Sub-Accounts are a way to organize. They are a way to pull data by a distinct group (in the picture above it could be used to pull information for all the course in "History"). They are a way to give restricted admin rights to different areas. They have many wonderful uses and a few sorrows; especially in the UI.
Let's discuss one of the sorrows.
Issue: Finding a Sub-Account.
If you allowed your SIS to help generated your Sub-Accounts you could have Sub-Accounts within Sub-Accounts (within Sub-Accounts). A course will only tell you the Sub-Account in which the course lives. Not how to find where it is. We'll take DIG5856-18Spring 0061 for example.
The Course Details tell you that this course is located in the DIG5856 Sub-Account. But where is the DIG5856 Sub-Account? How do I get to it if I need to raise course quota sizes for courses within this Sub-Account? There's no link to it. And, because we have over 500 Sub-Accounts we can't even use the Sub-Account dropdown for the field in the above picture. [If you did not know, once you reach 500 sub-accounts the scrolling selection for the subaccount field becomes a typo and it will auto-fill box.]
To find the DIG5856 Sub-Account I either need to know every department and course in the system (or my area) or I have to guess. Which gets even worse because we're about to go through a re-organization where two of our colleges are merging, separating, becoming three new ones.
For the record, DIG5856-18Spring 0061 is titled Experimentation, Application and Innovation in Games. It is within the DIG5856 Sub-Account which is located within the Sub-Account FL Interactive Entertainment Academy which is inside the Sub-Account for the College of Arts & Humanities. Oh, and College of Arts & Humanities is one of 27 current Sub-Accounts within the University of Central Florida Account.
How about I chart that will fast.
- University of Central Florida (Account)
- College of Arts & Humanities (Sub-Account)
- FL Interactive Entertainment Academy (Sub-Account)
- DIG5856 (Sub-Account)
- DIG5856-18Spring 0061 (course)
- DIG5856 (Sub-Account)
- FL Interactive Entertainment Academy (Sub-Account)
- College of Arts & Humanities (Sub-Account)
Just be happy I didn't opted for an ENC, EGN, or ENG course as an example as two of those are out of English and one is out of Engineering.
Possible Resolution: Finding a Sub-Account.
There are two ways to make finding a Sub-Account easier for an Admin.
- https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/11043-make-sub-account-name-a-hyperlink-in-the-new-course-sear... - In the new search one of the columns is Sub-Account. Right now, it's just a name. If the name was a link, you could just click on the link and viola, you're transported to the Sub-Account. Caveat, you have to know a course in that Sub-Account.
- Add the ability to search for Sub-Accounts to the new search tool.
- On the Course Details Page put a link next to the Subaccount box that would take you to the Sub-Account.
