[ARCHIVED] Can admin manage Observer accounts? How?

[cgiraud]

I have a parent who is trying to create an Observer account, but she is getting the message that her email is already in use.

How do I help her?

When I search for her email in Users, it doesn't show up. This seems like the wrong way to get at this. There must be a way for me to see who is linked to my students or somehow access emails linked to accounts in my instance. Seems like this should be an easy fix, but I don't know how.

Also would love to be able to see Observer analytics. Who's being observed, how much, etc? Would also like to be able to control (to some degree) a parent's access if issues of abuse or legal protection concerns arise.

[clong · Accepted solution]

Hi cgiraud​

If you are an account admin you should indeed be able to search for a user by name or email. My guess in this case is that the user account with that email was deleted, however it's still in the Canvas database, because hardly a thing really gets deleted in Canvas. The solution for this would be to click on the Help menu and "Report the Problem". The Canvas Support team can resolve this.

[clong]

Also you can limit or change (further limit) the permissions of parent observers. See How do I set permissions for an account-level role?​

And... I love your idea of having some better Observer Analytics! This would be a great Canvas Feature Idea​ to submit

[cgiraud]

Thanks, Chris. Our Observers have no permissions in that area where permissions can be set for user groups. I just really wanted a place where all Observers would be aggregated so I can find a parent account easily. Would be great if I could click on a student name and see who is Observing that student, etc. As I mentioned, analytics on this would be great too. Thanks for suggestion about submitting a feature request. I did it.

[clong]

You are welcome cgiraud​. If you post a link to your idea in this thread it might direct people there to add comments and vote (in the future) on it.