Sort assignments by numerical order

[FeliciaChen]

Hello, in Canvas' Assignments section, is there any way I can quickly sort the assignments in the numerical order? Thank you. 

[BrianLester]

Hi,

The Assignments view doesn't appear to have any sort capabilities- I think you would have to do this using scripted API calls...

[James · Accepted solution]

@FeliciaChen 

As @BrianLester mentioned, there is no automatic sorting within the web interface. The sorting is a manual sort. The order of the assignments is the order that you arrange them in (most people use drag/drop, but there's an accessible approach as well). The problem I've seen when importing or copying content is that sometimes it gets out of order and you need to manually re-order them.

You can change the order of the assignment using the Edit an assignment endpoint of the assignments API. The position property specifies where in the assignment group it should go.

I will caution about using the position property on any object (assignments, module items, etc) if you are making asynchronous API calls. I use Node JS, which allows me to send multiple requests without waiting for one to finish. Invariably, this causes a problem because the request get filled out of order and Canvas changes the order with each edit. That is, if you set something to position 25, you would need to make sure that positions 1-24 are already set (I've actually found it safer to do them in reverse order). If you use a programming language that waits for one request to finish before making the next (Python, PHP are two popular ones), then you should be safe.

[diane_warne_A]

Not being able to do a simple alphanumeric sort based on either assignment title or due date causes huge difficulties for our UX. What we have is a mess, a total jumble of assignments in the "Assignments" view. It seems to me that this simple sorting, which human brains have found needful for content mangagement since Greco-Roman antiquity, if enabled once by your engineer, will save hundreds of thousands of work hours for your users. Please bring it back! (A google search revealed that it used to be a feature)