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Canvas Data Integration

Updated

The Course Evaluations & Surveys Data integration with Instructure’s Canvas LMS has several components which allow you to directly sync course, student, teaching assistant, and instructor information between the two systems for your Course Evaluations & Surveys projects.


Overview

The following provides further details on the Data Integration functionality between Course Evaluations & Surveys and Canvas:
  1. Refresh Canvas Accounts, Courses, and Enrollments within Course Evaluations & Surveys
    1. Syncing your Canvas Accounts within Course Evaluations & Surveys.
    2. Syncing your course information, student enrollments, teaching assistant, and instructor enrollments between Canvas and Course Evaluations & Surveys.
    3. Searching and selecting Canvas courses and enrollments in your Course Evaluations & Surveys projects.
    4. Using the Student, Teaching Assistant, and/or Instructor Enrollment Refresh to manage enrollment adds/drops in Canvas courses after the initial course data import into your Course Evaluations & Surveys project.
  2. Send Messages to Canvas Inbox
    1. As an additional means of communication, you can message students in Canvas directly from from Course Evaluations & Surveys.
  3. Add Points to Canvas Gradebook or Block Access to Grades
    1. At the Project-level, allow the CES Administrator or course Instructor to assign a specific number of points for completed surveys, and then automatically have a Gradebook item generated (column name is the Project name) along with the corresponding points added for each student who has completed a specified survey.


DATA INTEGRATION WITH CANVAS

The following provides further details on the Data Integration functionality between Course Evaluations & Surveys and Canvas:
  1. The Data Integration with Canvas allows the CES Administrator to search for and select desired Canvas courses to be included in Course Evaluations & Surveys Projects. You can then transfer the necessary course, student, teaching assistant, and instructor information for those courses. Once configured, you can use our Enrollment Refresh feature to automatically reach back out to Canvas and update any student, teaching assistant, or instructor enrollment changes (such as add/drops) from your initial course data import in your CES Project.
  2. The data integration is accomplished through setup of configuration settings in Course Evaluations & Surveys and a web service running in the background. These pieces allow you to connect via Canvas’s standard APIs with your instance of Canvas to import courses and manage enrollment changes.
  3. Prior to setting up the data integration, it is recommended that you set up a designated Canvas Admin account. This account’s sole purpose will be used for authenticating the integration and generating the access token. A dedicated account will ensure that changes to a user’s personal Canvas Admin account will not disrupt your data integration.


Required Permissions for Canvas Administrator Account to Generate Access Token

Below are the minimum permissions for the Canvas Administrator account to generate the access token for the data integration and user integration:
  1. Items denoted in purple are required permissions to utilize base Canvas integration features with Course Evaluations & Surveys.  *Required if integrating Course Evaluations & Surveys with a Canvas sub-account.
  2. Items denoted in green are optional permissions to utilize additional Canvas integration features in Course Evaluations & Surveys.
Canvas Permission Data Integration User Integration Use Case for this Permission
Account-level settings - manage Required   Allows CES to access the Canvas sub-accounts where courses reside. If CES cannot access the Canvas sub-account then the course(s) cannon be imported via the integration.
Conversations - send messages to entire class   Optional Allows CES to send project Communications to the enrolled users' Canvas Inboxes
Conversations - send messages to individual course members   Optional Allows CES to send project Communications to the enrolled users' Canvas Inboxes
Course Calendar - add / edit / delete events   Optional Allows a CES link to appear on the Canvas Calendar
Course Content - view Required   Allows course data set to be re-synced from Canvas to CES so that courses and enrollments can be imported from Canvas to CES.
Courses - view list Required   Allows CES to get course specific data to import courses into CES.
Developer Keys - Manage   Optional Allows CES add a widget in Canvas with CES information.
Grades - edit Required   Allows CES admins and/or instructors to add gradebooks points or block grades. For more on this feature see "Canvas Grade Blocking and Gradebook".
Grades - select final grade for moderation Optional   Allows CES admins and/or instructors to add gradebooks points or block grades. For more on this feature see "Canvas Grade Blocking and Gradebook".
Grades - view audit trail Optional   Allows CES admins and/or instructors to add gradebooks points or block grades. For more on this feature see "Canvas Grade Blocking and Gradebook".
Groups - view all student groups Optional   Allows import of student Groups that are set up in the Canvas course and allows CES to import as separate course sections.
Manage Assignments and Quizzes Optional   Allows CES admins and/or instructors to add gradebook points or block grades. For more on this feature see "Canvas Grade Blocking and Gradebook" article in Help Center.
Manage LTI   Required Allows CES to create LTI external tools in Canvas.
Permissions - manage Optional   If using custom roles in Canvas, allows CES Admin to import users in those custom roles from Canvas to CES.
SIS Data - read Required   Allows CES to get course specific data.
Statistics - view Required   Allows CES to get course specific data.
Users - Students   *Required * Required for the Canvas role assigned to the access token Admin if a CES account is integrated with a Canvas sub-account. If a CES account is integrated with the Canvas root account then the user email address will be imported with the user, even when disabled.
Users - Teachers   *Required * Required for the Canvas role assigned to the access token Admin if a CES account is integrated with a Canvas sub-account. If a CES account is integrated with the Canvas root account then the user email address will be imported with the user, even when disabled.
Users - view list Required   Allows CES to get user and course enrollment data.
Users - view login IDs Required   Allows CES to get user login usernames.
Users - view primary email address Required   Allows CES to get user's primary email address.

