Assignment / View Submissions / Users with no filter does not display anything - fix please?
The release added new filtering options ("Groups – Improved filters by groups and sections | Updated") throughout many tools. It says that "By default, all users display until filters are applied."
However this is not my experience in the Assignment tool when viewing submissions. When I attempt to view the submissions for an assignment by user (e.g., from the dropdown in next to the assignment listing), I see only "There are no users for the search" until I select the Filter by: Sections dropdown and enable one or more of the sections and then click Apply. I did not have to do anything like that to see submissions by user prior to the new filtering.
(I have not touched the search options: the search box is empty; if I show the options, submissions and feedback are set to "Show everyone".)
Clicking "Submissions" instead of the default "Users" does show all submissions, but this listing doesn't include information as to whether feedback is published or read. This view also doesn't include the new filtering option.
I believe this behavior is a bug; it is contrary to the description in the release notes. It is also somewhat alarming until you figure out that all your students' work hasn't somehow been erased…
Answers
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Hello David,
Thank you for raising this.
I reviewed the Brightspace documentation for this workflow. In the February 2026 / 20.26.02 release notes, under Groups - Improved filters by groups and sections | Updated, the documentation states: “By default, all users display until filters are applied.” The same release notes also list Assignments as one of the areas where this updated filtering applies, including filtering by users on the submissions page.
I also reviewed the Assessing assignment submissions documentation, which states: “Navigate submissions with various filters. The default search filters are Show everyone (for individual assignments) and Show all groups (for group assignments).”
Documentation:
Based on that documentation, I was not able to find support for the Users view remaining empty until one or more sections are selected. The behavior you described does not match the documented behavior in the articles above.
Since I was not able to confirm this as expected behavior from documentation, I recommend opening a Support Case so the team can review the specific environment, course setup, and role configuration in detail.
Thank you for flagging this for review.
