Removal of BlueJeans

February 23, 2021

Bug fixes and other user-facing changes

1. BlueJeans no longer available as a meeting type option. As part of the U-M BlueJeans Retirement, BlueJeans has been removed as an available meeting type in ROHQ. The remaining meeting types are Zoom and In Person. Queues that had BlueJeans enabled have been switched to Zoom (BlueJeans un-enabled, Zoom enabled). Meetings in Queue (i.e. unstarted meetings) that used BlueJeans meeting type have been switched to Zoom. Meetings in Progress (i.e. started meetings) that used BlueJeans meeting type remain as BlueJeans type to allow them to finish meeting. Any remaining BlueJeans meetings will be removed at a later date prior to the final BlueJeans retirement in May. (#303 #317)

2. Remove Meeting Type even if there is a Meeting in Progress. Previously, if hosts attempted to change the allowed meeting types in a queue's settings, they would not be able to remove a meeting type if there was a Meeting in Queue and/or a Meeting in Progress that used this meeting type. This has been changed, and now hosts may remove an allowed meeting type even if there is a Meeting in Progress that uses this meeting type. The Meeting in Progress will not be impacted, and will be permitted to continue meeting using the disallowed meeting type. Hosts are still not permitted to remove a meeting type if a Meeting in Queue uses that meeting type. In order to remove the allowed meeting type, hosts may create the meeting/mark ready for attendee on all Meetings in Queue which use this meeting type, then remove the meeting type. (#320)

3. End Meeting button in Meetings in Progress changed to trash icon. After testing with hosts, the ROHQ team found that hosts were confused by the language of "End Meeting" as used in the button to remove a Meeting in Progress. The button has been changed to a red trash icon to match the way that hosts remove a Meeting in Queue. (#272)

4. Errors show by the relevant field. If an error occurs when a host attempts to add a new host to their queue (either in Add Queue or an existing queue's Settings) or when a host attempts to manually add an attendee in Meetings in Queue, the errors will show just above the field to make them more visible. For example, if a host attempts to add another host who has never logged on to ROHQ, the "Add Host: [uniqname] is not a valid user. Please make sure the uniqname is correct, and that they have logged onto Remote Office Hours Queue at least once." error will now show just above the Uniqname field instead of at the top of the page. (#239)

5. Zoom Call-In Information for Hosts. If a host opts to call in via telephone to a ROHQ Zoom meeting without joining on their computer or mobile device, the host will need to use their host key to start the meeting. ROHQ will now include instructions for hosts on how to find their host key in Join Info where the information on calling in is found. (#301 #315)

When calling in by phone, you will need to enter a host key to start the meeting. Find your host key at the bottom of your Zoom profile. DO NOT share your host key with anyone!

6. Attendee 'Cancel My Meeting' pop-up language. Previously, if an attendee had a Meeting in Progress and they clicked Cancel My Meeting to remove the meeting, the pop-up confirmation language referred to "Leaving the line" the meeting instead of "Cancelling" the meeting, which was confusing since the attendee was no longer in line. The language now refers to "Cancelling". (Note that if a meeting is in queue, the pop-up language still uses "Leave the line" language instead of "Cancel") (#261)

Are you sure you want to cancel the meeting? By cancelling the meeting, you will no longer meet with the queue host(s). If you change your mind, you will have to re-join at the end of the line.

7. Attendee Queue Closed Message. The message that attendees see if they have a meeting in progress, but the queue has been closed has been adjusted to acknowledge that their meeting is in progress instead of in queue. (Note that if a meeting is in queue, the language still uses "meeting in queue" language instead of "meeting in progress" language) (#300)

This queue has been closed by the host, but your meeting is still in progress. If you are unsure if your meeting will still happen, please contact the host.

8. BlueJeans-specific text removed from homepage. Prior to this release, unauthenticated users viewing the homepage would see a message, "Join or host a queue for office hours over BlueJeans!" This release changes this language to "Join or host a queue for office hours!" (#304)

Non-user-facing changes

#303 #311 #317

Meetings in Progress, Just-in-Time Meetings, and Zoom Integration

December 17, 2020

New user-facing features

1. Meetings in Progress. All hosts will now see two sections on the Manage page view of open queues: Meetings in the Queue and Meetings in Progress. Meetings in Progress separates active meetings from those waiting in the queue. Meetings in Queue displays the meetings waiting to be started. (#226 #227 #230 #231 #232 #244 #247 #270 #271 #269)
   

