SIS CSV Import question

[Cyn7]

 

I'm having a an issue with imports.  I want to add students as students, to be able to sort them later. According to the current SIS Import Format Document, declared_user_type is certainly a heading.  It's in there.  It is useful, but it doesn't work when I import.

Either A. Canvas doesn't support it anymore and hasn't updated it's SIS documentation file, which is bad, as it has seriously wasted my time having it in there if it isn't supported, and make it more difficult to sort users after import.

Or B. It is not working.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Ah yeah, that page has the statement I vaguely remembered in my head but thought was in the community somewhere:

"The declared intention of the user type. This can be set, but does not change any Canvas functionality with respect to their access. A user can still be a teacher, admin, student, etc. in any particular context without regard to this setting. This can be used for administrative purposes for integrations to be able to more easily identify why the user was created."

So I that somewhat confirms that it's more of just a back-end info field available via API than anything else.

-Chris

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @Cyn7,

The field does have a purpose, as stated in the API documentation quotes in another response.  It's just not quite the purpose you may have thought at first.  I doubt it's something that will be removed.  If you need assistance with the user creation and enrollment process Canvas has, please let us know.  It may seem a bit complicated at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, I think it'll end up being pretty straightforward.

-Chris

[dbrace]

Hi @Cyn7,

I am not an expert in the use of this field in a users.csv file but have you by chance looked at the user's information via the API and added "/logins" to the end of it?

In beta I just created user account and used this field for the first time and added "/logins" to the end and then I saw "declared_user_type" in the API response.

For example: https://<canvas_instance>/api/v1/users/<user_ID>/logins

-Doug

[dbrace]

https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/logins.html

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Ah yeah, that page has the statement I vaguely remembered in my head but thought was in the community somewhere:

"The declared intention of the user type. This can be set, but does not change any Canvas functionality with respect to their access. A user can still be a teacher, admin, student, etc. in any particular context without regard to this setting. This can be used for administrative purposes for integrations to be able to more easily identify why the user was created."

So I that somewhat confirms that it's more of just a back-end info field available via API than anything else.

-Chris

[Cyn7]

My organization doesn't use API.

[dbrace]

Thank you for that additional information, @Cyn7.

At this point then, as @chriscas said in a few replies, it will not serve any purpose for you and your institution then; unless you are reviewing data/analytics or doing API calls related to logins.

-Doug

[chriscas]

Hi @Cyn7,

To be honest with you, I don't even know where the "declared user type" shows up in Canvas as it's a somewhat new field.  I think it's much more of a back-end thing that may be used in a report or two, but not much else.  In general, users are just users in Canvas.  It's a user's enrollment in a course that makes them a student, teacher, etc in that course, not the declared user type.  This provides a lot of flexibility, as the same user could be a student in one course and a TA or teacher in another.  It's likely that your SIS file is working correctly, just that the declared user type may not have the functionality you expected.

I hope this info helps!  Please feel free to respond back if you have more questions about the user or enrollment creation process!

-Chris

[Cyn7]

I'm at a small organization, and it is one more step I don't want to do.  Being able to assign users a role would be a big help to me.  It's in Canvas's SIS import guide.  They should take it out if they can't figure out how to integrate this function.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @Cyn7,

The field does have a purpose, as stated in the API documentation quotes in another response.  It's just not quite the purpose you may have thought at first.  I doubt it's something that will be removed.  If you need assistance with the user creation and enrollment process Canvas has, please let us know.  It may seem a bit complicated at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, I think it'll end up being pretty straightforward.

-Chris

[stimme · Accepted solution]

@Cyn7 When you say, "it doesn't work when I import," do you mean you receive an error message? If so, please share the error message.

My guess about what might cause an error is providing capitalized values in the declared_user_type field, e.g. Staff. (I tried providing capitalized values, and I got an error saying, "Could not save the user with user_id: 'mytestid'. Unknown reason: declared_user_type is not included in the list." But it worked when I used all lower case "staff".)