How do I report a bug with Canvas

[ARD2]

It is not clear how to report of a bug. I am forced to use Canvas and it's buggy. I'd like to at least report the bug and hear that they are known issues being worked on (or not). Where is the right place to report bugs with the Canvas LMS?

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi there, @ARD2 ...

Most often, you can report a problem with Canvas by accessing the "Help" menu within your school's Canvas environment.  This Guide outlines some of the different options that may be available to you:

How do I get help with Canvas? 

The one you would be looking for is "Report a Problem".  You'd want to be on the page within your Canvas course where you are experiencing the issue and then use the "Report a Problem" link...as this will send some additional metadata along with your ticket/issue.

Also, here in the Canvas Community website, there is a "Known Issues" area where you can see things that Instructure (the folks who make Canvas) are aware of current issues:

Known Issues - Instructure Community

(I accessed this page by clicking on the "Explore" menu at the top of this page, and then I selected "Known Issues".)

I hope this info will be helpful to you in some way.  Sing out if you have any questions about this...thanks!

[ARD2]

I'm not looking for help with Canvas.. It's not me. It's Canvas. Why would I message my school instead of the company that develops the software?

[chriscas]

Hi @ARD2,

There are probably a lot of different reasons for this...

One big one that I can think of as a Canvas admin for my institution are the number of different settings/permissions each school/institution can configure in Canvas.  Things that may appear to be a bug/oversight may be intentional configurations set in place by the school/institution.  It's difficult for Instructure's support staff to know exactly how everything is set up and intended to function for every different Canvas institution.

In addition, many schools want to be in the loop on issues their users are facing, and have dedicated support staff in place to provide assistance, sometimes even in person.  This can be super important in allowing schools to identify local issues quicker than may happen through Canvas support.

I hope this helps explain things a little but, even though I know you'd probably prefer to speak directly to Instructure.  That is an option at some schools/institutions, but since you're asking here my guess is that it's not an option for you.

-Chris