Canvas accounts can be configured as a part of a consortium, a trust, or both.
A Canvas consortium includes a parent (or root) account with associated child (or subaccount) accounts. A parent account has access to view and manage child account content and child account settings.
A trust relationship allows one Canvas account to trust another Canvas account and allows users to be enrolled in both accounts.
When a consortium is created, a one-way trust is put in place. The child instances trust the users of the parent instance, so any users in the parent instance are able to be enrolled in courses in the child instances. When configuring a new consortium, two optional settings can be enabled. These are disabled by default:
A trust account relationship allows one Canvas account to trust another Canvas account and allows users to be enrolled in both places. Instead of creating two separate accounts and merging them together, a trust relationship allows separate Canvas accounts to share user identities, so a user can log in to one account and access courses from both accounts.
Note: Trust account settings are established during implementation. Trust account relationships can be established between multiple accounts.