Unpublish ALL assignments without clicking on every single one

[ebonakdarian]

Hi all,

Any time I import a previous Canvas course, I have to manually unpublish every single assignment - this is very tedious and time consuming. It would be nice if there was a single button to click to unpublish everything - or, alternatively,  if by default the course would import with everything unpublished.

I don't see a way to do this as one bulk operation, and I am not using modules FWIW.

I also don't see anything in the Canvas API that I could automate with a Python script or the command line. If anyone knows of a way of doing this, I'd be grateful if you could share. Our semester starts early (Jan 6) so I'm already working on setting up courses etc.

Thanks! 

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi there, @ebonakdarian ...

There's a pretty quick and easy way to unpublish all your assignments in your course, but it does involve using your "Modules" index page.  Here is what I would recommend:

1. Create a brand new module in your course.
2. Click the "+" icon to the right of the module name that you just created.
3. In the window that appears on your screen, make sure "Assignment" is displayed in the drop-down menu.
4. Click on the first assignment name that you want to include within the new module.
5. Scroll down the list, and then Shift + click on the last assignment name you want to include in the module.  This should highlight a bunch of your assignments...from the first one you selected to the last.
   • Alternatively, if you only wanted to select specific assignment names, you can click on the first assignment name.  Then, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard which clicking on each individual assignment name that you want to include.
6. Click the "Add Item" button.  This will add all selected items to your module.
7. Once the assignment names have been added to your module, use the published/unpublished icon on the module name row to "Unpublish module and all items".

This will unpublish all assignments within your module.

Now, there is also another way to do this...using a script that @James Jones developed a while back.  It's one of his "Canvancements" (Canvas Enhancements) called Adjust All Assignment Dates on One Page - Instructure Community - 263117.  In this script, he has a way to use a spreadsheet to unpublish assignments in bulk.

Hopefully one of these options will be helpful to you.  Sing out if you have any questions about this...thanks!