[ARCHIVED] Name Sorting in Canvas

[lms_jsblack2]

I have an instructor that has sent in a request for our Admin team to somehow correct the name sorting in Canvas to match our Institution's Portal [PeopleSoft].

"1. Students with more than one last name are sorted differently in Canvas. PeopleSoft seems to do this correctly.
2. Students with lower case last names appear at the end in Canvas. PeopleSoft seems to do this correctly.
3. I use Pearson's MasteringPhysics, which also sorts differently than Canvas.
This happens in nearly every course I teach, and it makes it extra work to match grades, etc. with the correct students, and it can lead to errors. Canvas needs to be put in alignment with PeopleSoft."

Is this possible?

[kmeeusen · Accepted solution]

Hi @lms_jsblack2 

Our entire state system of community and technical colleges uses PeopleSoft for our SMS (SIS), and every course enrollment list in PeopleSoft matches our Canvas course enrollment lists in Canvas. The only time a discrepancy occurs is when a name has been changed in just one of the systems, but not in the other.

Are your students (and other users) enrolled in Canvas using a PeopleSoft/Canvas integration, or are you somehow managing your Canvas enrollments using another system; or worse, manually? If you are entering users into Canvas manually, I would suggest you use a flat file (CSV, Excel) output from PeopleSoft, and up[load those flat files into Canvas. If you are using some third system, then I would look for discrepancies in how your students are added to that third party system. Bottom line, it should also be populated by PeopleSoft.

There is an SIS Users Group in this Canvas Community, and you might find more detailed help there.

Good luck,

Kelley