Grand news for all the Sensei users out there, it took us slightly longer than anticipated but Sensei 1.7.0 (codename ‘Sprightly Springbok’) is now available! As mentioned on the Woo Dev Blog, Sensei 1.7.0 brings major improvements all round to the speed and performance of your website and we’ve optimised the way Sensei interacts with the database so you should now experience no decrease in load speed, no matter how many users, courses or lessons you have on your site.
Before you start updating, please read the following important information.
IMPORTANT
We strongly recommend that you don’t update to v1.7 on your live site before testing on a staging site first. We suggest copying your live database to a staging site, and testing the update there, so you can make sure all your learner data is still accurate, and everything works as it should before you update your live site.
The update process requires a few manual updates (don’t worry, it only involves clicking a few links).
Clicking the first link will open a new window and run an update. When that update is complete you can close that window and then click the second link, and so on, until all the updates have been completed. Note that some of these updates may take a while to complete, especially if you have a lot of users/lessons on your site.
Note: We also STRONGLY recommend putting your site in maintenance mode while you run the updates. If you have users actively taking courses while you update, then there’s a chance their data could be affected. You can use a plugin such as Ultimate Maintenance Mode to prevent users from accessing your site while the updates are running. (You’ll need to install and activate this plugin before you update Sensei).
Sensei Extension Updates
We also had to update most of our extensions to ensure compatibility with this release, so if you use any of the following extensions, you’ll need to update those to the latest version too:
- Sensei Modules
- Sensei Certificates
- Sensei Course Progress
- Sensei Course Participants
- Sensei Content Drip
- Sensei Share Your Grade
Note: Don’t update these extensions until you’ve updated Sensei, as they won’t work properly with versions prior to 1.7.
New Features
We said there wouldn’t be any new features in this release in order to keep the performance update separate but we couldn’t leave you completely empty-handed. And so, Sensei 1.7.0 introduces the following new features:
- Multiple Choice multiselect – Multiple choice questions can now have more than one correct answer. You can add as many right or wrong answers as you like. If there is more than one correct answer, then learners will be able to select multiple answers when taking the quiz.
- Question Description – We added a ‘Question Description’ field, in case any of your questions need a little more explanation (see screenshot above)
- Gap Fill Auto-grading – Gap Fill questions can now be autograded along with multiple choice and true/false.
- LaTeX support in quizzes – Using Jetpack’s Beautiful Math module, you can now easily insert complex mathematical formulae in your quiz questions and answers.
Use the links above to view the documentation for each of these new features.
As always, if you encounter any issues in testing, or you find any bugs, please submit a support ticket and we’ll be happy to help you out.
Huge thanks to Psycle Interactive for their invaluable contributions in this release.
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Great news, Dan! It’s good to see Sensei’s continuing evolution 🙂
Thanks for all the hard work!
I’m only seeing 1.6.9 (from 28 December) in my downloads page.
@Mike, +1
(I’m only seeing 1.6.9 (from 28 December) in my downloads page.)
Hi Dan,
Cannot find Ver 1.7 in my downloads. Only Vers. 1.6.9
Please update, Thanks ANDY
I reviewed your whole change-log before purchase a week ago! Very pleased so far. Thanks for the update, new to Sensei!
Sorry guys, that was a caching issue. Should be all good now if you refresh the page 🙂
Caution!!!The update cleared all the Learners for the classes? Am I the only one this happened to?
Cleared Learners from the “Courses” not “classes”. Luckilly, I only have 2 Learners.
Now all my quizes are missing from my lessons.
Hi Robb. Please submit a support ticket so we can look into this for you.
Note: After updating, you should see a screen titled “Important Sensei Updates” that prevents access to the dashboard until you run several Sensei updates.
If you don’t see this screen you’ll need to run the updates manually, as explained here – https://support.woothemes.com/hc/en-us/articles/204177475
We’re looking into this issue and will have it fixed as soon as possible.
This issue is now fixed in v1.7.1, so if you update from 1.6.9 to 1.7.1 you will see the “Important Sensei Upgrades Required” screen.
If you still don’t, please submit a support ticket so we can assist.
I ran the update and did not get the screen mentioned. I went to Sensei – updates and it shows that all listed have been updated. They all state “Originally included in Sensei v1.7.0” There is only the option to re-run. It shows that they are manual and not auto.
Do I need to re-run?
This was run on a test site that does not have any learners – could this be why no further input was required by me?
I’d like to end with Thanks so much for a great plug in!
Yes, you need to re-run, as they haven’t actually been run already. I’ve updated the article to reflect that.
Hi, will this upgrade impact the BadgeOS/Sensei plugin? I do not see an update for that in the extension updates list. Before I update, I want to be sure this feature will function correctly. Thanks.
Hi Sarah. Yes, we’re currently working with BadgeOS to make sure it is compatible. I’d suggest holding off on the update until you see an update for the BadgeOS extension too.
Hey Dan,
I have 500+ lessons and 1200+ students. Can you estimate how long will it take to update everything?
And, the main question, will my VPS Bluehost server handle it withou timing out? If that happens, what should I do?