COMMS Product Roadmap


The roadmap below outlines current and upcoming work for the COMMS (Course Outline Mapping and Management System) platform. Each item is categorized by its development stage:

Projected delivery dates are provided only for Committed and Done work, and may be adjusted based on development progress.

Items are only accepted for future development after meeting all applicable acceptance criteria.

ID Name Description Status Date
25726 Add Filtering Options to Map Revisions Page
Users can already filter for Electives and General Education Courses when editing outcome maps directly, but these filters are missing when using the Map Revisions (submit/review) workflow. This enhancement will add the same filtering options to the Map Revisions interface, ensuring consistency and improving usability across both mapping workflows.
Committed Aug-29-2025
26102 Differentiate Course Types in Mapping Table
Summary
Update the outcome mapping table to visually distinguish Elective, General Education, and Core courses. Currently, when users toggle options to display electives or Gen Ed courses, those courses appear in the same list as core courses without any clear identification. This makes it difficult for users to interpret the mapping, especially when reviewing or editing program structure.

Reason for the Update
This enhancement improves clarity and usability for academic staff and curriculum developers by allowing them to quickly understand the course composition of a program, reducing the risk of misinterpretation and errors during mapping reviews.
Committed Aug-29-2025
10173 Improved Visibility of Outline Approval and Feedback Previously, outline comments and approval progress were only shared through email notifications, making it difficult to track feedback or collaborate effectively within COMMS. There was no central place to view the outline’s progress or see what others had contributed during the review process.

With this update, comments and approval history are now stored and visible directly in COMMS. Authorized users can view, add, and edit comments throughout the approval workflow, ensuring that feedback is accessible, organized, and easier to follow for everyone involved.
Committed Sep-30-2025
27771 Re-introduce Program Competencies Report
The Program Competencies report was available in COMMS 2 but was not initially ported to COMMS 3 due to low usage during the migration period. A need for this report has since been identified.

This work will reintroduce the report in COMMS 3, maintaining the original structure and functionality. This ensures continued support for users who rely on this reporting capability.
Accepted
27676 Clickable Academic Year on Dashboard
To improve usability, the academic year displayed at the top of the COMMS Dashboard will become a clickable link. This will allow users to quickly navigate to the Academic Year Details page, providing faster access to related information.
Accepted
9886 Introduce Email Digest
Users currently receive separate emails for each action or notification in the system, which can result in excessive and overwhelming communication. Multiple colleges have flagged this as a significant usability issue.

This work item aims to improve the user experience by consolidating notifications into a configurable email digest. Instead of immediate, individual messages, users will receive a summary email containing multiple notifications.

Key features:
  • Digest-style emails replace individual alerts.
  • Users can enable/disable digest emails and configure their frequency.
  • Users can configure which types of emails to include in the digest.
Accepted
25708 Introduce Self-Service Rollover
The Self-Service Roll-Over feature enables college clients to independently roll over their COMMS data from one academic year or term to another, eliminating the need for COMMS Support Team intervention.
Accepted
26933 Manage General Education Theme Areas Currently, managing the list of available General Education Theme Areas for use on course outlines requires submitting a request to COMMS Support, resulting in delays and added overhead.

To reduce support reliance and improve self-service, we are introducing the ability for authorized users to manage their institution’s General Education Theme Areas directly.

This change will improve turnaround time, reduce support load, and support greater institutional autonomy.
Accepted
27788 Make More System Settings User-Configurable
Reduce reliance on support requests by exposing additional configurable settings directly in the COMMS interface under OrganizationSettings.
Accepted
25550 Move Academic Year Content from Sidebar to Academic Year Details To improve usability and align content management with the Academic Year organizational structure, the College Information and Custom Text Outline Section options will be relocated from the Outline Management sidebar to the Content area within the Academic Year Details page. This change ensures a more intuitive and consistent user experience by grouping all Academic Year–specific data in one place.

Key Outcomes:
  • The Outline Management menu will no longer display these items.
  • The same content will now be accessible within Academic Year Details → Content.
  • Existing permissions will remain unchanged to ensure a seamless transition for users.
This update reflects a broader effort to streamline navigation and improve contextual access to Academic Year–related content.
Accepted
24703 Improve LTI failure messaging
Return more descriptive messaging through the LTI Tool when course outlines are not available.
Accepted
12586 LTI 1.3 Support
To enhance compatibility with modern learning systems, the COMMS application will be updated to support LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) version 1.3, while continuing to support the existing LTI 1.2 integration. This ensures that new clients adopting LTI 1.3 can integrate seamlessly, and current clients using LTI 1.2 will experience no disruption or change to their existing configurations.