• When an attendee joins the queue, their meeting must first be assigned to a host before the meeting can be started ("starting" means clicking "Ready for Attendee" or "Create Meeting" and therefore moving the meeting to Meetings in Progress). Until the host is assigned, Meeting Actions will show "Please assign host." Queues with only one host will have the host automatically assigned to the sole host for your convenience.
• Before a host is assigned, attendees may change between allowed meeting types for the queue if there are multiple (for example, change from In Person to BlueJeans). Once a host is assigned, attendees may not change the meeting type.
• Once a host is assigned, only the assigned host may start or delete the meeting. However, the assigned host can be changed or unassigned by clicking in the Host drop-down to allow another host to take these actions.
• Once the meeting is started, the meeting moves to Meetings in Progress.
• Before an attendee has joined the queue, the number of people in line they see reflects the number of meetings in Meetings in Queue. Meetings in Progress do not count toward this number.
• Once an attendee has joined the queue, their place in line matches the Queue # visible to the host; this number also does not factor in Meetings in Progress. This gives attendees a more accurate idea of when their turn may be coming up.
  
• Once a meeting is in progress, the available actions are to End Meeting, and, if the meeting is BlueJeans or Zoom, Join Meeting.
• Once a meeting is in progress, the host cannot be changed.
• The assigned host of the meeting can Join Meeting as Host. Other hosts can Join Meeting as Guest.
• End Meeting removes the meeting from Meetings in Progress. If the attendee wants to meet again, they must rejoin the queue at the end of the line.
• End Meeting does NOT remove the BlueJeans or Zoom meeting from your BlueJeans or Zoom account. You can still see these meetings and any recordings you make if you access your BlueJeans or Zoom account outside of Remote Office Hours Queue.
• If attendees have opted in for SMS notifications, they receive a notification when their meeting is moved to Meetings in Progress.

2. Just in time meetings. Attendees cannot join BlueJeans or Zoom meetings until an assigned host creates the meeting by clicking Create Meeting. If an attendee has enabled SMS notifications, they will receive an SMS message when you create the meeting. (#148 #228 #233 #264 #274 #283 #295)
   

• Before the meeting is created, attendees will be informed that the meeting is not yet created, and to pay attention to the page so they can join once it is created.
  
• Once the meeting is in progress, attendees will see a prompt to join the meeting (if BlueJeans or Zoom) or go to to the in person meeting location (if In Person).

3. Record the meetings you host. Record the meetings you host: The new just in time meeting feature allows individuals hosts to create meetings under their accounts in BlueJeans and or Zoom, where applicable, instead of under the account of the queue owner. This change permits each host to record their individual meetings if they choose to do so. Recordings from meetings in BlueJeans or Zoom can be found where recordings are stored for each videoconferencing platform (i.e. for Bluejeans, for Zoom Cloud Recordings, and on your device for Zoom Local Recordings).

4. Zoom now available as an additional meeting platform option for hosts with regular U-M Zoom accounts. Meeting hosts with regular U-M Zoom accounts now have the option to conduct Remote Office Hours Queue meetings in Zoom in addition to BlueJeans or in person. Zoom for Health users (most faculty, staff, and students in Michigan Medicine/Medical School, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Nursing) will need to continue using BlueJeans and/or in-person for the time being. (#9 #58 #241 #265 #275 #276 #280 #293 #294 )

• To enable Zoom on your existing queue, navigate to your queue, click Settings, check Zoom next to Meeting Types, and Save.
• All hosts of your queue MUST be members of regular U-M Zoom in order for Zoom to work for your queue. Any hosts who are members of Zoom for Health will not be able to use the queue if Zoom is enabled.
• You will need to authorize Remote Office Hours Queue to connect to your Zoom account. Learn how.

Bug fixes and other user-facing changes

5. My Meeting Queues ordering. Queues listed on your My Meetings Queues page are now ordered first so that open queues show before closed queues, then descending by how recently the queue was created (i.e. queues created more recently show before older queues). (#205)

6. Join Meeting blurb removed for in person meetings. If the meeting is in person, attendees will no longer be shown information that says the host will join the meeting when it is their turn since this is irrelevant to in-person meetings. (#235)

Non-user-facing changes

#242 #255 #256 #263 #266 #282 #286

SMS Notifications and Add Queue and Queue Settings Workflows

November 11, 2020

Release 1.3 of Remote Office Hours Queue is here! These changes are based on real user feedback -- please let us know what is important to you by submitting a ticket to the ITS Service Center and/or joining our Beta Tester group (login to join the group) to help us test new ideas. The next release will include Zoom as an online meeting option. This release sets us up for this functionality!

