1. Using Template Variables and Creating Your Own Custom Template Variables
Brett Stephens
Systems Analyst
Learning Platforms Team
University of Miami

2. Definitions Template Variable Institutional Role
Used in content items or portal modules
Institutional Role
Community Engagement license
Student, Faculty, etc
Used for branding and availability of tabs & modules

3. The Challenge UM participating in NSSE
Administered by Indiana University
5,342 students (freshmen and seniors) at UM selected to participate
15,000 users on UM’s Blackboard every week

4. What We Did

5. How?

6. Why a Custom Template Variable?
Survey links specific to user
No Authentication
used where URL would be
replaced by output of java method

7. Institutional Role Usage
The NSSE module was only displayed to survey participants (NSSE role)
NSSE role assigned to users via SIS Flatfile upload

8. Module Availability based on Institutional Role(s)

9. Standard Template Variables

10. Standard Template Variables
Objects with template variables
User
Course
Content
Request
System

11. Standard Template Variables
User
batch_uid id
full_name
pk_string (_751_1)
Locale (en_US)
Role (system)
Institution_role
Secondary_institution_role

12. Standard Template Variables
Course
batch_uid id
course_name
pk_string (_2702_1)
url (/courses/1/BIL206/)
Role (of user in course)
Locale (en_US)

13. Standard Template Variables
Content
id or pk_string (_37_1)
url
Request id
locale
Return (return url)
System
site_id

14. Example Uses of Template Variables
Link to content item within description (banner image) /webapps/blackboard/content/launchLink.jsp?course_id= Instead of /webapps/blackboard/content/launchLink.jsp? course_id=_355958_1&content_id=_ _1

15. Example Uses of Template Variables
Custom Course Greeting
Hello welcome to
User_list_context_menu & course_list_context_menu links in B2s (in bb-manifest.xml)
<url value="userinfo.jsp?user_id=
<url value=

16. Defining Custom Template Variables in a Building Block

17. Resolution of a Template Variable
CustomResolver
Get user_id from context
Query umia_surveylinks table with user_id
return surveylink
Replace with surveylink

18. Important Files in the B2
Bb-manifest.xml
Schema.xml
Config.jsp
CustomContextHandler.java
CustomResolver.java

19. Bb-manifest.xml
<extension-defs> <definition namespace="blackboard.platform"> <extension id="customContextHandler“ point="blackboard.platform.contextHandler" class="edu.miami.nsse.CustomContextHandler" singleton="false" /> </definition> </extension-defs>

20. Bb-manifest.xml
<http-actions> <config value="admin/config.jsp" /> </http-actions> <schema-dirs> <schema-dir dir-name="main" /> </schema-dirs>

21. Bb-manifest.xml
<permissions> <permission type="attribute" name="user.authinfo" actions="get" /> <permission type="runtime" name="db.connection.*" /> </permissions>

22. Schema.xml
<table name="umia_surveylinks"> <column name="user_id" data-type="nvarchar(20)" nullable="false"/> <column name="link" data-type="nvarchar(300)" nullable="false"/> <primary-key name="umia_surveylinks_pk1" unique="true" comment="Unique primary key"> <columnref name="user_id" /> </primary-key> </table>

23. Db Table Sample Data USER_ID SURVEY_LINK username1
username2
username3

24. Config.jsp

25. Config.jsp Catch SQLException
Get db connection from BbDatabase conn manager
Tokenize and iterate through csv file
INSERT INTO umia_surveylinks (user_id, link) VALUES (?, ?)
setString(1, user_id)
setString(2, surveylink)
Catch SQLException
release connection

26. CustomContextHandler.java
public List<ContextEntry> resolveKeys(HttpServletRequest request, BbPersistenceManager unused) { CustomResolver resolver = new CustomResolver(request); Resolver.attachResolverToContext(resolver); return new LinkedList<ContextEntry>(); }

27. CustomResolver.java
public String[] getKeys() { return (new String[] {"umia_user"}); }

28. CustomResolver.java
public String resolve(String method, String attributes[]) { String varout = ""; ContextManagerFactory.getInstance() .setContext(_request); Context ctx = ContextManagerFactory.getInstance().getContext();

29. CustomResolver.java
String userid = ctx.getUser().getUserName(); Connection conn = null; StringBuilder queryString = new StringBuilder(""); ConnectionManager cManager = null; PreparedStatement selectQuery = null;

30. CustomResolver.java
if ("NSSE_link".equalsIgnoreCase(method)) { try { cManager = BbDatabase.getDefaultInstance() .getConnectionManager(); conn = cManager.getConnection(); queryString.append("SELECT link FROM umia_surveylinks ");

31. CustomResolver.java
queryString.append("WHERE user_id = ?"); selectQuery = conn.prepareStatement(queryString.toString()); selectQuery.setString(1, userid); ResultSet rSet = selectQuery.executeQuery(); while(rSet.next()){ varout = rSet.getString("link"); }

32. CustomResolver.java
selectQuery.close(); cManager.releaseConnection(conn); } catch (java.sql.SQLException sE){ LogServiceFactory.getInstance().logError("NSSE SQL Exception:", sE); } catch (ConnectionNotAvailableException cE) { LogServiceFactory.getInstance().logError("NSSE Connection Exception:", cE); }

33. CustomResolver.java
finally { if (conn != null) cManager.releaseConnection(conn); } return varout;

34. Outcome of Our Efforts Overall Participation: 27%
34% Completed Survey Through Blackboard Learn Link

35. Conclusion Why This Worked (as well as it did) Simplicity
Logic detached from presentation
What I Learned
Reuse database connections when possible
Close database connections!

36. Questions?
Slides and Resourses: brettstephens.com/devcon2015 Brett Stephens