How to enable the new discussion experience?

New discussion experience allows course authors to use new MFE for configuring course discussions. In the new experience course the team will see a new navigation link “Pages & Resources” under “Content” dropdown in the studio (ref: Screenshot 1). This link will redirect course teams/users to the new MFE experience. Here are some other changes which course teams should expect.

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Screenshot 1

1. Studio Advanced settings will no longer display discussion configuration fields. These fields include

   1. Allow Anonymous Discussion Posts

   2. Allow Anonymous Discussion Posts to Peers

   3. Discussion Blackout Dates

   4. Discussion Topic Mapping

2. Discussion Tab will no longer be available in LMS > Instructor Dashboard (ref: Screenshot 2).

    

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   Screenshot 2

The following two flags control the new discussion experience for the courses.

1. discussions.pages_and_resources_mfe

2. discussions.override_discussion_legacy_settings

In order to enable the new experience for different roles/courses, you need to enable different settings. These settings are explained in the latter section.

Here are the steps you need to take to enable the feature only for set of users.

1. Open Waffle Flag Model Admin (admin/waffle/flag/)

2. Add/Update discussions.pages_and_resources_mfe flag with the following settings.

   1. Everyone:Unknown

   2. Superusers:UnChecked

   3. Staff:UnChecked

   4. Authenticated: Unchecked

   5. Users: UserIds

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Here are the steps you need to take to enable the feature only for global staff.

1. Open Waffle Flag Model Admin (admin/waffle/flag/)

2. Add/Update discussions.pages_and_resources_mfe flag with the following settings.

   1. Everyone:Unknown

   2. Superusers:Checked

   3. Staff:Checked

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1. Open Waffle Flag Model Admin (admin/waffle/flag/)

2. Add/Update discussions.pages_and_resources_mfe flag with the following settings.

   1. Everyone:Yes

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Enable new discussion experience for everyone.

1. Open Waffle Flag Model Admin (admin/waffle/flag/)

2. Add/Update discussions.pages_and_resources_mfe flag with the following settings.

   1. Everyone:No

   2. Superusers:Unchecked

   3. Staff:Unchecked

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1. Open Waffle Flag Course Overrides (admin/waffle_utils/waffleflagcourseoverridemodel/) model

2. Add/Update flag discussions.pages_and_resources_mfe flag with the following settings.

   1. CourseID:{your-desired-course-id}

   2. Override choice:Force On

   3. Enabled:Checked

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Enable new experience for certain courses.

1. Open Waffle Flag Course Overrides (admin/waffle_utils/waffleflagcourseoverridemodel/) model

2. Add/Update flag discussions.pages_and_resources_mfe flag with the following settings.

   1. CourseID:{your-desired-course-id}

   2. Override choice:Force Off

   3. Enabled:Checked/Unchecked

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Disable new experience for certain courses.

If you like to enable certain courses to view legacy discussion settings but keeping the new discussion enabled for them you would need to add the following settings.

1. Open Waffle Flag Course Overrides (admin/waffle_utils/waffleflagcourseoverridemodel/) model

2. Add/Update flag discussions.override_discussion_legacy_settings

   flag with the following settings.

   1. CourseID:{your-desired-course-id}

   2. Override choice:Force On

   3. Enabled:Checked

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Show Legacy discussion settings but keep the MFE experience enabled for a course.

1. Waffle Flag Course Overrides will always take preference over settings in Flag Model Admin.

   1. Use Case: If you have enabled MFE for the global staff and you also add a toggle settings in Waffle Flag Course Overrides for a particular course to disable MFE – in that case the disable setting will take preference. That’s how the Waffleflags settings are engineered.