Custom Role Name on "View All or Customize" screen

[Chris_Hofer]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea will be open for vote May 5th, 2015 - August 5th, 2015  Learn more about voting...

In our Administrative Pages of Canvas, we created a custom role called "Viewer" which is based on the "Teacher" Base Type.  This "Viewer" custom role allows us to enroll our faculty in "Master Term" courses to view curriculum but not make changes to it.  Also, they can still import content from this term into their own sections.  However, if you take a look at the example screen shot, the "View All or Customize" screen just indicates that an instructor is "Enrolled as a teacher"...even though when we invited the instructor to a course, we chose our "Viewer" custom role.

On this "View All or Customize" screen, it would be helpful if it actually said "Enrolled as a Viewer" (or whatever custom name you created) instead.  This would reflect the kind of access that the instructor truly has to that course.  Currently, our faculty would have to click on each course to determine if he/she has the ability to edit content.

Also, if it doesn't already, the e-mail invite that gets sent to the instructor should show the name of the custom role that the person has been given for a course.

Comments from Instructure

This change was fixed in our April 1 release. The engineering ticket was noted as a bug fix but did not include any support cases. Release notes indicate fixed bugs for behaviors that have affected a lot of our customers, and in this case, we couldn’t fully note the effect. We’ve learned a few things about our engineering tickets since then and have been trying to err on the side of noting any fix that may have a notable implication, and we apologize for inadvertently neglecting this change. We are glad that you are now able to view your custom roles!

[tdelillo]

That's a disappointing answer. I guess it means we have to keep trying a feature request to fix it, but what exactly are the Canvas Coaches supposed to do about it? Odd.​

[mzucal]

I'm late to this party but this should not a feature request. It really is a bug and frankly bad programming. To say different is to throw out logic.  How the heck are we supposed to tell what roles a person has within a course if they all default to teacher or student. Come on! This should be fixed in the next production release. We shouldn't need to vote it up.

[vrs07nl]

@Melissa Zucal  @kona ​ - Kona says it is not a bug -- see earlier thread / comment... we have all been trying to get this sorted but Canvas are not playing ball on this one...despite the implications this different display of role types i having on emails, course activity reports etc

[kona]

Sorry, just saw this! While Canvas doesn't consider it a bug - because the system is doing what Canvas programmed it to do - I do believe that it's not user-friendly and causes a lot of headaches on our side of things.

[mzucal]

I understood the original response, I just disagree. This is how they designed this to work?  I'd rather admit this feature to be a bug than to say it was designed this way.

[kedmison]

This strikes me as a bug. Yes, the code performs as built, but to end user the result is unexpected and inconsistent.

If I grant access to a person using a role I created, that is the role that should be reported. This same thing shows up in the course invitations. It is VERY confusing for the invitee to be invited to join the course in a role that is different than the one that they are actually assigned to. Otherwise, what's the point of allowing a custom name for the new role?

Concrete example: We created a "Tech Support" role, based on "Designer". When we invited a bunch to departmental tech support folks to a Canvas training course, the invitation email that went out said their role was "Designer". This was VERY confusing to the folks who got the email, and they all reported it as a bug.

Now, based on the earlier comments in this thread, it appears that fixing this is much more involved. It still needs to be fixed.

*****UPDATE*****

Another concrete example, but much more problematic then the email I mentioned. If you create a role based on a standard role, the new role assumes the hidden permissions of the original.

So, what does that mean? I created a custom 'grader' role based on the standard 'TA' role.  If I have a user with the grader role on a course, and the student uses the "Ask Your Instructor a Question" link in the help screen, the question is sent to the instructor, the TAs (if any) AND the Grader, since the grader was based on the TA! So, the 'grader' role really isn't a grader, it's a TA with fewer permissions. This is very problematic, and impacts all roles that are inherited from another standard role. And since you can't create a custom course role without basing it on an existing standard role, all custom roles will have some features that tied to them that are not published.

[csalazar]

Thank you all for your feedback on this feature. In the past we have not made this change because of concerns with translation into the many languages that are supported by Canvas. I have worked to find a solution that will accommodate these concerns and we will be happy to deliver this update by the end of this year. After the change we will reflect the accurate enrollment type (including custom role names) in the many places throughout Canvas where these names are used.

[Chris_Hofer]

Thank you, Deactivated user​!

[kona]

Awesome!! Thank you!

[marthazumack]

I'm thrilled to hear this–thank you! It helps us customers feel heard when issues such as this, which cause confusion and headaches, are dealt with seriously.