LMS Integration: Canvas Setup Guide

Overview

Student Success & Engagement integrates with Canvas to provide updated LMS data to a student’s success team. This article provides information on the steps needed to configure Canvas to allow SS&E to connect and retrieve information using the Canvas API.

• The intent is for the Student Success Team to be able to view all important information on a student in a “one stop shop” and avoid the need to navigate between various systems.
• Automatic alerting, filtering and reporting features leverage LMS data to quickly identify students who may need additional support for their success team.
• The LMS data is matched with course section and enrollment data within SS&E so that users can view Grades, Assignments, Submissions, and last login data on the student profile.
• To verify whether or not data is syncing properly from the LMS at a high overview level, you can check the LMS Summary Report, further explained here.

Setup Instructions For Canvas - SS&E Integration

In Canvas

As a Canvas Administrator, log in to your instance of Canvas and complete the following:

Create a Role for SS&E Permissions

• Click Admin in the left navigation bar
• Choose the root Canvas account
• Click Permissions in the left navigation bar
• Click the Account Roles tab. (You may also refer to the Create a new Account level role: https://guides.instructure.com/m/4214/l/73662-how-do-i-add-an-account-level-role-in-the-permissions-page)
• Click the Add Role button
  
• Insert SSE_Role (formerly AvisoRole) as the role name
• Add the following permissions to the role:
  • Account-level settings - manage
  • Course Content - view
  • Courses - view list
  • Discussions - view
  • Feature Options - enable / disable
  • Grades - view all grades
  • Groups - view all student groups
  • Question banks - view and link
  • Quizzes - view submission log
  • Reports - manage
  • SIS Data - import
  • SIS Data - manage
  • SIS Data - read
  • Statistics - view
  • Users - view list

Create a User for SS&E Integration

• Click Admin in the left navigation bar
• Choose the root Canvas account
• Click People in the left navigation bar
• Click +People to create a new user
• Insert "SSE_User" (formerly AvisoUser) as the Full Name
• Insert "lms@watermarkinsights.com" as email
• Click Add User to complete the process
• Assign the SSE_Role to the SSE_User
  • To assign the the SSE_Role (or AvisoRole) to the SSE_User (or AvisoUser) see the steps in this Instructure article - https://guides.instructure.com/m/4214/l/43005-how-do-i-add-an-admin-to-an-account
    Note: This role must be assigned to the user on the root account and not within a sub-account.

Generate Token

• Login as SSE_User (or AvisoUser) and accept terms of service
• On the left-hand navigation of Canvas, go to Account > Settings.

• Under the section Approved Integrations, select New Access Token. You will be presented with a window to create the token and insert a purpose for the token, such as "SS&E Integration".
  NOTE: The expiration date can be left blank. If the token expires, the data integration will no longer work and you will need to generate a new token.

In Student Success & Engagement

Enter Connection Details

An SS&E Administrator must enter the Canvas connection details into SS&E. The Canvas Administrator and SS&E System Admin may work together on this step. 

• From the SS&E Home screen, open the navigation menu "Advise" with 9 dots. 
• From SS&E Administration, on the left side navigation menu, navigate to LMS Integration > LMS Integration Configuration.
• Edit the page, and edit the Integration Type to select Canvas
• In Canvas Configuration:
  • Check "enabled"
  • Fill the connection details in this section
    • host (LMS domain): Usually this looks something like "yourinstitution.instructure.com". Do not include the "https://".
    • securitytoken: This is the token created in Canvas in the previous section.
• Save the configuration

Note: It is not recommended to edit the Advanced Configurations.

Test Connection

It may take a few minutes for the integration changes to take effect.

• From the LMS Integration Configuration page, use the test connection button to confirm that the connection is configured correctly.
  • If an error message is returned, verify the configurations and permissions above are correct. Example error messages:
    
    • "Unable to connect. Status Code: 404 -- That page doesn't exist." 
    • "Unable to connect. Status Code: 401 -- Unauthorized - invalid credentials." 
  • If valid data is returned, the connection is successful and the setup is complete. An example of a successful connection looks like this.
    

Once this process is complete and the connection test is successful, please let your Project Manager and/or Technical Consultant know. Next, Watermark staff will need to build the LMS course resolver (for new implementations or LMS migrations).