[Course unit/outline] Updating the sidebar structure issue

[PKulkoRaccoonGang]

The sidebar is updated by publishing changes to the unit. Let's consider the case of changing access to the unit for the enrollment tracks or content groups. If a staff member assigns a track from the unit page, the changes trigger the publish, and therefore the sidebar structure changes after clicking the publish button. But if a staff configures accesses for a unit from the outline page, no trigger is received, so the sidebar remains the same as the last published version.

Unit page:

Change the access setting for a “Published and live“ unit

The draft state is triggered by saving the access changes

Outline page:

Changing the access for the “Welcome to the Open edX® platform“ unit

After saving the unit remains “Live“

[mariajgrimaldi]

I played around with content groups and the side bar, and here's what I found:

• As course staff, I configure a unit in a live subsection as visible for Content Group A
• Using masquerading in the LMS, I attempted to view the units from the Content Group A and Content Group B pov:

Screencast.from.02-06-24.11.00.04.webm

Although I cannot see the unit when viewing as Content Group B from the sidebar, I cannot see it with Content Group A either. The course outline behaves correctly.

• As a student, I review the course material using the sidebar.

Screencast.from.02-06-24.11.04.54.webm

As you see, as a student, I cannot see the unit in the sidebar cause I'm not part of the cohort associated with the content group. After the course's staff adds the student, I see the unit in the sidebar.

According to my tests, masquerading is not working correctly, but the rest seems to work as expected. Was this scenario what you described? I didn't quite understand the report, so I need some clarification.

Thank you!

[mariajgrimaldi]

FYI @GlugovGrGlib @arbrandes @brian-smith-tcril

[GlugovGrGlib]

@mariajgrimaldi I believe the issue has a confusing language, from my understanding with "sidebar structure" in this issue it was referenced to Course Outline on the New Course Outline page in Course Authoring MFE.

So this bug report is not related to the new Left side Navigation Sidebar, only to Course Outline page in Course Authoring

I was able to reproduce this issue in Redwood sandbox, please see the corrected STR.

STR:

On the Unit Page

• On the unit page, click manage access for the unit.
• Select content groups you want restrict access to.
• Click save, and see that unit now has a Draft state.

• Publish a unit.

Course Outline

• Go to course outline in the Studio
• Select an already published unit in Course Outline and click Configure from the three dots menu.
• Restrict access to specific content groups. Click save.
• See that unit state wasn't changed to Draft, but stays published.

ER:

• When updating access restriction settings for a unit from course outline, unit should be set to Draft state.

[GlugovGrGlib]

Note to the STR above:

I have checked the Legacy Studio Course outline page, the behavior is similar to the new Course Outline page.
So this issue may be Not A Bug.
But behavior is still confusing.

[crathbun428]

To me this might be a bug with how masquerading + the sidebar works when a staff user masquerades as a particular Group member to view course content. In the screenshot below, I created 2 content groups (A and B). I hid the unit shown below from content Group B. When I view the course as Group B, I still see the unit name of the course that's hidden in the sidebar nav, but I am shown a message that says the content is unavailable to me. Not great, but not absolutely terrible.

The good news is I can confirm what Maria says above, this only happens when I masquerade as Group X or Group Y. It doesn't happen live for members in these groups when those members are logged in. It also doesn't happen when I masquerade as a particular individual user in a user group (that masquerading works just fine).

[mariajgrimaldi]

To sum up, the sidebar + content groups behave weirdly in some scenarios mentioned above. Since the main functionality works, this is not a blocker, but we'd like to fix it.

@brian-smith-tcril @arbrandes @GlugovGrGlib: is there someone we can escalate this to?
@crathbun428: does the priority for this issue change?

Thank you!

[crathbun428]

@mariajgrimaldi - Yes, I'd say this is slightly lower in priority given this information (medium). I can update this in the board.

To me this is less important than the left-sidebar taking up half the page in the indigo theme since that affects 100% of the people using it, not a fraction like this one (though I realize from Brian Smith that this is likely a bigger fix than can be accommodated in time for the Redwood release).

[mariajgrimaldi]

Thank you @GlugovGrGlib, for the clarification. I didn't understand this report, so I was far off in my investigation.

⚠️ For others reviewing this issue: please, refer to this comment for the correct info: #1013 (comment)

I opened a new issue to address what Chelsea and I reported above: openedx/frontend-app-learning#1446

[mariajgrimaldi]

I'm closing this issue in favor of #1316. If you think this is a mistake, please reach out. Thanks!