[People] Provide visual indicator of suspended user accounts on People page and other locations

[TrinaAltman]

Problem statement:

Currently, when a user account is suspended, the only visual indicator I am aware of is on the Admin view of the user account page, where red exclamation mark appears within in a red circle in the 'Login Information' box. This means Admins and course participants do not see that a user account is suspended when viewing the People page, Inbox messaging, the Gradebook, etc. Making this worse, course participants (including Students) are able to send messages to suspended accounts with no indication that the suspended account can’t/won’t receive the message. A visual indicator that the account is suspended would help ensure admins and course participants understand the state of the account.

Proposed solution:

Provide a visual indicator (such as the red exclamation mark within the red circle) and/or verbiage (such as "account suspended" after the user's last name) so that all users who may interact with the suspended user record are aware of the suspended state. The reason for this is to make it clear that the account is in a suspended state. This will help admins when providing support or researching issues, instructors when evaluating activity and conducting grading, and all course participants (including students) when attempting to communicate with the the suspended user so they aren't sending messages to a user with no indication or understanding that the suspended person will not receive their message.

User role(s):

admin,instructor,student,ta,designer

[TrinaAltman]

Hi @SamGarza1 

I saw the status of this Idea I submitted was changed to 'Seeking Clarity', but thus far I have not, to my knowledge, received any questions from Instructure regarding what needs clarification. Is there additional information I can provide to you for this Idea to move forward?

Thank you,

Trina Altman

[SamGarza1]

Hi @TrinaAltman, 

Thank you for commenting! Looks like I missed adding the comment when I changed the status. 

Are you suspending users manually or through SIS? How often are suspended users being re-activated? And how would you expect active users to interact with suspended users or their previously posted content in courses?

[TrinaAltman]

Hi @SamGarza1 ,

We don't suspend and re-activate accounts often, but we have a couple of use cases where it comes up. We use both manual (UI) and SIS import (using a file we manually create) methods, depending on how many accounts need to be suspended or re-activated at one time.

One use case which relates to your last question (and is the most important one that led me to open this Idea), is we have some departmental user accounts in Canvas (e.g., tutor01) for services such as tutoring that are added to courses. We have a set of requirements for use of these accounts and the departments that own them must renew the agreement annually. We have developed a procedure such that if they do not respond, we suspend the accounts until the requirements are met. If they later meet the requirements, we reactivate the accounts.

It's not something we expect to use often, but some departments do have dozens of accounts that would need to be suspended if the requirements aren't met. If this happened and the tutor accounts (for example) were enrolled in active courses, students may try to communicate with them to get help. From my testing, there is no indication to the student that the tutor will not receive their message, as the student cannot see that the account itself is suspended. To them, it just looks like all the other active accounts that are enrolled in the course, and Canvas allows them to still send a message even though the account won't receive it while in the suspended state.

I hope that helps clarify. Please let me know if I can provide any additional information.

Trina