Construct and Process Delete Locked Item Feeds
This article will be most useful for System Admins.
Overview
Concourse data feeds allow system administrators to “lock” item content on the syllabus level (See Construct and Process Item Feeds). Locked item content cannot be edited or removed by any user. If a locked item must be changed, a system administrator can process a new Item Feed containing the modified item content. If, however, a locked item should be deleted so that the item can be manually modified by other users, a system administrator must construct and process a Delete Locked Item Feed.
Before You Begin
Keep the following limitations and guidance in mind as you prepare to delete locked items from your Concourse system:
- Only system administrators can process Delete Locked Item Feeds manually.
- While Delete Locked Item Feeds can be processed automatically, this isn’t a feed that is needed on a regular basis; in other words, we do not recommend scheduling the Delete Locked Item Feed to be processed more than once.
- All Concourse feeds must be constructed in a program that supports plain text files (.txt extension). If you opt to create the feed file manually, you can use Notepad++, TextEdit, or Brackets.io to create the file. The feed file must be encoded as UTF-8 to avoid processing errors.
- After a locked item has been deleted from Concourse, the item’s group permissions continue to adhere to your system’s initial group permissions. We recommend that you review group permissions for the item to ensure that users are able to add and edit item content as expected moving forward.
Constructing a Delete Locked Item Feed
The Delete Locked Item Feed requires the following header row: COURSE_IDENTIFIER|DELETE. The COURSE_IDENTIFIER is the external ID of the course from which the locked item is being deleted. The DELETE field confirms whether the locked content in the identified course is to be deleted. Entering 1 for the DELETE field confirms that the locked item is to be deleted. A Delete Locked Item Feed might appear as:
COURSE_IDENTIFIER|DELETE
CGBS1234_TMPL|1
CGBS2034_TMPL|1
CGBS4390_TMPL|1
You can download a sample Delete Locked Item Feed at the end of this article to use as a model. The Delete Locked Item Feed must be constructed before following the steps to process a Delete Locked Item Feed.
Processing a Delete Locked Item Feed
To process a Delete Locked Item Feed manually, system administrators can:
- Select Admin. In the drop down that appears, choose Tools.
- Select Create and maintain data via feed processing.
- Open the Type drop down in the Process a Feed block.
- Navigate to the Delete Locked Items portion of the Type drop down and choose the name of the locked item being deleted.
- Select File to open your device’s file browser. On your device, select the previously constructed Delete Locked Item Feed. The selected file name appears in the Process a Feed block.
- Select Process.
After the Delete Locked Item Feed is processed, the Processing Output appears in the Process a Feed block. Processing Output identifies the outcome of each line of the feed row, either DELETED or ERROR. DELETED indicates that the locked item in the course specified on the given row of the feed file was deleted. ERROR indicates that there was a problem with the information in the given row of the feed file and the locked item in the course specified on the feed file row was not deleted. If the Processing Output indicates ERROR, confirm whether the course identifier on the errored row of the feed file matches a course identifier in your system and attempt to process the feed with the correct course identifier.
Best Practices and Recommendations
Deleting locked items may be the best option to achieve your institution’s desired outcome; however, we always encourage you to exercise caution when deleting data. Once locked items have been deleted, their content cannot be recovered. Before deciding to delete locked items, consider the following:
- Even if an item is locked, users can add and edit subitems of the locked item if their group permissions allow.
- Deleting a locked item results in all of its subitem content also being deleted.
- Consequently, if users have added subitem content to a locked item, processing a Delete Locked Item Feed results in a loss of content generated via Item Feed and end user manual editing.
- We recommend that system administrators generate an Item Report to determine whether subitem content exists for the locked item(s) prior to deletion.
- If subitem content exists for the locked item, processing a new Item Feed to modify or unlock the item may be a more appropriate choice.
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