Feedback Discussion • Portfolio Bugs

[Dalma_Schnell]

As you beta test the Portfolio EAP, please use this space to note any bugs/features that aren't working as intended. If you can share screencasts or links to the behavior, that may be helpful.

[helen_alstergre]

Thank you Dalma, I will test as much as possible during this period.
But for now I can't create Evaluation Portfolio, the "select course" will not load and just giving me an error message. 

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @helen_alstergre , thanks for letting me know! The team is already looking into this issue. I’ll keep you posted as soon as we have an update!

Thank you again for testing during this period!

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @helen_alstergre,

We looked into it and it seems like your user is associated with multiple institutions, which is currently causing issues with how courses load for Portfolio generation.

The good news is that we're actively working on a fix for this! In the meantime, a quick workaround is to create a new user with an educator role, invite that user to your courses, and use it for testing. Everything should work smoothly that way.

Let me know if you need help setting that up, I am happy to assist!

[helen_alstergre]

Yes, this worked! 😀

[suzanne_pathki1]

Experiencing the exact same problem here. Also noticed that our Portfolio has been installed on Test Canvas instead of Beta.

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @suzanne_pathki1 ,

Thanks for flagging this! If you create a new user with the Educator role, that should resolve the issue you’re experiencing.

We set things up based on the URL you provided, but if you’d prefer to use another environment instead, we’re more than happy to update the configuration. I’ll reach out separately to get your Beta environment URL so we can make that switch if needed.

[Boardman]

When trying to see a Portfolio in student view, I get this error after selecting Portfolio EAP from the Canvas main navigation.  Maybe because I'm in student view instead of having a separate student account?

{"statusCode":500,"message":"Internal server error"}

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @Boardman,

Yes you're right, that error usually shows up because you're in student view.

The best way to test from the student side is to create a separate learner account by just inviting a new learner to the course. Then log in as that learner, and things should work without the error.

Give it a try and let me know if its working!

[RetaChaffee]

I don't know if this issue is on our Canvas Beta or not, but when we try to add a new evaluation portfolio, I get the error message: "Unable to get the available courses. Please try again later."   It happened yesterday and today. Let me know if this is something we need to address on our end.

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @RetaChaffee 

Thanks for letting us know! This is a known issue that happens when a user is linked to multiple accounts. The team is already working on fixing it. For now, if you create a new account with an educator role, everything should work fine when adding courses to an evaluation portfolio.

Please feel free to reach out if you need help with this or run into any other issues!

[Sarah_Kuehnle]

Hi @Dalma_Schnell 

I am also having a similar issue where my evaluations portfolios simply will not generate. I can create, add courses, assignments and sections, but even after 12+ hours and switching browsers, I cannot access the created portfolios. 

[SteveCovelloUNH]

I have posted several comments in my User Experience post, but here are a few others: 

• I can embed a YouTube video in an Evidence box using the embed function, but when I click on the Evidence box on my published portfolio, the content slides out from the right edge but the video cannot be seen. I don't know any other way that this content can be seen.
• It appears that once you publish a portfolio, you can no longer edit it. There is no Edit button to update it. This is a big deal.
• There is no way to edit the name of a Section.

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @SteveCovelloUNH,

Thanks for continuing to share your feedback!

1. Regarding the YouTube video in the Evidence box: at the moment, the rich content editor supports basic formatting (like text styling), but does not yet support embedded media playback in the published portfolio view. That said, we’ll be enhancing the editor’s capabilities in the next iterations.
2. You're also right that portfolios can't currently be edited once published in this phase. This is something we're actively exploring for future updates.
   • I’d love to hear your thoughts on this—what kinds of edits do you typically find necessary after publishing? 
3. As for renaming sections, I just tried this using the 'Manage Sections' option, and it worked well for me. Were you using that method? If so and it’s still not working, could you please send a screenshot of what you’re seeing?

Thanks again for your thoughtful input!

[SteveCovelloUNH]

#2: Making a portfolio uneditable is like making a website uneditable. Things change. New artifacts replace weaker/older ones. Feedback might necessitate changes. A student might customize a portfolio for a certain audience.

#3: I did not realize that the title of a Section was editable based on the appearance in Manage Sections. Since there are Up/Down arrows next to the title, I assumed that this was a way to re-arrange the Section order. I did not realize that the titles were editable by default. That is unusual since the primary purpose of this panel is to arrange and select things - not edit the titles. Ideally, the titles should be editable on the front-end just by clicking on them, or by activating an Edit mode with a pencil icon next to it. That is a more familiar signal to the user.

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @SteveCovelloUNH 

This is great - thank you for taking the time to share these thoughts. I’ve passed your insights along to the team. Your points about editability and usability are spot on, and really helpful as we think through improvements.

Quick question: when you mentioned editability, were you referring to showcase portfolios, evaluation portfolios, or both?

Appreciate your input as always!

