Possible to display a menu item for specifc role only?

[jfridell]

Hello!

I am looking into different ways to address a specific group of users, those that are OBSERVERS only. The reason is that we give this role to our students when they are admitted to a course. Once they have confirmed their participation by registering they also get the role STUDENT. 

I would like to be able to give our OBSERVERS an indication that they are currently not registered for the course and need to complete their registration. So if I could display a menu item (a simple redirect will do the job) in the course meny for this specific role only then it would be fantastic.

Any advice or suggestions?

[stuart_ryan · Accepted solution]

Hi  @jfridell ,

I have had a hunt around and I have been unable to find any feature that would enable this out of the box. I hunted around the community and found a few historical feature requests that relate including https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/5300  and https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/8225 (which the second one I thought may be a work around).

I did think of a bit of a workaround which may benefit. If you created an LTI tool to 'Check Course Enrolment Status' (i.e. one that would be shown to all users) you could have the same benefit (you could even do this with a simple redirect). So rather than restricting it only to users who need to complete their enrolment, you could show it to all users and make it slightly more general. I think this would still have a 'call to action' for those users to check their enrolment and then you could guide them through completing. 

As a bonus, then all your other users also have a mechanism to ensure their enrolment is correct. I do realise this is not ideal, however, with the current functionality, is the best I could recommend.

Hope that helps!

Stuart

[jfridell]

Hello Stuart!

Thank you for your time and effort, then I know that there is no "simple" solution where one can call upon a role within Canvas but that we need to consider another approach. The app suggestion is good, but I do think we will rather build something outside Canvas, at least for the time being.

[stuart_ryan]

Hi  @jfridell ,

No worries at all. Always happy to share some ideas, and I would love to hear back when you do figure out how to approach it (I love solutions that are really thinking outside the box).

Cheers,

Stuart

[jfridell]

Hello  @stuart_ryan !

We have a menu bar that we display above Canvas, so perhaps we will use that space to alert users. It is via the menu that most of our students find their way into their courses so it would make sense, perhaps we will just make some indication next to the link leading them into the LMS-course. It is not a huge problem though so I am not sure if we will make it a priority.

You can see the menu and how it is used on the attached screenshots.  

Personal menu when it is cloesd

Personal menu expanded

[stuart_ryan]

Hi  @jfridell ,

That is awesome, thank you for sharing. Sounds like that would be your best approach and might be easier. I have to say, really like the implementation of the personal menu as well, very clean!

Cheers,
Stuart

[jfridell]

Thank you  @stuart_ryan , I will forward your words to the developers who keep making excellent things happen and I will keep this thread updated in case we do implement some "call to action" gadget in the menu.

Cheers,
Johan