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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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. |
Committed | Jul-31-2025 | |
| 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 | Jul-31-2025 | |
| 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. |
Committed | Jul-31-2025 | |
| 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:
This report provides insight into usage trends, enabling informed decisions about maintaining or updating evaluation types. |
Committed | Jul-31-2025 | |
| 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:
|
Accepted | ||
| 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. |
Accepted | ||
| 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. |
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 | ||
| 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:
This update aligns COMMS with current interoperability standards and prepares the platform for broader LMS integration opportunities. |
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:
This update reflects a broader effort to streamline navigation and improve contextual access to Academic Year–related content. |
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. |
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. |
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 |