Managing User Account Creation / SIS ID updates

[eosika]

We have had Canvas for seven years and have not had any guidelines previously on how users were created or who could create user accounts.  Now, with moving to Colleague, as our new SIS, we have multiple instances of users with duplicate accounts where they were manually created with the SIS ID set as the users' email or login and then Colleague created a new account with the SIS ID as the student ID number.  Some students have up to four different accounts based on how they have interacted with the university.  Right now we are going through manually to merge the accounts and delete the ones with an incorrect SIS ID.

So, a couple of questions:

1.  Is there a way to only allow certain people to add user accounts while still letting instructors add students who are already in the system?  From what I see in permissions it is an all or nothing setting.

2.  Do other schools manage user accounts or just let people create whatever they need?  If so, how do you stop students from having duplicate accounts?

3. Is there any way through a CSV import to change the SIS ID in the system for those with emails or logins in this field to the official SIS ID number from the SIS system?  It didn't seem that the SISID field was one that could be updated through a CSV import.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Liz

[raj_veeravalli]

Liz,

1. You can define role-based access control by going to the permissions section under the relevant sub-account

What user roles and permissions are available in Canvas? 

2. We don't allow everyone to create accounts to precisely avoid the problems you have mentioned in your post. You can avoid duplicate accounts by acquiring unique identifiers from a SIS or some other 'source of truth' relevant to your institution to minimize duplicate identities. This data is usually from some kind of HR or enrollment database or both.

3. You can update a user's sis_user_id using canvas API. You may want to discuss this with your CSM and do extensive testing if you attempt to do this yourself to avoid data loss and integrity issues. Alternatively, your institution may want to engage a consultant to assist with the transition.

https://community.canvaslms.com/thread/8648