Bulk remove courses and users

[FredHaller]

I have a new canvas school that had its test version converted to the live version.  However all the dummy data for users and courses is still there.  How can an admin bulk remove users and courses?

[Chris_Hofer]

@FredHaller ...

I have a handful of questions for you in hopes that you can help to clarify:

• What do you mean by "test version"?  Were you using the FFT (Free For Teacher) version of Canvas as your "test version"?  In a paid Canvas environment, Canvas schools usually get a separate "test" environment where admins and instructors can test out things in Canvas without disturbing anything in a school's normal "production" environment.  The "production" environment is the Canvas environment at your school that you normally log into on a daily basis.  So, if you could help clarify what you mean by "test version", that would be helpful.
• What do you mean by "live version"?  Is this the "production" environment I referred to in the first bullet point?
• When you say the dummy data for users and courses is still there, where are you referring to?  The "test version" or the "live version"?
• Where are you wanting to remove users and courses?  And for what purpose...out of curiosity?

Hope to hear back from you soon!

[FredHaller]

Thanks for the reply - updates bullet by bullet:

1 - This is a school account, and the 'test' environment was converted directly to our production environment .  All of the dummy data from the test is still present in the production environment .  That is what I want to remove.

2 - by live I meant production.

3 - the data from the test environment is present in our production environment .

4 - want to remove all of the data from the test environment that is now cluttering our production environment .

we requested canvas do this work but have not had any luck getting them to do so.

Fred

[Chris_Hofer]

Thank you for the reply, @FredHaller ...

I'm not sure I fully understand yet, but I think your explanation is helpful.  So, you are using both your Canvas "test" environment and your "production" environment?  Your Canvas URLs look similar to this, correct?

• Production Environment -- https://SchoolName.instructure.com
• Test Environment -- https://SchoolName.test.instructure.com

You say that you want to remove all the data from the Test Environment that is cluttering up your Production Environment?  Per the document, What is the Canvas release schedule for beta, prod... - Instructure Community - 242411 (canvaslms.co...:

Test Environment Reset

The test environment is reset on the third Saturday of every month with the production release. The test environment is overwritten with data from the production environment and allows users to test real data without compromising any user content. Learn more about the Canvas test environment.

Test Environment Update

The test environment is updated with new and updated features from the most recent production release on the first Monday after the production release.

So, if my assumptions about your request are true, I'm a little confused still on why you'd want to remove all the data from the Test Environment when it will eventually include all information from the Production Environment.

Apologies if I'm not understanding things just yet...but hopefully we're getting closer to a solution for you?  Looking forward to hearing back from you soon.

[FredHaller]

Chris,

Thanks for the help.  

I don't have a test environment, just Production.  Or rather I didn't know I had a test environment, which I guess I do.  However that is not the version I am working in.  I am only working in the school production environment ( https://landonschool.instructure.com/accounts/1   ) but still has all the demo data in it.

I have attached a screenshot of the admin main page so you can see what I see.  I am hoping there is an export import function that can help remove all these classes and people.

thanks

Fred

[Chris_Hofer]

Thanks for that screenshot, @FredHaller ...

Yes, you actually (probably) have three Canvas environments:

• Production -- https://landonschool.instructure.com
• Test -- https://landonschool.test.instructure.com
• Beta -- https://landonschool.beta.instructure.com

Here's some information on the bottom two environments:

• What is the Canvas test environment?
• What is the Canvas beta environment?

Now, to the screenshot...  Were those user accounts and courses added by your SIS (Student Information System)?  I am getting into areas that I'm not as familiar with now, but I do know that the "SIS Import" menu on the left side of your screenshot is where files can be created and uploaded so that you're not having to do all of the deletion manually.  For example, we work with someone from our ITS (Information Technology Services) team who has helped connect our SIS (Colleague) with Canvas.  There is a "please see this documentation" link on the "SIS Import" page that shows examples of the files you'd need to use.

I hope this additional info will be helpful to you.

[FredHaller]

Thanks.  No, the classes and students are not from our SIS, they were there on day 1 for us to use for testing and demo work during our evaluation.  When the system was converted to a production environment after we signed the overall contract, all that data came along too.  We didn't get a blank Database, we got one full of demo data.

So back to the original question - how to remove users and classes in bulk?

Thanks

Fred

[chriscas]

Hi @FredHaller,

My first suggestion would be to ask your Instructure implementation manager or customer success manager if they can clear that data out for you if you'd like to "start fresh".

If they say no for some reason, the easiest way to clear at least some of the data would be through the sis import process.  What you'd want to do would be to run an sis_export report from your account settings -> reports area, selecting the courses and/or users options.  Once the report is done, you will download the CSV file.  You can then open it in excel and change the "status" column for each row from active to deleted.  You'll import that file back into Canvas and it will delete everything you changed.  This should get rid of everything with an sis_is populated.  There may be a few things left, but you can hopefully manually delete those.

Now a caveat about the above process.  If the sis_id for a course or user or the login_id for a user has a value you'll actually need in the future, you may run into some issues, as "deleting" in many areas of Canvas is more like a soft-delete, where the data still exists in the database, it just doesn't display anywhere.  One of our sister campuses has run into this issue with users, where they deleted a bunch of users, and now have trouble re-adding select ones because the login_id is reported as in use...  Something to at least be careful with.

Does all of this make sense to you?

-Chris