Cannot update "Administrator" Role with access to new Categories

DoyceT

Hi all,

I'm on 2.1.3 stable, and we're currently adding some new categories in anticipation of next semester.

These categories are restricted access: only a single student and the registrar can see them.

The registrar, because of her duties, uses the Administrator role, since she's pretty much doing everything, everywhere, when it comes to setting up new users and categories.

The problem: once the new categories are created, she goes into the roles/permissions for Administrator and tries to give herself full access to the newly created categories, but only about four and a half of the new category checkboxes actually save as checked - the rest remain blank, and can't be saved with Access checked, by either her or me, unless we uncheck some other category, first.

It seems as though we've hit some kind of limit on the number of categories the forum can keep track of, or the number of restricted categories a specific Role can access, or the number of access checkboxes a Role can have checked, or... something of that nature. Whatever it is, we can't add any more access to this user - obviously that's a problem.

Other potentially relevant information:

• Right now, I have 233 rows in GND_Category - I expect that number to increase by at least 50% in the next semester.
• In my local php.ini file in /public_html directory, I have set max_input_vars to 2000, which should handle table indexing problems for Category rows over 200, in theory, but... well, something's still amiss, clearly.

Any pointers are, as always, much appreciated.

DoyceT

As an example, here's a screenshot of the categories we're trying to give Administrator access to. If I check all the names on that screenshot, so that every checkbox is checked, hit save, then go back in and edit Administrator, this is what I see.

hgtonight

I have a hunch that you are hitting the input var limit on your PHP config.

How many categories do you have? I am guessing it is near/over 100.

Try changing the max_input_vars php setting to 2000. If this solves your problem, there is no real fix that Vanilla can provide. Serializing is an option, but I think this is a really large edge case.

DoyceT

@hgtonight said:
I have a hunch that you are hitting the input var limit on your PHP config.

How many categories do you have? I am guessing it is near/over 100.

Try changing the max_input_vars php setting to 2000. If this solves your problem, there is no real fix that Vanilla can provide. Serializing is an option, but I think this is a really large edge case.

Is this the informatino you're looking for?

@DoyceT said:
Other potentially relevant information:

• Right now, I have 233 rows in GDN_Category - I expect that number to increase by at least 50% in the next semester.
• In my local php.ini file in /public_html directory, I have set max_input_vars to 2000, which should handle table indexing problems for Category rows over 200, in theory, but... well, something's still amiss, clearly.

hgtonight

Wow, I totally missed that last half of your opening discussion.

Category sorting requires 5 x #Categories variables. Permissions requires at least 10 x #Categories since there are 10 permissions per category.

This seems like a misuse of the category system, perhaps we could help you change your usage?

DoyceT

Well, I have ~55 students, ~20 courses, ~10 faculty, and the following usage needs:

1. A half-dozen semi-public forum areas for subsets of the student body. One for Thesis students, for example - another for Alumni. Et cetera.
2. One sub-category for each course. Where the day to day discussions, assignments, submissions for each course happen.
3. One sub-category under each course for each of the students to talk only with the faculty running the course: private 1-on-1 spaces used for 'office hours.'
4. One sub-category for each faculty member where the register (and only the registrar can post stuff just for that faculty member (course rosters, stuff like that). Private mailbox, basically, since you can't attach files to private messages.
5. One sub-category for each student where the registrar can post grades at the end of each semester (again, this is essentially a private mailbox, since you can't attach files to private messages.

All this stuff must, for record-keeping and regulatory purposes, live and be available on the online campus forum - in other words, we can't offline the 'end of semester grades' to direct emails, because the grades need to be (a) private but also (b) recorded on the same site on which the course itself took place - this is national regulatory stuff, and non-negotiable.

I'd love more elegant ways to handle this that don't involve making a hundred new categories every semester, but I don't see a way to do it.

hgtonight

Does increasing the max_input_vars to 3000 solve your issue?

I would think making FileUpload compatible with the PM system and adding some well placed buttons would fulfill many of your requirements. Is this correct?

DoyceT

@hgtonight said:
Does increasing the max_input_vars to 3000 solve your issue?

Yep - once you told me the the 10x thing, I changed that and everything worked a treat.

I would think making FileUpload compatible with the PM system and adding some well placed buttons would fulfill many of your requirements. Is this correct?

Yyyyes. Conditional yes. I'd probably need the PM system to be a little more user friendly (or just do more training on it), but given all the gradebook things would be in the registrar's outbox, that would probably work.

I have certainly seen 'inbox' functionality on some forum platforms that would do what we need.

Bleistivt

Looks like you would need a groups feature, if something like that will ever be created for the open source version.

A pragmatic solution, that wouldn't require you to change your setup would be hacking the Form class to send all data in serialized form.

peregrine

One sub-category under each course for each of the students to talk only with the faculty running the course: private 1-on-1 spaces used for 'office hours.'

could be pm - no need for category maybe?

One sub-category for each faculty member where the register (and only the registrar can post stuff just for that faculty member (course rosters, stuff like that). Private mailbox, basically, since you can't attach files to private messages.

Isn't that why they invented e-mail? with attachments.

DoyceT

@peregrine said:
Isn't that why they invented e-mail? with attachments.

Yeah, except all the conversations that might pertain to the students need (as I understand it) to be in one location, per regulatory enforcement.

Basically, the only copy of a student's work can't be 'sitting in a faculty member's Inbox' - it has to have passed through and been saved somewhere 'within' the program.

Doyce: One sub-category under each course for each of the students to talk only with the faculty running the course: private 1-on-1 spaces used for 'office hours.'

peregrine: could be pm - no need for category maybe?

Yeah, except those conversations often - in fact, almost always - involve file attachments. Final paper submissions and things like that.

Basically, all those things need to be 'on file' with the program, not just sitting in the faculty member's Inbox, and the solution we have for that at this point is that they need to get to the faculty member via forum file attachments.

Wouldn't be a real problem, except those conversations also have to be private, because a student might end up talking to one faculty about another faculty or whatever. There are as many rules about this (FERPA) as there are for medical records privacy (HIPAA), and you can't just have a single "Student Name" folder that all the faculty/registrar can see for the same reason your files at the clinic aren't available to all the doctors that work there, until you specifically OK them.

DoyceT

In short, I'm open to solutions other than the method we're currently using, but

• (a) some of the tools (like PMs) that could replace this method need a functionality upgrade before they could replace what we're doing and
• (b) there are regulatory requirements that restrict what (if anything) we can roll off to otherwise-logical third-party tools (like email).

peregrine

maybe some of your problems will be solved when 2.3 is rolled out. Not sure if the advanced editor plugin will give inbox with attachments feature will be part of the upgrade (as it currently works on this forum) or when .

maybe linc can shed some light, if this will be part of 2.3 when it comes out.

peregrine

In lieu of lack of groups, Here's another thought. Have two forums, one for registrar and everyone. and one for faculty and students. With a link to go from one to the other and a jsconnect to tie the login to both.

on the administrative forum - just grades and rosters.

on the second, just falculty-student course participation.

DoyceT

@Bleistivt said:
Looks like you would need a groups feature, if something like that will ever be created for the open source version.

After a little research on that feature - yes, groups would be great for our situation.