New user-facing features

1. SMS Notifications and Preferences Page. Users can add a US/Canada (+1 country code) phone number that can receive SMS (text) messages to the new Preferences page (accessible in the user dropdown--hover over your uniqname in the upper right while logged in) and enable the notification options they would like to receive. Hosts can receive an SMS notification if an attendee joins their queue which was previously empty, and attendees can receive an SMS notification when they move to the front of the line. (#23 #25 #109 #182 #184 #193 #210 #212 #215)

• Host notification: Someone joined your queue officehours.it.umich.edu/manage/[your queue ID] You opted in to receive these texts from U-M. Opt out at officehours.it.umich.edu/preferences/
• Attendee notification: It's your turn in queue officehours.it.umich.edu/queue/[your queue ID] You opted in to receive these texts from U-M. Opt out at officehours.it.umich.edu/preferences/

Note: only US/Canada phone number are supported due to technical limitations of sending international SMS messages with our SMS platform.

Hosts will be prompted to enable SMS notifications if their queue is empty:

No Meetings in Queue
Did you know? You can get notified by SMS (text) message when someone joins your empty queue by adding your cell phone number and enabling host notifications in your User Preferences.

Attendees will be prompted to enable SMS notifications if they join a queue and are NOT first in line:

Did you know? You can receive an SMS (text) message when it's your turn by by adding your cell phone number and enabling attendee notifications in your User Preferences.

2. Workflow for Creating Queues. When hosts create new queues, they will navigate through a workflow to input the name, description (if applicable), allowed meeting types (in-person and/or BlueJeans video conferencing), and other hosts. This workflow will help first-time users understand queue options and setup. New queues are created by clicking Add Queue from the Manage (My Meeting Queues) page. (#95)

3. Workflow for Managing Queue Settings. Management of queue settings, including the name, description, allowed meeting types, and hosts, as well as the option to permanently delete the queue, have been moved into a Settings page. Access the Settings page by clicking Settings in the upper right of your queue management page. This move helps to declutter the queue management page. (#94 #208 #221 )

Bug fixes and other user-facing changes

4. Form Validation Improvements. Validation of queue name, queue description, allowed meeting types, adding new queue hosts, and hosts manually adding attendees to their queue has been improved. Fields with invalid entries will be outlined in red, with a red error just below the field to clarify what needs to be fixed. (#183)
   

5. Attendee Must Confirm to Leave the Line. To help avoid attendees accidentally clicking to leave the line and therefore losing their place, attendees who click Leave the Line must now confirm in a pop-up that they want to leave the line. (#137)

6. Prompt to Refresh Page. If a user's session becomes stale (they become disconnected) and the page is unable to automatically reconnect, the user will see a prompt to refresh the page to fix the problem. (#168)

7. Usability and Accessibility Improvements. Various features have been improved for usability and accessibility, including color contrast and focus indicators. (#108 #133 #155 #156 #158 #159 #162 #198 #202 )

Non-user-facing changes

#186 #179 #188 #176 #224

Meeting Type Options, Agendas, and More

September 22, 2020

Release 1.2 of Remote Office Hours Queue is here! These changes are based on real user feedback -- please let us know what is important to you by submitting a ticket to the ITS Service Center and/or joining our Beta Tester group (login to join the group) to help us test new ideas. Future releases will include Zoom as an online meeting option and notifications for hosts and attendees. This release sets us up for this functionality!

New user-facing features

1. Hosts can set meeting type options. Hosts can now choose to allow students to attend office hours via an in person or online meeting by selecting the options on the “Manage Queue” page. (#77)
   

2. Attendees can now add an agenda to their meeting. When an attendee joins the queue, they can let the host(s) know what they wish to discuss by entering it in the “Agenda” field while they’re in queue. The field is limited to 100 characters, and the hosts of the queue can see this information by clicking the “Join Info” link for the attendee. (#17)

3. Attendee-view has been redesigned! To help attendees identify when it’s their turn and give them an idea of when to join the meeting, we’ve updated the layout of the attendee’s view when they join a queue:

   • Large text lets attendees know that they are in line
   • Position in queue, time joined, and the meeting agenda fields are separated out to bring more attention to these items.
   • Instructions on how to join are moved under the “Join Meeting” button to improve accessibility and to visually associate that information with the action. Banner messages have been updated to reflect this. (#8, #17, #118)

Bug fixes and other user-facing changes

4. Navigation links have been added to the header. To help attendees and hosts navigate through the app, we’ve added a “Home” link to the global navigation. Additionally, we’ve added a “Manage Queues” link to the user menu to help hosts quickly reach the queues they are part of.
   

