Update all usernames and emails

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megankoontz
Community Participant

We are moving to a different SIS and in order to do so, I need to update all our current users with different usernames and potentially emails.

In the past we allowed students to pick their own usernames and their email preferences, but the new system requires the username format to be firstname.lastname, and the email to only be the school-issued email.  
I know that I can do this for individual students on a one-on-one basis just by working with their user name but would rather use the Canvas Data Portal if possible.  I am a newbie though, and not sure where to find that information - can someone point me in the direction of the right report to be looking at potentially downloading, updating, and then uploading.

Thank you.

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1 Solution
robotcars
Community Champion

@megankoontz 

It might be easier than you think.

Canvas Data or a Report might get you that information OUT of Canvas... which you'd then have to update manually and reimport. However, if only the username and email are changing, but the users SIS_ID is not changing, you don't need anything FROM Canvas...

If you generate a new users.csv file from data provided in your new SIS, for the same SIS ID, the CSV importer will update all values except SIS_ID for the SIS_ID.

The format for users.csv is found here https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.sis_csv.html

And you only need the columns you want to change for user_id (sis_id)

Use your test or school.beta.instructure.com instances first.

You may also want to check the Override UI Changes option for anyone who has previously been updated via the UI.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-import-SIS-data-to-a-Canvas-account/ta-p/98

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