[SteveCovelloUNH]

All portfolios should be editable. Otherwise, students will make multiple copies with slight changes and ultimately submit the wrong one for assessment or review.

[SimeonPayne]

• From mobile view, there seems to be an issue with the drag and drop functionality when moving evidence to a section.
• Need option to edit showcase portfolio and unpublish the portfolio.

[SimeonPayne]

• From mobile view, there seems to be an issue with the drag and drop functionality when moving evidence to a section.
• Need option to edit showcase portfolio and unpublish the portfolio.

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @SimeonPayne,

Thanks so much for the feedback!

• We’re aware of some limitations with drag-and-drop on mobile and are exploring ways to improve that experience.

• The ability to edit portfolios after publishing is definitely on our radar, we know how important that flexibility is.

Really appreciate you taking the time to share this, and please keep the feedback coming!

[JamesSekcienski]

When creating an evaluation portfolio, it looks like it is loading in all of my course options as a teacher.  However, I also have admin access.  It doesn't look like I have access to all courses that my admin access provides, but I just found that it appears to be showing all courses I am enrolled in rather than just courses where I am a teacher.  I ended up creating an evaluation portfolio for a course where I didn't realize that I was just enrolled as a student.  This seems like unexpected behavior, but I suppose my admin access allowed the course to show and then create the evaluation portfolio.  I'm now curious if a user is just a teacher, but also enrolled as a student in another course if they see courses where they are only a student too and can also create an evaluation portfolio for that course.

As a side note, it would be helpful if the course cards also indicated our role within the course if we are enrolled within it or a note that you aren't enrolled in the course (if is showing based just on admin access).

[JamesSekcienski]

I also found that in the course where I am only enrolled as a Student and not a Teacher, there doesn't seem to be a way for me to submit work for the portfolio I have been assigned.  My admin access appears to give me the ability to make an Evaluation Portfolio for the course and it shows me as one of the Learner's with a Portfolio Status of "Not Started".  While I can review the portfolio from a teacher perspective to evaluate it, I don't have a way to submit work to it.  This creates an issue for users that are teachers/admins, but also taking classes as students.

[Dalma_Schnell]

Hi @JamesSekcienski ,

Thank you so much for your detailed insights!

We’re aware of the issue where users with admin access see courses in the evaluation portfolio creation, not just where they have a teacher role.

Regarding your point about not being able to submit work to a portfolio in a course where you’re only enrolled as a student: this is not the expected behavior. From our testing, especially when using an incognito window logged in only as a learner—submission access is working correctly. So it seems the admin role may be interfering with the learner experience in some cases.

We’re actively investigating this to ensure users with multiple roles have the correct permissions and can submit work as expected in their learner roles.

In the meantime, could you please try testing this in an incognito window by logging in separately as a learner and as a teacher? If possible, please share screenshots of both experiences to help us verify what’s happening on your side.

Thanks again for your feedback, James!

[JamesSekcienski]

@Dalma_Schnell 

You're welcome!

To clarify about the student role, it is a course where I as a user with mixed roles (admin, teacher, and student) was only enrolled in a course as a student.  While I wasn't enrolled as a teacher in that course, I do still have the admin access to the course, which I suspect was causing the unexpected behavior.  Also, since I created the evaluation portfolio, I suspect that also created this unexpected behavior since it is trying to treat me as both an evaluator since I created the evaluation portfolio, but listing me as a student with an assigned portfolio since I am a student in the course.

Since this bug is about mixed roles, I'll see if someone else creating the evaluation portfolio for that course makes it so that I can access it as a learner even though I am also an admin.

[Dalma_Schnell]

Thanks for the clarification, James! I’m really looking forward to having your team signed up for the extended EAP so we can test this further in a true production environment.

Let me know how it goes if someone else from your team creates the evaluation portfolio for the course — curious to see if that resolves the issue on your end.

[JamesSekcienski]

The Portfolio icon on the global navigation bar in our environment has an accessibility contrast issue.  It looks like it works well for the default theme, but doesn't adapt for customized themes like the native global navigation icons.

canvas beta global navigation with portfolio icon

[Dalma_Schnell]

Good catch, James — thanks for flagging this! I’ve passed this along to the team, and we’ll make sure it gets resolved.

Appreciate you spotting this and helping us improve the experience!

[JayGrahovac]

Hi @Dalma_Schnell, we are running into an issue with the Portfolio where we are not able to see the applet load. Please see screenshot for error message. 

I might also point out that two of our account admins can load the applet whilst two other account admins cannot, myself being one of them and see the attached error.

Thanks!

 

[AndrewHopun]

Hi @Dalma_Schnell , I was just looking at a couple evaluation portfolios that I published on August 7, 2025 and found that an extra student had been added to the list. What's even more strange, is this user doesn't exist in our instance of Canvas. Based on a Google search, they may be an Canvas administrator at another institution so I'm curious how they got there. I don't want to call them out publicly, so is there someone we could talk to to troubleshoot this?