5. Updated the BlueJeans international numbers link. As of May, U-M offers global premium calling for students, faculty, and staff calling into a BlueJeans meeting. We’ve updated the international numbers link in the attendee view to reflect this. (#83)

6. Description field changes. There is now a limit of 1000 characters in the Description field for a queue. There is a counter that shows how many characters have been used out of 1000. If too many characters have been added to the Description field:

   • The field is outlined in red
   • The limit text is changed to red
   • The limit text displays the number of characters over the limit that are in the Description field (#111, #107, #69)
     

7. Better Error Handling. We’ve improved how errors are displayed throughout the app.
   For hosts:

   • On the “Manage Queue” page, errors were occasionally not appearing when a different error was already shown. This should be fixed, and the appropriate error message should display at the top of the page when it occurs. (#67)
   • If a host is removed from a queue while they are on the “Manage” page, they will now see an error message. (#117, #118)

   For attendees:

   • If a queue is deleted while an attendee is still in line, the attendee will now see an error (#118)

8. Auto-Refresh Improvements. Instead of auto-refreshing at 3-second intervals, Remote Office Hours Queue will now auto-refresh instantly when a change is made. For example, if two hosts of the same queue both have the queue open, and one host closes the queue, the other host will see the queue status change to Closed instantly. This change was made for the following reasons:

   • Users see changes sooner
   • The refresh icon that displayed in the lower right while the page was refreshing is removed, minimizing distraction and improving accessibility
   • This change significantly improves the application's ability to scale for more users, improving speed and reliability and allowing us to prepare for features that will increase usage, such as Zoom integration

1.1.1 Hotfix for Error Logging

If a user is on a queue page (Manage Queue page or the queue page itself) and the queue is deleted, the user will now be redirected to a search that searches the queue ID. This is to eliminate an error logging issue where the application would repeatedly try to reach the page for the deleted queue and log an error every 3 seconds until the browser window was closed.

1.1 Open and Close Queues, Assign Meetings to Host, and more!

June 2, 2020

Announcing release 1.1 of Remote Office Hours Queue! These changes are based on real user feedback--please let us know what is important to you by submitting a ticket to the ITS Service Center and/or joining our Beta Tester group (login to join the group) to help us test new ideas.

Note: During the course of the work for this release, the codebase for Remote Office Hours Queue was moved from GitLab to GitHub. Some of these items refer to issues that were in GitLab. Links to GitLab require U-M Weblogin to access.

New user-facing features

1. Hosts can open and close their queues. All queues are open by default until a host decides to close them. Attendees can only join a queue if it is open. Closing a queue does not delete meetings in the queue. It only stops new attendees from joining the queue and allows a host to decide how they want to handle the remaining meetings. #18

2. Assign meetings in the queue to specific hosts. This functionality helps avoid confusion when multiple hosts are collaborating in a queue at the same time. Hosts can assign a meeting to themself before entering the meeting so other hosts see an attendee is being helped and can move on to the next meeting. #24

3. Clearer layout for a queue's “Meetings Up Next” section. The following information will be displayed for every meeting in the queue:

• the number/order in line
• the attendee’s name and uniqname
• assigned host if any and the ability to assign a host
• actions that can be taken on the meeting—Start Meeting, Join Info, or Delete
  

4. New Join Info button. Clicking “Join Info” provides additional information about each meeting, including the time the user joined the queue, the "location" of the meeting (currently the only option is BlueJeans--this is in preparation to release Zoom and in-person meetings as options in the future), and information on how the host can dial in to the meeting on a phone. #14 #29

5. Expanded dial-in options. Attendees will see expanded information on how to dial in to a meeting by phone. It will display a phone number for attendees in the USA and provide a link to show all international dial in options. #31

6. Breadcrumb navigation. Navigation "breadcrumbs" have been added to the top of the page to help users know where they are and find their way back to a previous page. #35

7. Administrative “Message of the Day” option. Remote Office Hours Queue administrators can post a "Message of the Day" to broadcast important information about the application to users, such as communication about new features or service outages. #48

Bug fixes and other user-facing improvements

1. If a user's session expires (i.e. they were logged in, but now they are logged out) while using Remote Office Hours Queue, they will be automatically redirected to U-M Weblogin and then back to the page they were on. This fixes a bug where users whose sessions expired were seeing errors when attempting to use Remote Office Hours Queue without knowing their session had expired.