Key Points:
  • The upgrade will add LTI 1.3 support without breaking existing LTI 1.2 integrations.
  • The implementation will prioritize backward compatibility and stability for current users.
This update aligns COMMS with current interoperability standards and prepares the platform for broader LMS integration opportunities.
Accepted
25339 Support Remaining User Authorization Files in FTPETL Job
This work extends the user authorization data integration by supporting the remaining authorization file types — Program Owner Authorization and Department Delegate Authorization — within the FTPETL job. These were not part of the initial MVP, which included only the minimum files required for migration to COMMS 3.

For more information regarding user authorization data integration, see https://docs.ecoursemap.com/docs/integrations/userauth.
Accepted
25206 Introduce Email Template Editor
The Email Template Editor feature allows users to view and edit the email templates used by their organization in COMMS. This gives organizations control over the content of the messages they send.
Accepted
27151 Auto-save outline changes
We're exploring the addition of an auto-save and recovery feature to the course outline editing experience in COMMS. Currently, users must click Save to commit their changes to the database. If they lose connection before saving, their work is lost.

This enhancement would temporarily save unsaved edits during an editing session and offer to restore them if the session is interrupted. The goal is to reduce accidental data loss and improve user experience without changing how the Save/Cancel buttons behave.

The effort to implement this feature will be assessed first, and the team will proceed only if the scope is manageable.
Scoping
24511 Ministry Terminology Standardization
Update COMMS to use standard terms and headings as defined by the Ontario Ministry. See https://www.ontario.ca/page/college-program-standards for more information.
Done Apr-30-2025
25219 Optional Unit Title and Description
Change Unit Title and Unit Description fields to optional when editing the Course Content outline section. This change re-aligns COMMS 3 with pre-existing behavior in COMMS 2, where the user is not required to enter a Unit Title, nor a Unit Description.
Done May-19-2025
25287 Manage Report Visibility
Organizations can control which reports are visible to their users in COMMS. A settings card on the Organization -- Settings page allows administrators to choose which reports to show or hide, helping ensure that only relevant reports are displayed to the user community.
Done Jun-23-2025
26224 Show current Academic Year on Dashboard
To improve clarity and reduce confusion during the course outline approval process, the COMMS Dashboard will be updated to display the current Academic Year prominently at the top of the page. This enhancement ensures users are always aware of which Academic Year their work pertains to when interacting with workflow-related content.
Done Jul-07-2025
25697 Re-introduce Course Description Summary Report
The Course Description Summary report was available in COMMS 2 but was not initially ported to COMMS 3 due to low usage during the migration period. A need for this report has since been identified.

This work will reintroduce the report in COMMS 3, maintaining the original structure and functionality. This ensures continued support for users who rely on this reporting capability.
Done Jul-07-2025
25847 Add Department-Level Access to Enhanced Learning Resource Module Summary Report
To better support operational and reporting needs, this work enables the Enhanced Learning Resource Module Summary report to be run at the department level in addition to the program level.
Done Jul-08-2025
9073 Standardize Action Icon Layout in Outline Section Lists
Improve the clarity and consistency of action icons (edit, delete, move) that appear when editing lists in various outline sections. The icons will be aligned to the right and ordered uniformly to create a cleaner, more user-friendly interface. This change enhances usability for users when managing course outline content in COMMS.
Done Jul-16-2025
25661 Introduce Evaluation Type Usage Report
The Evaluation Type Usage report helps users track how frequently each Evaluation Type is used across course outlines within a selected academic year. This feature supports better management of the reusable Evaluation Types list.

Key Features:

  • Location: Accessible from the Academic Year Details page.
  • Contents: The report displays:
    • Evaluation Type
    • Count of outlines using each type in the selected academic year
This report provides insight into usage trends, enabling informed decisions about maintaining or updating evaluation types.
Done Jul-23-2025
25549 CLO/EoP Numbering Style
A new setting named CLO/EoP List Style allows colleges to choose how Elements of Performance are displayed under each Course Learning Outcome—either as bullet points (default) or as a numbered list (e.g., 1.1, 1.2, 2.1) for improved structure and clarity.
Done Jul-28-2025