31 December 2017, 17:43

Dear Mahara,

I've set up a couple new installations and have a recurrent problem that I cannot resolve. The inbox often (almost always) reflects 0 unread even when there are multiple unread messages in the Inbox. I have tried pivoting Notifications back and forth from Email to Inbox but the problem seems recurrent.

BEST CASE SCENARIO.

I would love it if I could keep my users getting an email notification and also when they log in and look on top it shows the accurate number of unread messages.... That way if they log in without having looked at their emails, they can see the unread message number and then be prompted to go read messages.

As it is currently, I can force emails to come but then a user would see "0 unread messages" and possible not scroll to check further.

Does this make sense? Am I the corrupter of an installation?

Thank you. Happy New Year to All,

Jonathan

31 December 2017, 18:25

This is me again. I notice the following.

If as admin I set users 'Message from other Users' to Inbox then

a) The inbox will correctly report the inbox count of messages for NEW USERS

b) Existing users to not seem to get any admin-pushed Notifications changes, only NEW USERS

c) If a user gets the notification in their inbox, the DO NOT also get an email. It appears that Mahara goves EITHER the inbox count or the email of a new message, not BOTH.

Am I correct?

03 January 2018, 16:38

Hello Jonathan,

The inbox count is a bit of a tricky one as we don't know when people read their emails. ;-) That's why you will always see "0 unread messages" if all notifications have the delivery method "Email". If some notifications are delivered only to the inbox, then these count towards the "unread messages" and are also highlighted in bold in the inbox.

If you change the admin setting for a default notification, only new users are affected as you cannot change the settings for existing users since that is out of your control (unless you update their accounts via a CSV file or the database).

I hope that helps shedding some light onto the message count.

Cheers

Kristina

03 January 2018, 17:37

Hi Kristina, this is really helpful and I thought the same as I was again reflecting on these behaviors... I think setting it to email for all before user creation work... It pumps things to their inbox and I can actually message the group telling them how to change notifications... and then they are on their own.

With thanks for your response. Love when message boards to what message boards are supposed to do - increase learning and efficiency. Thanks! Happy New Year!

04 January 2018, 21:31

Hello Jonathan,

A happy new year to you, too. :-)

Mahara often only sets defaults and then leaves it up to the learners to make changes and configure it the way they want. Some of those freedoms may be a bit overwhelming to some when they are not used to similar software or if their favorite systems function differently.

Since Mahara is open source, you can make adjustments and see if changing the functionality of the count would make a difference to your students. Sometimes trialling things like that is the best way to get feedback as the new functionality is experienced in real life.

Cheers

Kristina