Adding someone to Master course only for a set time frame

[hadams3]

the use case is: If we have someone who needs to be enrolled as an observer in a master course for any sort of reason, we would potentially set the observation to last only X amount of weeks; then we don’t have to do a manual removal after a certain amount of time.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello  @hadams3 ...

I'm not sure if anything like that currently exists...at least not on the front-end user interface.  We also have "master" courses where we only enroll instructors or other faculty/adjuncts we've designated as "Viewers".  For the most part, people just contact us if they need to be added/removed to these "master" course (more often we get requests to be added to courses).  And, we will remove people from "master" courses if they retire or leave the College, for example.  I can see how this would be helpful for you, though.

I'll share your question with the Canvas Developers‌ group here in the Community in hopes that your question gets some additional exposure.  If you are not yet following this group, you can use the link I've provided, and you'll see two buttons in the upper right corner to click on: "Follow" and "Actions" >> "Join group".

I hope this will be of help to you, Houston.  Let Community members know if you have any other questions.  Stay safe...be well.

[James]

 @hadams3  

The provision within Canvas for automatically limiting enrollments is to assign people to a section that has restricted dates. Create a section in the course, say "2020-06-30" for people whose enrollment would end on June 30, 2020, add the "Ends" date dates for that section and check the box to limit student participation (otherwise none of what you enter matters), and then add that person to that section.

Here are some relevant lessons from the Canvas Instructor Guide:

• How do I add a section to a course as an instructor? 
• How do I change the start and end dates for a course section as an instructor? 

Make sure you're changing the dates on the section and not the course.

If you are using a SIS import to populate your enrollments, you could automate the process that way. You can create sections and add enrollments through the SIS import process.

Note that we don't use observers, but I believe they're based off the student role, so what I wrote above should work. You could test it with someone to verify.

The other option would require automating the process using the Canvas REST API by running a scheduled task on your end that removes them at the appropriate time. The API is more sustainable and perhaps easier in the long run, but has a not insubstantial learning curve involved. I would suggest going the route of creating special sections first.