External Tool in Course Navigation showing by default

[dm200400600]

Hi, I have a chicken and egg situation with an new External Tool.

• I've added an External Tool and updated the placement information so it appears on Course Navigation. So far so good.
• A link for the tool appears in the Course Navigation but by default it is visible/ not hidden.

I noticed many of the External apps have an app config that allows you to click off a placement but this one does not.

• How do I enable the external tool on the Course Navigation but not have it show by default for Teaching Staff and Students?
• Currently, I'd have to manually go through each Course and check the link is hidden.

The attached image shows the App Placements I have enabled. Other external tools appear to have green ticks next to each placement that you can toggle on/off. This one does not. I thought these toggles options may appear if the tool has been enabled for a while, but as soon as it is enabled with the navigation placement setup its instantly viewable by teachers  and students.

What am I missing?

[chriscas]

Hi @dm200400600,

In your XML (LTI 1.1) or JSON (LTI 1.3), you can set a the "default" parameter to "disabled", which will give you exactly what you want.  If you're configuring the tool manually (without an XML or JSON file), you'd need to use the Canvas API to change that parameter, but then it would only affect new courses going forward but be enabled by default in all existing courses.

The checkmark you reference in your screenshots would, to my knowledge, disable the placement completely, not just make it hidden by default like you want to do.  Just wanted to let you know this for the future so you don't spend too much time researching that option.  If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will chime in and correct me here.

-Chris

[dm200400600]

Thank you Chris,

The second part is very useful, as that was confusing me, it seems like that does just act like a quick toggle of the Placement(s) rather than having to reconfigure the placement to switch on or off. I guess that would be extremely useful if you had an external app with multiple placements but as you say, doesn't make a lot of difference in this case. 

The "going forward bit" is useful too as I had spotted it wasn't the same depending on when the Course was added. I put this down to the mysteries of Canvas.

[JennyDruckrey]

I've run into this same situation and have figured out how to use the API to change the default state.  A point of clarification-- this will disable the link in the course navigation for all courses by default (not just new courses) as long as the link hasn't been used in the current course.

This took me awhile to figure out, so I hope this will give you a head start.  You can run the following code in PowerShell:

Invoke-RestMethod 'https://YOURINSTANCEHERE.com/api/v1/accounts/1/external_tools/TOOLIDHERE/course_navigation[default]=... -Method Put  

You'll need to update your instance url, tool ID (newly added to the LTI report in Canvas), and generate an access token. 

As an additional note, any time you make an update to the LTI, the course navigation seems to default back to enabled.  I hope this helps.  😀

(Sorry the code above wants to default to a link.)