Pairing Codes for New Students (Never Logged In)

[DavidCao]

This is a bit of a weird one. We are getting ready for the new school year and we just imported all of the new students that will joining the district. These students have never logged into their Canvas Account before. We noticed that there is no generate observation code button for these students. I also tried via API with no luck. 

We received a request to have pairing codes generated for students to have and distributed during orientation. Is this due to the student having never logged in or is there a provisional period on Canvas's side?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
David

[bbennett2 · Accepted solution]

If they've never signed in, their accounts aren't actually active yet (they have to accept the TOS, I think). You may be able to get around it by looking students up by SIS ID, but I don't know if that would work either. 

Are you able to get any user data via the API? Or do you get an empty response when you try to look them up?

[bbennett2 · Accepted solution]

If you can get the user account, you should be able to create a pairing code if you're an Account Admin. If you're not, you'll need the Users - Generate observer pairing code for students permission enabled for your user account. Page 52 in the giant permissions PDF has details.

[bbennett2 · Accepted solution]

If they've never signed in, their accounts aren't actually active yet (they have to accept the TOS, I think). You may be able to get around it by looking students up by SIS ID, but I don't know if that would work either. 

Are you able to get any user data via the API? Or do you get an empty response when you try to look them up?

[DavidCao]

I checked and via API, I'm able to get their user data.

POSTing a request to generate observer_pairing_codes gives this response unfortunately.


{
"status": "unauthorized",
"errors": [
{
"message": "user not authorized to perform that action"
}
]
}

[bbennett2 · Accepted solution]

If you can get the user account, you should be able to create a pairing code if you're an Account Admin. If you're not, you'll need the Users - Generate observer pairing code for students permission enabled for your user account. Page 52 in the giant permissions PDF has details.

[DavidCao · Accepted solution]

Permissions shouldn't be an issue. I am able to generate pairing codes for existing accounts with no issues. It's probably due to the new accounts not accepting the ToS like you said. I appreciate the help!