Managing Canvas Observers

[lgibson3]

At the beginning of a new school year, I bulk import parents into Canvas.  I need to know which parents are already in Canvas.  The only information in Canvas that matches the information we have on our parents is their email.  When I run Canvas reports about observers, I can only find a listing of the Observer ID.  

My question:  Is there a way, or can a report be created, that creates a spreadsheet of all observers, their emails & ID numbers, and the last time they logged in?  Adding the email would be extremely helpful.

I did find a very time-consuming workaround by copying and pasting from the People button.  I had to copy and paste each page (of 168 pages) into a spreadsheet.  I then had the list I wanted; however, there must be a quicker way to get the same information in a Canvas Admin report.

[greydon]

Hello @lgibson3 

Thank you for contacting the Canvas Community. We're sorry to hear you've been experiencing issues with getting a report of all observers. If you want to know their last access, their names, emails, etc. your best bet is to use a "user  access report" via admin settings - report. Here is the Canvas guide:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-view-reports-for-an-account/ta-p/109

You  can filter by type and choose  observer. You  can choose a specific term or start date and we will generate this in a csv. Hopefully this helps! 

[lgibson3]

Unfortunately, this doesn't help.  I don't see a report called "User Access Report".  I see:

• Last Enrollment Activity - this gives me:  user id, user name, and last activity at (No email address, which is what I need)
• Last User Access - this gives me:  user id, user sis id, user name, last access, at last ip (No email address, which is what I need)
• User Course Access Log - this gives me:  section id, section sis id, section name, course id, course sis id, course name, term id, term sis id, term name, enrollment type, user id, user sis id, user name, content type, content times viewed, times participated, and last viewed (No email address, which is what I need)
• Zero Activity - this gives me:  user id, user sis, id name, section id, section sis id, section name, course id, course sis id, and course name (No email address, which is what I need.

I know I can go page by page from the People tab and copy and paste users with their emails, but this is a tedious process and it is easy to make mistakes while doing the process.

Am I missing a report called "User Access Report"?

Thanks for your help!

[ColtonSwapp · Accepted solution]

Hello @lgibson3 

I understand that you are trying to locate a report that would give you a list of observers, their emails & ID numbers, and the last time they logged in. 

• There is an option in the provisioning type reports called User Observer CSV. This type of report will give you the Canvas_observer_ID, Observer_ID, Canvas Student_ID, Studnet_ID Status, and Created_by_SIS information. You can also include deleted objects with that type of report. which is helpful for seeing if the account existed at some point, but is deleted. However, one problem is that It does not include information on the last time that they logged in. 
• The only option for finding information on when they last logged in would be to run a report for Last Users Access. The Last User Access report shows the last login for active users. The endpoint used for the most recent access date and time is updated every 10 minutes. The date and time displayed in the report will reflect the time the endpoint was updated and may differ from the exact time the user accessed Canvas. Unfortunately you cannot filter by just the Observer role for this type of report. 
• Another option for finding their login and logout activity would be in the Admin Tools. However this would only allow you to view this for one user at a time. I am including THIS guide for that option just for posterity. 

Hopefully this helps a bit more! 

-Colton