Adding, editing, or removing tools

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Note: To complete the procedures in this document, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, follow the directions in Participant roles. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions and roles.

Using the Site Info tool, you can add, edit, or remove the tools on the menubar. To do so, follow the steps below:

  1. In your site, from the menubar, click Site Info.
  2. Click Edit Tools.
  3. Check the boxes next to the tools that you wish to add to your menubar; uncheck the box if you are removing a tool.
  4. Click Continue.
  5. If you're adding or already using the following tools, the Customize Tools screen will provide you a chance to make certain changes. If you're not adding or using one of the tools below, skip to the next step. For the following tools, these tasks are possible:
    • Email Archive: Create or modify your site email address
    • News: Add or modify news feed titles and URLs; titles will appear in your menubar
    • Web Content: Add or modify titles and URLs; titles will appear in your menubar

    When you're finished, click Continue.

  6. On the confirmation screen, you will see a list of your site's tools and any changes you've made. If the list is accurate, click Finish. To edit your changes, click Back, or if you wish to cancel, click Cancel.

Tool Order

Tool Order is an option in Site Info that allows you to rename, reorder, and hide bSpace tools that are in your site. It is not intended to be a replacement of the above add/edit/remove tools process.

Renaming in Tool Order:

In order to rename a tool you need to click the edit icon to the right of a tool name. This will allow you to edit the text field and change the default name. Click the small circular green button to save your edits for that tool. Repeat the steps to edit other tool names, as necessary. The new name(s) will then be listed in tool order but not yet saved. Make sure that you click the Save button at the bottom of the screen to complete the name change process.

Reordering in Tool Order:

When you first look at Tool Order the tools are displayed in the order that they appear in the lefthand toolbar. To reorder the tools, click on the particular tool you wish to move, and then drag and drop it into the desired place. In order for any reordering to take effect you need to click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

NOTE: If you have a space at the beginning of a tool that you renamed, it will automatically drop to the bottom of the list regardless of where you attempted to place it in the toolbar.

Hiding Tools in Tool Order:

Tool Order allows you to hide a tool that you may wish to update while maintaining participant access to the rest of the site. To hide a tool click the light bulb icon to the right of the tool name in Tool Order. After clicking the light bulb to hide a tool, the icon changes to white to signify that the tool is no longer available to regular site participants.

NOTE: This is change is effective immediately (where as other Tool Order changes require that you click Save in order for them to take effect).

Reverting changes in Tool Order:

After you make any initial changes and click save in Tool Order you may go back to the Tool Order screen and click the Reset button to erase any name and/or order changes you made. If you find your students and site participants are confused by name changes that you made it may be best to revert to the original names.

Best Practices in Tool Order:

Tool Order is intended to provide flexibility to site owners who have reason to change the order or names of tools. After making changes to customize your site, ETS recommends that you post an announcement to alert your site members of the change so that they can easily find the material they need.

Examples:

  • Editing tool names to display in a foreign language
  • Editing tool names to match the organization of the class or project; i.e., changing &#8220Resources&#8221 to &#8220Class Materials&#8221 or &#8220Meeting Minutes.&#8221
  • Reordering the tools to display the most important tool at the top of the toolbar

Although you can also delete or add any tool from the Tool Order screen, ETS recommends you use the traditional method of clicking Site Info > Edit Tools to select the tools for your site.