feat: add new field for Content-/UserDate models to support assignments #324

andrii-hantkovskyi · 2025-06-25T11:33:05Z

Description

Extends the ContentDate and UserDate models in edx-when to support enhanced assignment metadata and future scheduling use cases.

ContentDate model changes:

Added assignment_title, course_name, and subsection_name fields to improve tracking and display of assignment metadata.
Added indexes to support efficient filtering and lookup by assignment and subsection per course.

UserDate model changes:

Added first_component_block_id for referencing the starting block of a user’s assignment attempt.
Added user_date_value to explicitly store user-specific dates.
Indexed both new fields for improved query performance.

openedx-webhooks · 2025-06-25T11:33:11Z

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e0d

I'd like to discuss my questions before moving forward with this PR.

e0d · 2025-08-01T12:36:01Z

edx_when/migrations/0009_contentdate_assignment_title_contentdate_course_name_and_more.py

+            name='first_component_block_id',
+            field=opaque_keys.edx.django.models.UsageKeyField(blank=True, db_index=True, max_length=255, null=True),
+        ),
+        migrations.AddField(


Why is it necessary to add this new field?

The user_date_value field is currently unnecessary, removed.

e0d · 2025-08-01T12:37:42Z

edx_when/migrations/0009_contentdate_assignment_title_contentdate_course_name_and_more.py

+            name='subsection_name',
+            field=models.CharField(blank=True, db_index=True, default='', max_length=255),
+        ),
+        migrations.AddField(


I believe this is the first instance of content data in the userdate model. Why do we need to introduce it here?

The first_component_block_id field will be included in the response of the "all-course-dates" api endpoint.
Calculating this value in runtime is not trivial, and having it here on UserDate makes it much easier.

Is this specific to the user or would it be the same for each ContentDate? How does it different or related to the location field in ContentDate.

This field should not have a User-related context (unless I miss some business requirements) and must be placed in the ContentDate. I believe @e0d is totally right.

I want to perf-test the course info API w/ and w/o this field to check on the clear necessity to add it here.

The location attribute on ContentDate is the key of the assignment block itself, and it is not user-specific.
The first_component_block_id attribute on UserDate is the key of the first unit of the block available to the user, which means it is user-specific.
Here is a possible scenario that may help explain it:

We have a subsection with Unit 1 followed by Unit 2 followed by Unit 3.

Two users - User A and User B - have access to this subsection as an assignment.

However, User A belongs to a cohort that does not have access to Unit 1.

In this case, ContentDate.location will be the same for the two users (the subsection), but UserDate.first_component_block_id will differ: Unit 1 for User B, but Unit 2 for User A.

That's the logic behind putting first_component_block_id on the UserDate model.

Thanks. Should/can we rename the field name then (the current naming is really misleading)? To something like first_available_block_id.

I don't think we should: this naming was not introduced by this PR - it is already used extensively throughout the codebase.

@cmltaWt0 @e0d The following code should help clarify the meaning of first_component_block_id and why it is considered user-specific in the existing codebase. In the get_course_assignments() function we have these lines (abbreviated):

block_data = get_course_blocks(user, course_usage_key, allow_start_dates_in_future=True, include_completion=True) ... for section_key in block_data.get_children(course_usage_key): for subsection_key in block_data.get_children(section_key): ... first_component_block_id = get_first_component_of_block(subsection_key, block_data)

As we can see, the value of first_component_block_id is based on the course structure (block_data) - which is collected for a specfic user and only includes what they have access to.

e0d · 2025-08-01T12:47:13Z

edx_when/migrations/0009_contentdate_assignment_title_contentdate_course_name_and_more.py

+    operations = [
+        migrations.AddField(
+            model_name='contentdate',
+            name='assignment_title',


Assignment feels like a pretty robust concept, perhaps it should eventually be a new model entirely. How do we expect the assignment_title to be calculated?

Hi, I'm stepping in for @andrii-hantkovskyi.
assignment_title is computed in the get_course_assignments() function, in a loop over course blocks:
title = block_data.get_xblock_field(subsection_key, 'display_name', _('Assignment'))

e0d · 2025-08-05T18:14:12Z

Checking in with a large site using edx_when, they have over 3M rows in edx_when_contentdate and around 43K in edx_when_userdate. We should consider this vis-a-via the migrations and approach to applying indices.

Serj-N · 2025-08-19T08:18:17Z

Checking in with a large site using edx_when, they have over 3M rows in edx_when_contentdate and around 43K in edx_when_userdate. We should consider this vis-a-via the migrations and approach to applying indices.

@e0d Thank you for sharing this, we'll definitely take this into account.

Serj-N · 2025-08-27T09:01:46Z

@e0d Hi! This PR has been updated and is now ready for another round of review.

cmltaWt0 · 2025-09-09T16:10:13Z

edx_when/migrations/0009_contentdate_assignment_title_contentdate_course_name_and_more.py

+            name='subsection_name',
+            field=models.CharField(blank=True, db_index=True, default='', max_length=255),
+        ),
+        migrations.AddField(


This field should not have a User-related context (unless I miss some business requirements) and must be placed in the ContentDate. I believe @e0d is totally right.

I want to perf-test the course info API w/ and w/o this field to check on the clear necessity to add it here.

Serj-N · 2025-10-13T17:01:04Z

@e0d @cmltaWt0
This PR should most likely be closed due to contribution rights. Please see this new PR instead.

e0d · 2025-12-17T14:43:52Z

Closing this as it's been replaced by #343

openedx-webhooks added the open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U label Jun 25, 2025

openedx-webhooks added this to Contributions Jun 25, 2025

github-project-automation bot moved this to Needs Triage in Contributions Jun 25, 2025

feat: add new field for Content-/UserDate models to support assignments

582089c

andrii-hantkovskyi force-pushed the rg/extend-date-models-to-support-assignments branch from 6857b51 to 582089c Compare June 25, 2025 11:45

andrii-hantkovskyi self-assigned this Jul 1, 2025

This was referenced Jul 1, 2025

feat: [FC-7879] add signal handler to save assignment dates to ContentDate model #325

Draft

feat: [FC-7879] implement get_user_dates() method to get all user dates for a course #326

Draft

andrii-hantkovskyi removed their assignment Jul 14, 2025

mphilbrick211 moved this from Needs Triage to Waiting on Author in Contributions Jul 15, 2025

mphilbrick211 added the FC Relates to an Axim Funded Contribution project label Jul 15, 2025

e0d requested changes Aug 1, 2025

View reviewed changes

Serj-N added 2 commits August 20, 2025 12:14

fix: remove user_date_value, recreate 0009 migration

a15bbd5

fix: fix imports order in 0009 migration

9f4308a

Serj-N mentioned this pull request Sep 3, 2025

feat: [AXM-2707] add handler to create, delete, and sync UserDates raccoongang/edx-when#7

Merged

cmltaWt0 suggested changes Sep 9, 2025

View reviewed changes

mphilbrick211 moved this from Waiting on Author to In Eng Review in Contributions Sep 16, 2025

Serj-N mentioned this pull request Oct 13, 2025

feat: [FC-7879] add new fields/indices to Content-/UserDate to support assignments #343

Open

e0d closed this Dec 17, 2025

github-project-automation bot moved this from In Eng Review to Done in Contributions Dec 17, 2025

feat: add new field for Content-/UserDate models to support assignments #324

feat: add new field for Content-/UserDate models to support assignments #324

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andrii-hantkovskyi commented Jun 25, 2025

Description

ContentDate model changes:

UserDate model changes:

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openedx-webhooks commented Jun 25, 2025

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