bulk publishing and unpublishing of modules, assignments, files

[carolpeabody]

Is it possible to publish all the assignments and all the files within a module at the same time, or to publish or unpublish all the modules within a course at the same time?

I've recently copied a course's contents into a new course, and am trying to unpublish everything.  Is it necessary to click on the unpublish button for each individual item or is there a more efficient way of getting this accomplished?

[Renee_Carney · Accepted solution]

 @carolpeabody  

I'm sorry you didn't get a super quick answer on this.  And  @twassmer  I hope this will help you as well.

How do I use Draft State in Modules? is the guide that covers publishing and unpublishing modules.  I believe this specific section is what you are looking for clarity on?  

Please be aware that the status of the Module overrides the state of module items. If an item is published within an unpublished module, students cannot view the item on the Modules page but they can still view the published items in other areas of Canvas.

If you are seeking more advanced features in module publishing and unpublishing you may want to comment or vote on https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/6173-publish-unpublish-all-option 

[carolpeabody]

So, I am guessing the answer is "No"?  Is this something anyone else would find useful?

[twassmer]

I would also appreciate this. It is quite a long list of assignments that I do not all want to be published when I publish the course.

[RichardThorpe]

I would also appreciate a less tedious way of unpublishing a large number of items within a module without having to visit each individually with multiple key clicks for each and every one of them. Some along the notion of a multiple disjoint select, then unpublish those selected items. It's too easy to publish everything within a module with a single click (publish the module); less easy to undo that.

[Renee_Carney · Accepted solution]

 @carolpeabody  

I'm sorry you didn't get a super quick answer on this.  And  @twassmer  I hope this will help you as well.

How do I use Draft State in Modules? is the guide that covers publishing and unpublishing modules.  I believe this specific section is what you are looking for clarity on?  

Please be aware that the status of the Module overrides the state of module items. If an item is published within an unpublished module, students cannot view the item on the Modules page but they can still view the published items in other areas of Canvas.

If you are seeking more advanced features in module publishing and unpublishing you may want to comment or vote on https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/6173-publish-unpublish-all-option 

[fpaiano]

The system says that this is a solution. However, it is not a solution. The request was to quickly and easily unpublish multiple items or have a global [Unpublish All] command. The suggested solution does not unpublish all the pages and assignments within a module or unpublish all items. It would be much more elegant and intuitive if you could just unpublish everything or unpublish the module and all the subordinate pages, assignments, discussion forums, etc. were unpublished. This works when you want to publish a module and all its subordinate pages, etc. All you do is publish the module. 

[winnie_milner]

I am a Canvas admin I find myself helping staff by importing content from previously taught courses within departments and from teachers who have left the district. Teachers love this Canvas capability.  However, when this is done with previously taught courses, the content is typically still published. There needs to be a quick and easy way to unpublish many items at one time. Of course we can unpublish at the Module level, but the individual assignments and other course content are all still published allowing people to still see it in the individual course navigation indexes like "assignments" & "Quizzes." This can be fixed-ish by eliminating those index pages from navigation, but it still greatly clunks up the gradebook. Ugh. I wish there were an additional button next to the original button to publish & unpublish on each module. This second toggle button could act as a bit of an override and not only unpublish the module, but also unpublish everything within the module. 

[asergay]

I asked my Canvas CSM (the incomparable Jackie!) and she sniffed out a possible solution that works for me:

Unpublish all items on the Modules page

Open the page in the Chrome web browser. Open developer tools. If this isn't something you've done before, it can be done by right-clicking then selecting "inspect". Click "Console" at the top of the developer tools window that opens. Paste the line at the bottom of this post and press enter. This selects all of the published items and simulates a click on each one in turn. Click the x in the top right corner of developer tools window to close it and go about your business.

$('.publish-icon-published').click()

[Robert_Bruner]

Scary! And I don't have or use Chrome. Interesting insight into the possibilities if we were offered more sophisticated forms of access.

[AllisonPiippo]

THIS WORKED!!!! Thank you for saving me hours of tedious clicking! 

[teoropez]

This solution worked great. One note - you need to do this separately with pages, modules, quizzes etc to unpublish everthing. 

[KristinL · Accepted solution]

Hi! I have great news to share with everyone who has followed this thread!

The Bulk Publish and Unpublish Module Items option has been added to Canvas. Please read the Canvas Release Notes (2023-06-17) for more information.

[sbrumbaugh2]

Unfortunately this specifically does not affect files so this still does not answer the OP issue.

[mwarner2]

Why not bring this functionality to Files as well? Many people port over all of their files from previous classes, while making fresh modules. As it stands, all of my Files transferred from an old class are all published and I don't want to share all of this info with my class right away. The only way to deal with this is to unselect the green check from each item which then brings up the Editing permissions window where I have to then select the Unpublish button once more for each item. This is super clunky and such a time sink.

[Chris_Hofer]

@mwarner2 ...

Many instructors choose to leave the entire "Files" screen in their courses hidden from students.  Then, they link to those files from within their content pages.  I'm not sure if you already do something similar...but if not, you might want to consider this...depending on how many files you have in your course.  That way, you could keep all of your files published within "Files", hide the "Files" menu on the left side of your screen, and then just link to the files you want your students to access via content pages in your course.  Again, you may already be doing this...but I thought I'd post this just in case...for what it's worth.

[ivyjl]

Thank you for your suggestion. I do normally hide the Files from the navigation for students.

But it's also an issue for me as a teacher. I like to unpublish everything in the Modules when I repeat a course. Then I check each item and update as necessary. I publish the items after I've made any updates so I can keep track of what's been done (esp. if there's an assistant working on the site too).

I guess the workaround would be to unpublish all the Module items and then go unpublish all the Files.

Nevertheless, it still seems counterintuitive to have "Unpublish Module and All Items" only unpublish certain types of items.

[dbradbury]

Not quite. Files still have to be laboriously unpublished one by one.... Unfortunately this feature is therefore almost useless.

[ivyjl]

I was very happy yo see the "Unpublish Module and All Items" feature, but it doesn't actually unpublish all the items in the module. That's really counter-intuitive. Is there some reason files are treated differently?