Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways technical difficulties

[jhwang-ms]

Hello all. My name is Jessie Hwang and I'm on the content management team. I want to accept and acknowledge that there have been challenges about updated content on M365 Learning Pathways. We've had some technical difficulties, as you've seen with the videos and the changing of the templates, and we are working to get these issues resolved before we publish new content. I will keep this issue updated while we're working through these technical problems. Next update expected date: +7 days.

[clarelcampbell]

Morning - thanks for the update and appreciate your efforts to get these issues fixed.

[jhwang-ms]

We are still working through escalations, and I hope to have a better update next week.

[USCloud-EricWilborn]

Good morning. Is there any new status on when updates can be expected to be pushed for M365 Learning Pathways?

[jhwang-ms]

Hello everyone. We are still working through the escalation chain and I do not have better news at this time. The engineering leadership team who needs to know this is aware and they, alongside our leadership team, are working to find the right solutions to untangle these issues. Again, I appreciate everyone's patience and grace while I continue to chase things up the chain.

[Jordan-WSECU]

Thanks for your work on this issue, Jessie. I'm looking forward to a resolution and hope that you will be able to tell us a bit about the resolution and plans to avoid disruptions going forward. :)

Jordan

[KaveSys]

Hello everyone, I don't want to waste your time to reply on my comment, but can you explain which are these "technical difficulties" and if there is a sort of "ETA" on that? Is a nice solution for end users and administrator, help really the users to have a great experience on MS products and services.

Thanks anyway for the work that you and the teams involved are doing 🤜🤛

[jhwang-ms]

The accessibility issues are a major part of this, as well as the template and some backend engineering/publishing issues. I don't have an ETA yet as this my manager and the engineering leadership team are still trying to work through all of it, but I am asking/following up with them every week.

[Jordan-WSECU]

Thank you for the follow-up, Jessie. Much appreciated! 🙂

Jordan Hughes | Book a meeting with Jordan @.***?anonymous&ep=pcard>

Sr. Software Engineer - SharePoint and Automation

PO Box WSECU, Olympia, WA 98507

@.**@.>

www.wsecu.orghttp://www.wsecu.org/

800.562.0999 x10502

---

From: Jessie Hwang [MSFT] @.> Sent: Friday, May 24, 2024 9:53 AM To: pnp/custom-learning-office-365 @.> Cc: Jordan Hughes @.>; Manual @.> Subject: Re: [pnp/custom-learning-office-365] Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways technical difficulties (Issue #786)

The accessibility issues are a major part of this, as well as the template and some backend engineering/publishing issues. I don't have an ETA yet as this my manager and the engineering leadership team are still trying to work through all of it, but I am asking/following up with them every week.

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[jhwang-ms]

Hi everyone - first of all, thank you for your patience and grace while we've been figuring out root causes, escalating to engineering teams and leadership to try to find solutions. A quick update: we have identified a couple of possible solutions and are testing them to ensure they work (and not fix one thing just to create 5 more issues). I'll be back with another update as soon as I get one from our engineering team. Thank you.

[ghost]

Many thanks for your ongoing commitment, Jessie. Much appreciated!

[TomMeadows1990]

Hi Jessie,

I wondered if there was any further updates on when this issue may be resolved? I'm launching some pages for colleagues shortly and these really useful webparts are a big part of them, so I was hoping the issue may have been resolved by now.

Any update would be appreciated.

many thanks, Tom

[jhwang-ms]

Hi everyone - unfortunately, my update is that I do not have an update at this time. I'm told that this is getting worked on above my head but I do not have any additional information to share. I will continue to ask and ask and ask my manager and the leadership chain above me for updates and ETAs.

[Rosie-EAH]

@jhwang-ms Hi Jessie - this doesn't include the issue raised by @TomMeadows1990, https://github.com/pnp/custom-learning-office-365/issues/771#issuecomment-2051985168, which we're also struggling with.

This issue has the potential to stop us using the learning pathways entirely, and I can only see this thread as the source of why the pages are behaving this way. https://github.com/pnp/custom-learning-office-365/issues/728#issue-1646858987

Can you advise how we can address this please? Thanks.

[clarelcampbell]

Hi @jhwang-ms not so much an issue but a format change I have noticed this morning. Pages we have made ourselves and then pull into Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways (MLP) using the URL to create the asset now show the page banner. This takes up space in the window unfortunately so not the best user experience and for pages only used in MLP we haven't added a picture so now will need to go back through our own pages (which we have a lot of due to no MLP Microsoft content updates since 2023) to edit. I cant see this update listed on MLP Microsoft website pages and as a site owner I haven't been notified. Along with the many issues this ticket addresses, please can you consider the communication with the admins who manage the MLP sites - I feel this could be greatly improved.

[Rosie-EAH]

Hi @jhwang-ms not so much an issue but a format change I have noticed this morning. Pages we have made ourselves and then pull into Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways (MLP) using the URL to create the asset now show the page banner. This takes up space in the window unfortunately so not the best user experience and for pages only used in MLP we haven't added a picture so now will need to go back through our own pages (which we have a lot of due to no MLP Microsoft content updates since 2023) to edit. I cant see this update listed on MLP Microsoft website pages and as a site owner I haven't been notified. Along with the many issues this ticket addresses, please can you consider the communication with the admins who manage the MLP sites - I feel this could be greatly improved.

