Releases Q&A: 2022-01-05 Account User Suspension Link

[erinhmcmillan]

Looking to discuss this feature from the 2022-01-05 Deploy Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

POSTING GUIDELINES

• This topic is for feature discussion only—please share use cases, best practices, etc. regarding this feature
• Please thread replies as much as possible to keep posts organized

WHERE SHOULD I POST...?

• Idea enhancement feedback to product managers should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com (though linking to the idea here so others can find it is welcome)
• Bug reports should be submitted to Canvas Support—bugs will not be triaged in this thread

[vanzandt]

This will be a welcome feature.

Will there then be a way in the Admin interface (People Search?) to search for, and receive a list of, currently Suspended Accounts?

[erinhmcmillan]

I don't think that is planned at the moment. It'd be a great feature idea to submit so product knows it's important to you!

Thanks,

Erin

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Based on a student's behavior, our faculty can summarily remove them from class for the day of removal and the next class meeting. The law that allows this was of course written without the online classroom in mind, and my college has struggled with how to handle this in our online classes. A more surgical application of the ability to suspend a user would make it easier for faculty at California's public institutions of higher ed to take our statutory role in supporting a safe learning environment.

Will the ability to suspend a user be something that can be given to the Instructor role and empower them to suspend access to a Canvas course? To support this, I created an idea: Allow an instructor to suspend student users from a Canvas course

[blopes]

HI @ProfessorBeyrer 

The option to suspend the user is not in regards to their Course enrollments, but to their login. An admin can suspend a user and they will not be able to login to Canvas anymore. They remain enrolled in all their classes, just can't access Canvas.

If students were added through SIS, teachers can't remove them from the course. Maybe you can find an easier way for the teachers to remove the students from the course from the school's system, and on the next sync, the students would be removed from the course in Canvas. 

If the students were added manually, you can change the permissions for the teachers to be able to remove students from the course.

Thank you for your collaboration. 

[audra_agnelly]

Can I get clarification on this statement in the deploy notes? "The user will not be able to access Canvas using any login method from any previously authorized tool, such as a mobile device. " 

The issue we've run into with the app is that you're not logged out of the app, so even with a suspended district login, we had students who remained logged in to the app and were able to use reply to existing Canvas Inbox messages. Will the new "suspended" state solve that issue and force log-out from the app and any open browser sessions?

[erinhmcmillan]

Yes, the user will not be able to use their login using any method where they have regularly logged into Canvas.

Thanks,

Erin

[audra_agnelly]

Sorry that this is slightly off topic, but I was reviewing the SIS Import Documentation page to generate a test file for the above status change and noticed a parameter called declared_user_type. Is this also new? I've never noticed this in the documentation before and couldn't locate it in the past 3 years of API Change Logs. I also can't find any location where this data is visible once passed through the csv file. I checked the API documentation, user profile screens, the user provisioning report, Canvas Data...

[abbyrosensweig]

Agree that this is a potentially useful feature, thanks for adding it. Is there a permission connected to this feature? We'd like to keep it closely guarded so we don't have admins accidentally suspending users. Is the permission for this connected to another permission (if so, which one)?

[jpoulos]

The user will need to have an Admin base role with the "User - manage login details" permission.

[KymBender]

This is useful, but the placement is unfortunate since it has moved the Act As User button. If it could be moved down between Merge and Delete user, that might be a more functional placement. So many of us move our mouse to the exact location of the Act As User button out of habit, and we are worried about accidentally suspending someone.

[JustinKeene]

I agree, I have almost accidentally clicked the Suspend User link a few times because it is in the exact location where Act As used to be.  I believe the feature is extremely useful but would like to see the link's position moved to avoid an accidental click out of habit.

Thank you!

[vanzandt]

I like the idea of moving it between Merge and Delete, that makes good logical sense. Thanks for highlighting the potential issue when attempting to click Act As.

[KathyPalm]

Thanks for pointing this out, I agree it would work well between Merge/Delete.

[vanzandt]

Thanks @KymBender for making this suggestion. Looks like they will be adjusting this soon....

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Releases/Canvas-Deploy-Notes-2022-02-02/ta-p/507292#toc-hI...

[jpoulos]

It's true 🙂