell, I don't know how far down the line you are with using Kaleidos, and whether you have Interest Groups and discussion boards set up, and I appreciate you are already busy. But if you do get a moment, can you just experiment by changing your email address in your profile and then seeing if that change is replicated on other parts of the portal where your profile can be accessed? Do you know if alerts are working for your Interest Groups? I know it is just as quick in a small school to tell people you've created a group, but Kaleidos is supposed to mean we can create groups across clusters of schools for collaboration, and if alerts aren't working then it doesn't bode well for the rest of the system.

 

With thanks in advance for any help. And if there are any other Kaleidos users out there...!!

[Andie]

Anyone?? Surely there must be a user base out there in all these edugeekers....

[russdev]

Sorry been busy recently i will reply to this post later tonight..

 

Russ

[Andie]

Sorry been busy recently i will reply to this post later tonight..

 

Russ

 

Busy I can cope with. It's being ignored that upsets me...

 

But, surely, in all the thousands of edugeekers out there, there must be more than just you using Kaleidos???

[russdev]

 

Busy I can cope with. It's being ignored that upsets me...

 

But, surely, in all the thousands of edugeekers out there, there must be more than just you using Kaleidos???

 

Who said that...

[Andie]

It's ok folks. You can forget I ever asked. RM have replied and it seems the behaviour that was driving me mad in Kaleidos is normal in Sharepoint.

 

Basically, each site you have access to has it's own profile. So you have to add your email address to a profile for your Staff Home, and your Personal Space, and, as far as I can make out, each Interest Group you belong to as well. The profile isn't attached solely to your username, but to your username+site.

 

I am now going to lie down in a very dark room for a very long time...

[russdev]

lol

 

That make sense....

 

sorry didn't have time to look into it myself but it has just occurred to me I wouldn't be able to help as we are on different version to yourself..

 

Russ

[Andie]

lol

 

That make sense....

 

Russ

 

Does it??? Or were you being sarcastic?

 

I think what makes sense is that, if I log on, and get access to lots of "sites", then my user details are shared in one form for all those sites. But maybe i just like things to be simple - probably in the wrong job then.

[russdev]

But sharepoint is designed by ms so nosense is sense . Where is alex (edugeeks sharepoint god) when you want him..

 

Russ

[apearce]

I'm lying in bed try to catch up on some sleep lol

 

From the sound of what I've just read is, that RM have created a few webparts themselves, mainly this settings web part. This is not something that comes out of the box with sharepoint.

 

As I haven't got access to the RM system and never have, I can't tell you fully about how it works but here is how the alerts work in sharepoit

 

Your email address is stored in your active directory attribute and then brought forward to sharepoint. If you don't have it in AD you can enter it manually in your my site. When ever an email is sent it looks at the sharepoint database to get your email and then sends it.

 

As RM have created a settings web part it depends on what the relationship between the web part and your details stored in AD or your mysite.

 

Does that make sense?

 

I'm out for the rest of day but I'll check the post when I get back.

[russdev]

@alex

 

Sorry yes i know you have no access to rm system was wondering about standard share point view...

 

As for rm side will do some digging this way...

 

Russ

[Andie]

Thanks for even thinking of pursuing this one. I have had my faith in the world of IT restored once again by this fantastic site.

 

Kaleidos (the RM system) works by allowing you to manually enter your email address, a display name and a note about yourself in something it calls a profile. By default, you get access to this on the home page of the main school group you belong to, through the settings web part that is there by default; if you are staff, this is the Staff home page, if you are a pupil, this is the Pupil home page, etc. However, I have no idea where that info is stored and it does not appear to be linked to the username that you log in with. From the home page you can then get to what is called your Personal Space. But RM have said this is a separate site, even though you access this from the default home page and without logging on again. RM have said that there is a separate profile attached to this Personal Space; but you can't get to add your email address, display name and so on to it manually unless you add the setting web part to your Personal Space page. You can add a completely different set of details to this profile; the two profiles don't update each other. I know because i tested it and sent the screenshots to RM. On top of that, users can create Interest Groups. These can be created on the Staff/Pupil site you belong to, or on the Personal Space you have. These also seem to have profiles attached to them, which may or may not get their details from the site they are attached to. After some editing, I actually had three different profiles with completely different details all accessed through my one username. Are you following all this out there? No? Thought not...

 

The problem with our LEA is that no one had told us about needing to add the settings web part to our Personal Spaces. And some of the Interest Groups which were created, and which presumably took user details from those Personal Spaces, were then not sending out alerts to members about those Interest Groups. We all thought that we had done all the profile stuff when we added our email addresses to our profiles on our Staff home pages.

 

Back to the dark room now...

[saundersmatt]

It's ok folks. You can forget I ever asked. RM have replied and it seems the behaviour that was driving me mad in Kaleidos is normal in Sharepoint.

 

Basically, each site you have access to has it's own profile. So you have to add your email address to a profile for your Staff Home, and your Personal Space, and, as far as I can make out, each Interest Group you belong to as well. The profile isn't attached solely to your username, but to your username+site.

 

I am now going to lie down in a very dark room for a very long time...

 

Lol, i've just been playing around with ours and it displays the same (broken, in my opinion) functionality.

 

Shows how much we use it.

 

Matt

[Andie]

Thanks. At least I know that I'm probably not going mad!

[Andie]

lol

 

That make sense....

 

sorry didn't have time to look into it myself but it has just occurred to me I wouldn't be able to help as we are on different version to yourself..

 

Russ

 

As we are going to be migrated to LP v2 in september, I guess we are on version 1. What version are you using?

 

I am further annoyed at the moment with the fact that there seems to be no proper compatibility between the versions of Kaleidos. I thought one of the big reasons behind LEA having a whole Learning Platform approach was so that all schools could share information. But RM can't migrate everyone to the new version at the same time (understandably). Because you can't access the new version sites from the old version sites you are cut off from sites that are migrated before you. The main LEA site was migrated weeks ago, and has a support section on it for Kaleidos within the LEA, but our school isn't being migrated until mid-September, so we are cut off from any updates that appear on the LEA site until then.

 

I know that forwards compatibility isn't easy with such a large beast as a LP. But doesn't this make a mockery of the whole information sharing thing? Anyone know if other platforms have this kind of problem when being updated to new versions?

[Andie]

We have now been updated to version 2. The LEA are now having to run another lot of training sessions, less than a year after the training for version 1...

 

Anyway, the profile thing seems to have been fixed (Yippee!!!!), and the structure of the platform seems to be a lot better - much more sensible. The look is better too. The My Desktop thing is annoying, and the new structure is going to confuse any teachers who have just got used to the old one, but I am cautiously optimistic. We start to roll this out for real to teachers here in November.

[PaulDH]

Glad to see you are now happier with this product Andie, but would you recommend it?

 

We are embarking on the road to Kaleidos and I need to know if I should buy new walking boots

 

Isn't technology a wonderful invention :sign4:

 

Paul