Wednesday 18 June 2014

FIXED: Google outage affecting Teacher Dashboard

This morning from 4:15am to 7:00am PST, there was a service disruption in Google's URLFetch service, which affected certain Teacher Dashboard services for some users. Google's latest message regarding the disruption is below:
The problem with Google App Engine UrlFetch service was resolved as of 07:00 Pacific. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.
As the above message indicates, the disruption has been resolved, so Teacher Dashboard should now be running smoothly. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Best regards,
Hapara Support

Thursday 12 June 2014

FIXED: Google service outage impacting Teacher Dashboard

UPDATE - 10pm PST (22:00 Pacific time). Google have updated the 'Google App Engine Downtime Notify' Forum with the following:

The problem with Google App Engine UrlFetch service was resolved as of 21:56 Pacific. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support

UPDATE - 9pm PST (21:00 Pacific time). Google have updated the 'Google App Engine Downtime Notify' Forum with the following:

We have identified the issue affecting Google App Engine UrlFetch service and latency is returning to normal. We will provide another update by 22:00 Pacific.

UPDATE - 8pm PST (20:00 Pacific time). Google have updated the 'Google App Engine Downtime Notify' Forum of the following:

"We are currently experiencing a network issue with Google App Engine UrlFetch API. For everyone who is affected, we apologize for any inconvenience you may be experiencing. We will provide an update by 21:00 Pacific Time with current details."

Google App Engine is currently experiencing elevated error rates on some services that are essential to the performance of Teacher Dashboard. Google Engineering has confirmed that they are aware of this issue and are investigating it now. As a result of this problem, calls to Google from Teacher Dashboard are failing, which means that most to all Teacher Dashboard functions are currently unavailable.

This outage is affecting Teacher Dashboard as well as the Teacher Dashboard Admin Console.

We will update this post as new information becomes available.

Our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience associated with this.

Best regards,
Hapara Support

Wednesday 4 June 2014

FIXED: Service Disruption for Smart Copy and Remote Control

UPDATE 10:15am PST: The issues with Remote Control have been resolved, so teachers should now be able to see student tabs and screens normally. If you do notice any problems with Remote Control or Smart Copy, or have any other questions, please contact support.

UPDATE 9:10am PST: Smart Copy should now be working as expected. We will provide an update on the Remote Control disruption as soon as possible.

9:00am PST: We are currently experiencing a service disruption for the Smart Copy and Remote Control tools. Our development team is doing everything they can to resolve the issues as quickly as possible, and we will provide further updates with the status of the outage and resolution on this post. Our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience this has caused.

Thanks,
Hapara Support

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Remote Control Extension Update: Version 1.5.5

Last week, you may have noticed a new version for the Hapara Remote Control Teacher Dashboard Extension, version 1.5.5, on student devices. This new version makes the following improvements to the Remote Control tool:
  • When teachers send messages to students through Remote Control, the messages now appear on the side of the student device, rather than as pop-ups. This will allow multiple messages to appear at the same time, and will prevent students from "disabling" the pop-ups. The messages will also be stored as "notifications" if they are not acknowledged by the student.
  • Opening tabs and sending messages will no longer complete for students who are outside of the IP or time restriction settings.
  • Better handling of connection errors, for more stable and reliable performance of Remote Control.
  • Various other bug fixes and performance improvements.
This update should occur automatically for domains that are pushing out the extension through the Google Chrome Management console. Keep in mind that there can occasionally be delays in the update of Chrome extensions; if you notice this on a student device, try logging out and restarting the device then logging back in. Alternatively, you can force the extension update by going to the Extensions menu > Click "Developer Mode" on the top right of the page > Click "Update Extensions". If you are still seeing the old version of the extension after taking these steps, please contact support.