[DEPR]: Remove `CONTENT_GROUPS_FOR_TEAMS` Waffle Flag

[BryanttV]

Proposal Date

2025-02-26

Target Ticket Acceptance Date

2025-03-12

Earliest Open edX Named Release Without This Functionality

Ulmo - 2025-10

Rationale

The CONTENT_GROUPS_FOR_TEAMS Waffle Flag has a target removal for Teak. However, according to the investigation to be conducted until June, the target removal will be moved for Ulmo.

Currently, for using the functionality that connects Content Groups with Teams, it's necessary to add a Waffle Flag (teams.content_groups_for_teams) in the specific course. After the removal, the connection of teams with content groups will always be available for the course authors in all courses.

Removal

Before proceeding with the removal of the Waffle Flag, it’s necessary to solve some bugs related to the functionality:

• Creating a new group restores previous configurations on the units (teams - content groups) frontend-app-authoring#1719
• Enabling content groups for teams breaks the content groups functionality (teams - content groups) frontend-app-authoring#1698

After fixing the bugs, to completely remove the Waffle Flag in edx-platform, it’s necessary:

• Remove the Waffle Flag definition from the teams_config.py file.
• Remove the Waffle Flag usage from team_partition_schema.py, utils.py, team_partition_groups.py and course_metadata.py files.
• Remove the Waffle Flag from the tests in the test_partition_schema.py, test_course_settings.py, and test_outline.py files.

Replacement

No replacement

Deprecation

No response

Migration

No response

Additional Info

• Product Proposal
• PR with original implementation
• GitHub Discussion
• Discuss Post

Task List

• Fix Creating a new group restores previous configurations on the units (teams - content groups) frontend-app-authoring#1719
• Fix Enabling content groups for teams breaks the content groups functionality (teams - content groups) frontend-app-authoring#1698
• feat: remove CONTENT_GROUPS_FOR_TEAMS waffle flag openedx-platform#36290 [WIP]

[BryanttV]

Hi, @mariajgrimaldi and @kdmccormick. Could you check this proposal?

[mariajgrimaldi]

@BryanttV, can we include these items in the DEPR to provide better context?

1. Product proposal: https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/3885662226/Connecting+Teams+to+Content+Groups
2. Behavior after removing the flag

[BryanttV]

Hi, @mariajgrimaldi. Thanks for your review! I updated the cover letter.

[crathbun428]

I realize why we want to deprecate this, but I have to ask: Where we're currently investigating how to best consolidate user grouping functionality on the platform to make user grouping and the use of these user groups more user friendly and clear (the aim is to conduct this investigation from now through mid-June) - I wonder if it is worth keeping this flag and keeping it as defaulted to off until we've at least done some investigation work around what user grouping architecture can look like moving forward, how we might migrate cohorts, course groups, and teams to this new model? Potentially, once that investigation is done, we could revisit this problem for Ulmo?

My reasoning for asking this question would be that users who didn't currently have this feature flag switched on for this course will now see a new option in Studio: to link teams to content groups from Teak even though we plan to roll out and start to simplify/consolidate user grouping beyond Teak. Thoughts on this @mariajgrimaldi, @felipemontoya, @bmtcril, or @saraburns1?

cc: @kdmccormick

[mariajgrimaldi]

@crathbun428: Thanks for weighing in! This makes sense to me, but I'd still like us to proceed with the deprecation tasks, except for the flag removal, so we can fix the integration's behavior for Teak since it's not working correctly. Then, in Ulmo, we can revisit this functionality alongside the investigation to make an informed decision.

[BryanttV]

Hi everyone, thanks!. According to the comments, we'll proceed with the tasks to fix the current behavior reported in the Authoring MFE. The Waffle flag will be kept in Teak, and in Ulmo, its removal will be re-evaluated according to the investigation.

[robrap]

@kdmccormick: I assigned you as coordinator, since you had moved this ticket to blocked. If it needs someone a different coordinator, we can discuss in the channel or meeting.

I proposed that this moves to Plan Accepted (or some other appropriate status), gets the updated DEPR template applied, and possibly uses a Review After Date for checking in at a later time. I'm trying to do away with "blocked" as a separate status now that we have so many options.

[kdmccormick]

I would like to pause on this DEPR for now. I've been working in the UserPartitions code lately, and have re-visited this feature's implementation. I think I've found a bug in the data model, and I think we should resolve it before removing the feature flag: openedx/openedx-platform#37192