Suspend users using CSV

[mcarrion]

Are there any limitations, limits of any kind, on the number of users that can be suspended in Canvas in a day or so?

I'm working on a serious cleanup and I have a list of over 6,000 users to suspend. However, it didn't work for me to put the 6 thousand users in a single csv; it left them active. I reduced the size and little by little I went in increments until I reached a record of a thousand. So far it was working. However, the next report with a thousand users left 135 unsuspended (they remained active). I put them in an individual csv, just the remaining 135 users, but the result was the same. To see if it had anything to do with those accounts, I prepared another csv with another 500 users to suspend; again they remained active. All of this happened today (2-15-2024) and I have not been able to suspend any more users, using the csv through the SIS import.

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi @mcarrion 

The "status" field, where you would enter the "suspended" status, is a field that is "sticky", meaning that by default, the value in not overridden from an SIS import csv if the field has been edited from the GUI.  If you haven't already, you may want to try checking the "Override UI" option when doing your SIS import for suspending the users.

See https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.sis_csv.html for more information about "sticky" fields for each feed type...

[mcarrion]

I followed that recommendation and it worked. 🙌 Thank you so much!

However, I don't understand why at first it worked without me making that change and I managed to suspend up to around 2 thousand users. Only then did I get stuck and turned to the forum for help.

[mzimmerman]

The "sticky" aspect only impacts records where the setting has been set or changed via the GUI rather than via SIS import.  If the users were initially created via the GUI (rather than SIS imports), then all the "sticky" fields cannot be overridden by SIS import without that "UI Override" setting...