I noticed this issue this morning, whilst testing out how to resolve the page height issue. I'm very early on with working with MLP, and somewhat relieved that it's not just me having these challenges!

[dcashpeterson]

728 (comment)

@Rosie-EAH the page height issue is not connected to the technical issues with publishing content. The page height issue is one that has to do with Iframed content. We do not have a technical way to tell how tall the content of one of the content pages is either from Microsoft provided content or from your own custom content. Because of this we need to set the height of the viewer to the tallest asset which currently lives in Excel. The V5 beta did shorten that height a bit but it is still set to 9000px.

[dcashpeterson]

Hi @jhwang-ms not so much an issue but a format change I have noticed this morning. Pages we have made ourselves and then pull into Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways (MLP) using the URL to create the asset now show the page banner. This takes up space in the window unfortunately so not the best user experience and for pages only used in MLP we haven't added a picture so now will need to go back through our own pages (which we have a lot of due to no MLP Microsoft content updates since 2023) to edit. I cant see this update listed on MLP Microsoft website pages and as a site owner I haven't been notified. Along with the many issues this ticket addresses, please can you consider the communication with the admins who manage the MLP sites - I feel this could be greatly improved.

@clarelcampbell this is not related to the content publish issues. This is a change that Microsoft made to the page header. you can get more information #807 but is an issue out of our control.

[Rosie-EAH]

728 (comment)

@Rosie-EAH the page height issue is not connected to the technical issues with publishing content. The page height issue is one that has to do with Iframed content. We do not have a technical way to tell how tall the content of one of the content pages is either from Microsoft provided content or from your own custom content. Because of this we need to set the height of the viewer to the tallest asset which currently lives in Excel. The V5 beta did shorten that height a bit but it is still set to 9000px.

Hi Derek - thanks for your reply, it's much appreciated. So I've had a look through all of the Excel content - and I have found two assets that need such a long page. Just my opinion - surely it would make better sense to optimise the content in those two assets (e.g. reduce size of the images, crop white space from images etc) or split them out to multiple pages (better user experience in itself), than create a detrimental issue for every other page in the collection.

To the point that the page height isn't connected to the other issues - Jessie signposted Tom here when he asked for assistance with it. Edited to add - it was Derek who signposted Tom, not Jessie.

[KaveSys]

@jhwang-ms some update on this? As per @Rosie-EAH comment, these issues has the potential to stop us using the learning pathways. Because is useful both from Admins and End Users side, It would be a real shame not to be able to use it anymore.

[dcashpeterson]

@KaveSys and @Rosie-EAH, This issue is related to the publishing issues of new content and the template accessibility. @jhwang-ms is working on those internally at Microsoft. The page length and extra scroll is not something she has control over, that is my responsibility.

As I mentioned above, the default height of the content area is 12,000px in V4 and in V5 in 9,000px. We need to keep this height fixed as it accommodates the longest content without introducing additional scroll bars. Introducing a scroll bar in content area has received very poor user feedback in the past and introduces user experience issues for IOS users.

Unfortunately, we do not have any control or influence on the height of the source content as this content is used across many different environments so we can't break the content up. We understand that this is a challenge for users but it is a decision we needed to make based on the technology we have and user feedback.

[KaveSys]

@dcashpeterson everything clear. But why on V4.3 the issue regarding the height was not come up and more or less everything was good? 99% of the content is under 1000px of height. There is no way to fit automatically the content area not based on the page but based on the content itself?

It's clear that introducing a scroll bar in content area has received very poor user feedback in the past, but for sure even with this workaround, the feedback will certainly not be positive.

I know that this issue is for new content and the template accessibility.

As always thanks for the feedback and hard working you have done since now anyway!

[Rosie-EAH]

@dcashpeterson everything clear. But why on V4.3 the issue regarding the height was not come up and more or less everything was good? 99% of the content is under 1000px of height. There is no way to fit automatically the content area not based on the page but based on the content itself?

It's clear that introducing a scroll bar in content area has received very poor user feedback in the past, but for sure even with this workaround, the feedback will certainly not be positive.

I know that this issue is for new content and the template accessibility.

As always thanks for the feedback and hard working you have done since now anyway!

We've unfortunately had to take the decision to move away from MLP due to these issues. We simply can't put the site in front of our business users and expect a positive response with the user experience being as it is with the excessively long pages. It's such a shame because the content is good, but the user experience is unacceptable, and that's the dealbreaker for us.

I hope that it can be resolved at a point in the future.

[TomMeadows1990]

@dcashpeterson everything clear. But why on V4.3 the issue regarding the height was not come up and more or less everything was good? 99% of the content is under 1000px of height. There is no way to fit automatically the content area not based on the page but based on the content itself? It's clear that introducing a scroll bar in content area has received very poor user feedback in the past, but for sure even with this workaround, the feedback will certainly not be positive. I know that this issue is for new content and the template accessibility. As always thanks for the feedback and hard working you have done since now anyway!

