Inbox but not Class access?

[mtepp]

A student sent me an email through the Canvas Inbox.  In this message, she claims she is has a password problem and cannot get into the Canvas course, has reached out to IT, and needs a few days to complete her work because she cannot access the assignments.  I am wondering-- how can she get to Canvas Inbox to send me a message yet not be able to get into the course?  Doesn't access to one mean access to the others?  

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@mtepp ...

For clarification, do you know for certain that the student sent you the message via her Canvas Inbox?  A student cannot compose a brand new e-mail message to you outside of Canvas (using something like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, etc.) and send it as a message to you in Canvas.  However, if you had previously sent a message to this student via the Canvas Inbox, and she had her own Canvas notifications set up to receive a copy of your message to her own e-mail account, she would be able to reply to that e-mail message (using her Gmail, Yahoo mail, Outlook, etc.), and it would send you that message to your Canvas Inbox.

You are correct, though.  If a student is truly only using Canvas and the Canvas Inbox to message you (not using Gmail, Yahoo mail, Outlook, etc.), then it seems to me the student would need to first log in to Canvas in order to use the Canvas Inbox.  So, that seems a bit fishy to me, to be honest.

I don't know if any of this helps, but it's my $0.02.

[hallmans]

It depends on how the inbox is set up. In our instance, the inbox is also forwarded to their personal university account and vice versa. So, she could access email without being able to log in.