 

Generating an Access Token
  1. Log into Canvas as a Canvas Administrator.
  2. On the left-hand navigation of Canvas, go to Account > Settings.

    Canvas_Admin_Settings.png
  3. 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 Course Evaluations & Surveys.

    Generate_Token.png

    NOTE: You can leave the expiration blank. If the token expires, the data integration will no longer work and you will need to generate a new token.

  4. Generate the token and COPY the entire Access Token, and paste it into a text editor, such as Notepad.


Enter Connection Settings in Course Evaluations & Surveys

  1. In a separate browser, log in to your Course Evaluations & Surveys site as a CES Administrator to configure the Data Integration Webservice.
  2. In Course Evaluations & Surveys, navigate to Account > Integrations > Canvas > Data Settings tab.

    Data_Settings.png
    1. Canvas Site Name: Add a name for your Canvas Site-this can be any text to identify your Canvas site.
    2. Canvas Site Version: This is your version of Canvas-this can be any text (e.g., Production, Test, Sandbox, etc.).
    3. Canvas Site Address: This is the URL for YOUR login page for Canvas, including https:// (e.g. https://yourinstitution.instructure.com).
    4. Canvas Web Service Token: Paste the token you generated in step 4 above. After saving these settings, the beginning of the web service token will be visible, while the rest will be masked.
    5. Click Save.
  3. You are now ready to click Test Connection to test the data integration. You should receive a message at the bottom of the page indicating the connection Test Passed. If you receive a failed message, please review the previous steps and contact our Support Team by clicking Submit A Request for additional help, if necessary.
For institutions that wish to set up the Canvas Integration at the Subaccount level in Canvas, you will need to ensure that the Canvas Admin Account only has access to the particular subaccount. You will follow the same steps above to generate the access token, then select Is Sub-Account under Data Settings, as seen in the screenshot below:

Data_Settings_Screen.png

NOTE: If you are setting up the integration at a Canvas subaccount level, the user integration will also need to be done at the same subaccount level. Customers that have a decentralized model in Course Evaluations & Surveys, will need to set up the integration at the Course Evaluations & Surveys parent level.

 

Canvas Course Roles

Canvas_Roles_Settings.png
  1. The Canvas Course Roles feature allows you to choose whether to import course enrollments using only the standard Canvas course roles (Designer, Observer, Student, TA, and Teacher) or to also include custom roles created by your organization.


NOTE: Using the second option, Standard and Custom Canvas Course Roles requires the Manage Permissions permission in Canvas, assigned to the Canvas Admin account that generated the access token. See Required Permissions for Canvas Administrator Account to Generate Access Token section above.

Additionally, Custom Canvas Course Roles must be setup at the same Canvas sub-account as the integration if you wish to import users assigned a custom role.

 

Account Hierarchy Import

Canvas_Account_Hierarchy_Import.png
  1. The Account Hierarchy Import feature allows you to import your Canvas account structure as your Course Evaluations & Surveys account hierarchy. The Canvas account structure imported is restricted to the level where the access token is generated, including its sub-accounts. Once imported, manual changes can be performed, but it is not recommended as this can risk creating duplicate hierarchy levels, and in turn, present course misalignment to levels in your hierarchy.


NOTE: The Canvas Account Hierarchy Import feature is not enabled by default on Course Evaluations & Surveys Accounts. If you are in implementation, please work with your Implementation Team to have this enabled.  If you are not in Implementation, please contact our Support Team by clicking Submit A Request to determine if this feature is right for your institution. The Canvas Account Hierarchy Import functionality is intended for Canvas institutions just coming on board with Course Evaluations & Surveys, and should not be utilized if you already have a hierarchy in place in Course Evaluations & Surveys. Also, to note, when initially creating the hierarchy structure, it's best to choose one path or the other, meaning that if you don't necessarily want to mirror the structure that's in Canvas, then manually creating the hierarchy in Course Evaluations & Surveys from the ground up would be the cleanest approach.

 

Gradebook Settings

Canvas_Gradebiook_Settings.png
  1. Gradebook Settings allows the CES Administrator to enable the Canvas Gradebook feature at the Project-level. At the Project-level, the Canvas Gradebook feature provides the ability for either the CES Administrator or course Instructor to assign a specific number of points for completed surveys, and then automatically have a Gradebook item generated (column name is the Project name) along with the corresponding points added for each student who has completed a specified survey.

 

SETTING UP THE CANVAS INTEGRATION AT THE PARENT OR SUBACCOUNT LEVEL

  1. Some institutions will opt to set up the integration at the parent or subaccount level within Canvas. Note: You can only set up the integration at the parent or subaccount level; you cannot set up a combination of the two.
  2. For schools that have a decentralized model in Course Evaluations & Surveys, you will need to set up the integration at the parent level in Canvas and in CES.
  3. Setting up the integration at the parent or subaccount level will involve the same steps outlined earlier in this article, but if you opt for the subaccount setup, you will need to complete the following steps:
    1. Ensure that the Canvas Admin that generates the token has access to only one subaccount.
    2. As outlined above, Is Sub-Account will need to be selected when configuring the data integration.
    3. Within Canvas, go to your root account and under Admin, click on Settings.
    4. Confirm that the global files in the Canvas Root Account do not contain any Course Evaluations & Surveys code within the CSS or JS files.
    5. You can then upload your CSS and JS files as described in the Canvas User Integration article.

 

FIELD ALIGNMENT

Canvas_field_mapping.png

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