Installing and Configuring Digication as a Blackboard Building Block

Drew Albenesius

August 20, 2018 21:42

Here's a quick guide to help admins install and configure the Blackboard Building Block for their campus to integrate with Digication. The guide is broken out into four main phases: uploading the WAR file, performing a rolling restart (if there are multiple app servers), configuring the app settings, and enabling the Digication course tool in settings. Please find the walkthrough below.

Phase 1: Uploading the WAR file

Download the appropriate building block for your Blackboard environment:
- Self hosted Blackboard and SaaS environments will use version 1.0.2: https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.digication.com/blackboard-plugin/blackboard-plugin-1.0.2.war
- Managed hosting environments will use version 0.2.7:
  https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.digication.com/blackboard-plugin/blackboard-plugin-0.2.7.war
Log into Blackboard as an Admin
Click on the “System Admin” tab 
Select “Building Blocks”
Select “Upload Building Blocks”
Browse for the provided WAR file and select it. (Please note: if you have used a previous version of Digication's Blackboard Building Block, you should install the newer version on top of the previous install. Do not uninstall the previous version of the Building Block when upgrading.)
Click on “Submit”
View permissions settings and click “Approve”
After the progress bar reaches 100% you can move on to configuring the apps settings.

Phase 2: Perform rolling restart on Blackboard servers if there are multiple app servers (typical)

If you are hosting your own blackboard servers, you can perform the rolling restart.
If Blackboard is providing managed hosting, please request them to perform am rolling restart.

Phase 3: Configuring the App Settings

Go to System Admin > Tools & Utilities > Digication.
This brings you to “Digication Settings” where you’ll be asked to log in using your Digication Administrator username and password.
After logging in, you’ll have to enter your school’s Digication domain to confirm before pressing “Continue”.
You should then receive two confirmations: that your school system has been created and that Blackboard Single Sign-On is now enabled.
Configure additional options such as user ID, username, Course ID field, etc.

Phase 4: Enable the Digication Course Tool for Courses

Go to System Admin > Tools
Find the "Digication Course Tool" and Turn Availability to "On"

Once all of these steps are complete, faculty members within any course will be able to add Digication to it as a link in the lefthand sidebar or under "Tools."Read more information on how to add a Digication link in a course.

For Schools Using Custom Blackboard Domains

In order for the SaaS building block to work properly it will need to have a proper SSL certificate. Currently schools who are using custom domains for their Blackboard install are unable to generate a valid SSL certificates, causing issues with browsers blocking the request.

This can be tested by going to any custom Blackboard domain on any browser, which it will generate an SSL warning that needs to be manually bypassed.