Community Migration Update: Read-Only Window Scheduled for November 22–December 10, 2025

[Renee_Carney]

We’re excited to share that we’re entering the final phase of our Community migration to Higher Logic Vanilla - a major step toward bringing you a refreshed, more intuitive, and connected Community experience!

To make this move smooth and seamless, the existing Community will enter a Read-Only period for a few weeks.

📅 Read-Only Period: Saturday, November 22 – Wednesday, December 10, 2025

We’ve carefully scheduled this window around holiday seasons and quarter/semester end, when Community activity naturally slows down, so you can enjoy your holidays while we take care of the behind-the-scenes work.

Summary

Phase	Dates	What’s Happening
Content Migration (in progress)	Now–Nov 21	Bulk content moving to new platform
Read-Only Window	Nov 22–Dec 10	Final migration, validation, and testing
New Community Launch	Target: Dec 10	New platform live and public
Contingency Buffer	Dec 11–31	Reserved for adjustments if needed

 

What to Expect

During Read-Only:

• You’ll still be able to browse, search, and read all existing Community content.
• However, new posts, comments, and updates will be temporarily paused.

What stays active:

• All existing Community content is viewable.
• Canvas Network & On Demand Training

What takes a short break:

• New discussions, comments, or content creation
• Known Issues (no new entries)
• Documentation and release note updates
• Blog publishing
• Early Adopter and Feature Preview Groups
  
  

If you have a blog post, question, event or other content that you’d like to share before this window, please be sure to post it before November 22.

Why We Need Read-Only

This pause allows our team to:

• Complete the final migration of all Community content.
• Verify that everything has transferred correctly.
• Make sure the new Community is stable, accurate, and ready for you on day one.

Think of it as a quick “packing and unpacking” period before the grand reopening!

Enjoy the Season — We’ll Handle the Move!

We’re thrilled to be wrapping up this project as the year winds down and can’t wait to welcome you into your new and improved Community home in December.

Our target go-live date is Wednesday, December 10, 2025.

While that date is about as firm as we can make it, we’ve built in extra buffer time to account for any last-minute surprises. Our top priority is to have the new Community live before teaching and learning gear up for January - and we’re well on track!

As you enjoy the holidays, know that we’re working behind the scenes to make sure your Community experience in the new year is faster, easier, and more engaging than ever.

Thank you for your patience and partnership!

[pinkows4]

I have a concern about continuity after the transition. I’ve bookmarked and linked to a large number of documents, discussions, and blog posts in the current Community across various training materials and internal resources.

Will existing URLs be automatically redirected to the corresponding content on the new Higher Logic Vanilla platform? Specifically, will links to key content (documentation, blog posts, questions, known issues, etc.) continue to function after December 10 and link to the correct pages in the new site, or should we anticipate needing to manually update all of our links and bookmarks?

Thanks in advance for clarifying how URL mapping or redirection will be handled.

[DavidSchlater]

Does this include the Guides, and will URLs change?
https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/tkb-p/Instructor

Thanks.

[Renee_Carney]

Greetings @pinkows4 & @DavidSchlater 

Thank you for your questions. 
Yes, the URLS will change, which is why redirects will be put in place. Redirects will not be put in place until the day of go live, so not to disrupt access to the resources while we do the mapping and testing behind the scenes. 
The only links that may break are links that are older than August 2020 - which would have been from our Community 2 platforms ago and are relying on a redirect already. 

[TrinaAltman]

@Renee_Carney thanks for the info on the redirects. Will that include ALL content from Community since August 2020? Do you anticipate a demise for the redirects in the future and if so is there a rough timeline for that, or will they persist indefinitely?

Also, what is the plan for notifying clients of any updates to release or deploy notes during the read-only window?

Thank you.

[TeresitaSimons]

Nothing more..thanks.

[TeresitaSimons]

Have a good day.

[Renee_Carney]

@TrinaAltman 

The redirects will be in place for ALL Community content since August 2020! Some automagic with a script, and others we'll have to put in manually, but this is priority number one for us! We'll be testing redirects on the day of go live as well as provide a way for our Community to report any that may not be working. 

We do not foresee a demise of these redirects for as long as we remain on the Vanilla platform. If the Community is migrated in the future, that would introduce opportunity for redirects upon redirects to break - which is what we'll be seeing with any URLs that are older than August 2020. 

[bwsf]

@Renee_Carney @TrinaAltman Thank you for these clarifications!

I'm new to the admin side of Canvas, so this might be a larger question. When there is new info about how Canvas works (e.g. bugs, bug fixes, planned outages), is there a mailing list or something? If we need to troubleshoot something new, is there somewhere else to look during this migration period besides the Known Issues, Release Updates, and Deploy Notes in this community? Thanks!

[Renee_Carney]

@bwsf 
If I'm reading your questions correctly, you're asking if there is somewhere else you should be checking or subscribed to during this read-only time? We have timed the read-only time of the Community during a span when there will be no Canvas releases or deploys communicated, so all pending releases and deploys will have been communicated. 
For known issues, we have a temporary solution that we'll put a banner up on the Known Issues page. It will provide a link for easily checking known issue status changes. 

[bwsf]

@Renee_Carney Great, that's addresses my concerns. Thank you!

[CallieAlreza]

Wait, what will happen to the badges here on the old Instructure Community platform? Will they disappear? Please tell me they won't. I've been working so hard to get them all! 

[Renee_Carney]

@CallieAlreza 
That's exciting! Badges will migrate over.  Some will remain legacy and you may notice some new iterations in the new platform! 

[CallieAlreza]

Then, what about the badge-earning proccess? Here's an example of it now:

Will that be removed or stay? Also, will we have to create new accounts on the new Community? I don't wanna have to move!

[KristinL]

Hi @CallieAlreza - 

Thanks for your questions! I'm excited about the gamification options that will be available after we move to our new platform! We’ve simplified the ranks requirements to make it even easier to be recognized for your contributions and move up in the ranks. All of your contributions and participation history will carry over seamlessly to the new platform.

You'll see some of our participation badges change, but the earning criteria will be very clear. Badges will also be retro-actively awarded so that things you've done throughout your time as a Community member will be reflected in the new badges system!

Lastly, you won’t need to create a new account. You'll be able to use the same sign-in you do now, and your profile will transfer perfectly! You'll be able to pick up right where you left off when we enter our read-only window at the end of the week.