We've unfortunately had to take the decision to move away from MLP due to these issues. We simply can't put the site in front of our business users and expect a positive response with the user experience being as it is with the excessively long pages. It's such a shame because the content is good, but the user experience is unacceptable, and that's the dealbreaker for us.

I hope that it can be resolved at a point in the future.

Thank you for the update and for outlining the issue you face with this @dcashpeterson.

Unfortunately we're going to have to consider removing these from our internal web pages too. The pages are accessible to thousands of our colleagues and postgraduate researchers, and unfortunately the huge swathes of grey on the pages make for a poor user experience and look unprofessional. It's a real shame as the content is useful.

[dcashpeterson]

@TomMeadows1990 @Rosie-EAH @KaveSys While it is not going to solve the core issue, in V5 I am working on a feature to allow you to always open the assets in a full screen dialog. Essentially when you select this configuration and select an asset it will open in a dialog that covers the entire window. The asset pages are still 9000px but it isn't as noticeable in the dialog. Users can close the dialog and then continue with their task. Here is a screen shot. This is currently in beta v 5.0.0.4 and will be part of the V5 GA release coming out in early September.

[Rosie-EAH]

@dcashpeterson Thanks for the update Derek. Would this also address the issue that the interactions on our own local sites are effectively lost - as most users will give up scrolling before they get there? The interactions are important for measurement (i.e. likes) and for the users to bookmark the content to return to later. At the moment, they're completely lost at the end of the dead space. Thanks.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/05e4c5fe-d862-463d-ae74-02172838220b

[jhwang-ms]

Hi everyone - I spoke with my manager yesterday and unfortunately, we still don't have a resolution on these issues and are still blocked on content updates. I understand many of you will have to disable this from your internal systems and that is understandable. I will convey this back to my manager, and I hope to be able to have some good news soon.

[pd431]

@KaveSys and @Rosie-EAH, This issue is related to the publishing issues of new content and the template accessibility. @jhwang-ms is working on those internally at Microsoft. The page length and extra scroll is not something she has control over, that is my responsibility.

As I mentioned above, the default height of the content area is 12,000px in V4 and in V5 in 9,000px. We need to keep this height fixed as it accommodates the longest content without introducing additional scroll bars. Introducing a scroll bar in content area has received very poor user feedback in the past and introduces user experience issues for IOS users.

Unfortunately, we do not have any control or influence on the height of the source content as this content is used across many different environments so we can't break the content up. We understand that this is a challenge for users but it is a decision we needed to make based on the technology we have and user feedback.

While I understand the issue with allowing for longer content without scrollbars, when integrating a MLP component on a sharepoint page, it makes the whole page unusable and gives it a broken feel.

If we're working with the axiom of the embedding size being fixed, could you consider making the size either configurable by the editor when embedding, or calculating the max size of the content for each component and making the frame embedding be the maximum size needed for this specific component.

That still wouldn't be a good solution, but it would be a more paletable intermediary solution

[Rosie-EAH]

@KaveSys and @Rosie-EAH, This issue is related to the publishing issues of new content and the template accessibility. @jhwang-ms is working on those internally at Microsoft. The page length and extra scroll is not something she has control over, that is my responsibility. As I mentioned above, the default height of the content area is 12,000px in V4 and in V5 in 9,000px. We need to keep this height fixed as it accommodates the longest content without introducing additional scroll bars. Introducing a scroll bar in content area has received very poor user feedback in the past and introduces user experience issues for IOS users. Unfortunately, we do not have any control or influence on the height of the source content as this content is used across many different environments so we can't break the content up. We understand that this is a challenge for users but it is a decision we needed to make based on the technology we have and user feedback.

While I understand the issue with allowing for longer content without scrollbars, when integrating a MLP component on a sharepoint page, it makes the whole page unusable and gives it a broken feel.

If we're working with the axiom of the embedding size being fixed, could you consider making the size either configurable by the editor when embedding, or calculating the max size of the content for each component and making the frame embedding be the maximum size needed for this specific component.

That still wouldn't be a good solution, but it would be a more paletable intermediary solution

My colleague posted a similar suggestion a little while back: https://github.com/pnp/custom-learning-office-365/issues/820

[dcashpeterson]

@Rosie-EAH @KaveSys I have talked with the team about this enhancement request in #820 and I will be working on this as time allows now that V5 is out. You can follow #820 for progress on the extra long pages.

[clarelcampbell]

@Rosie-EAH @KaveSys I have talked with the team about this enhancement request in #820 and I will be working on this as time allows now that V5 is out. You can follow #820 for progress on the extra long pages.

Hi @dcashpeterson - can I pick up on your ref to V5, is this a new version? will there be details on here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/customlearning/custom_featureupdates thanks

[dcashpeterson]

@clarelcampbell I defer that to @jhwang-ms but yes that should be updated to include the new release. The latest and greatest is always the Change Log.