2. If a host deletes a Remote Office Hours Queue meeting in BlueJeans directly without first deleting the associated meeting in Remote Office Hours Queue, users are still able to delete the associated meeting in Remote Office Hours Queue. This fixes a bug where users who deleted the meeting in BlueJeans directly saw an error when attempting to then delete the associated meeting in Remote Office Hours Queue. #41

3. The "Virtual Office Hours" header has been removed from the /manage page 1) because using "Virtual" instead of "Remote" is inconsistent, and 2) in favor of using the breadcrumbs mentioned in item 6 above to help ground the user in where they are. #36

4. Remote Office Hours Queue administrators can now view the Edit page (/manage/<queue_id>) of a queue they are not the host of. This fixes a bug where administrators saw an error when attempting to view the Edit page. #42

5. As part of implementing breadcrumbs (see item 6 above), the gray box container on the homepage has been removed so as not to clash with the breadcrumbs container, and the color contrast for the login button that unauthenticated users see on the homepage main content area (i.e. not the login button in the navigation bar) has been increased to improve visibility. #53 #13

6. If a host has never used BlueJeans before, they must log in to BlueJeans before being able to use Remote Office Hours Queue. Hosts will see a message instructing them to log in to BlueJeans if this is the case. This fixes a bug where hosts only saw an error when this was the case, without knowing why they were seeing an error or how to fix it. #55

7. If something is wrong with BlueJeans that is causing an error in Remote Office Hours Queue, Remote Office Hours Queue will notify the user that a BlueJeans error is the cause of the problem in Remote Office Hours queue. This fixes a bug where hosts only saw an error when this was the case, without knowing why they were seeing an error. #54

Non-user-facing changes

1. Allow admins to un-delete queues from the admin interface if a user deleted a queue by accident

2. Delete all meetings in the queue when a queue is deleted (i.e. cascade deletes)

3. Add Google Analytics so usage of ROHQ can be tracked over time

4. Add an Apache 2.0 License

5. Add a README file with basic information on starting the app

6. Use ASGI Server in preparation for using Django 3's asynchronous views. #39

1.0.1 Queue Search

April 8, 2020

The Remote Office Hours Queue app, originally released March 19, 2020 was updated April 8, 2020 in order to add a much-requested feature allowing multiple users to share a queue. Unfortunately, the update necessitated a change in the URL structure of the links attendees receive when joining an office hours queue. As a result, links created by the app prior to April 8 no longer map to an active queue. ITS has implemented a way to help users find their way to the correct queue.

The old URL construct was https://officehours.it.umich.edu/queue/uniqname, where “uniqname” is the uniqname of the host. To allow hosts to share queues, have multiple queues, and not tie a queue to only one person, URLs are now constructed by /queue/id/ (e.g. https://officehours.it.umich.edu/queue/123) instead of /queue/uniqname/ (e.g. https://officehours.it.umich.edu/queue/nemcard).

If a person navigates to an old queue/uniqname link, Remote Office Hours Queue will automatically initiate a search. This search looks for any queues meeting either of the following criteria:

• Queues hosted by the uniqname after /queue/ in the URL
• Queues that have the uniqname in the name of the queue

This aligns with normal search behavior, which allows users to search by host uniqname or by queue name.

The app will then present attendees with a list of queues to choose from. They can select a queue to join from the list. 

Attendees who reach the search results page through redirection from a /queue/uniqname/ link will see a yellow alert at the top of the page. This alert says, “We didn't find a queue there! It's ok, we made a change that moved some queues around--it's us, not you. To help you find the queue you were looking for, we searched for any queues hosted by nemcard. Learn more about this search.”

1.0 Shared Queues and more!

April 8, 2020

In this release, the Remote Office Hours Queue team rewrote the application to allow hosts to have multiple queues and queues to have multiple hosts. This release included:

• Management page to see all of a user's queues https://officehours.it.umich.edu/manage
• Queue management page to manage an individual queue
• Hosts can create or be hosts of as many queues as they want
• Queues can have many hosts; hosts can add other people as hosts to their queue
• Hosts can name a queue and change that name at any time from the queue management page
• Hosts can create a description for the queue and change that description at any time
• Hosts can see when a queue was created from the queue management page
• Hosts can permanently delete queues from the queue management page
• Hosts can copy the queue URL from the queue management page to easily share it with attendees

0.1 Introducing Remote Office Hours Queue!

March 19, 2020
Initial release for Remote Office Hours Queue