Problems importing students after cross listing courses

[ddieckmeyer]

Hi everyone! I hope this thread finds you well.

We have an Integrations Specialist who created a bridge that allows us to import student and faculty enrollments (and more) into Canvas from Banner 9. We use this instead of csv file uploads because it theoretically keeps our data accurate via a live data trigger. In the bridge we include all the must have information, course_name, SIS_ID etc. However, we do not assign section IDs in the upload as our courses are technically sections anyway. But the omission causes problems for us after we cross-list two or more courses. 

As you know, Canvas assigns it's own course and section ids for every course and section that is imported. And when a cross-listing is performed, the child course is assigned the parent course's Canvas id, abandoning its original Canvas id.  Our institution sis_id remains. Since we do not include our own sis_id for the section, any updates (late adds and drops in particular) are not uploaded into the original section, but rather a new section is created and therefore the expected subsequent cross-listing is not completed. All enrollment updates to the cross-listed child courses, must be done manually. One solution might be to simply include section sis_ids in the upload as well as course sis_ids. I hope this is making sense. 

My question (or two, or three.... )

1. Is anyone else uploading data via live triggers, not scheduled csv? 
2. If so, are you having issues with keeping the cross-listed courses/sections up to date?
3. Are there any discussions in the Canvas community that can confirm and validate this situation? 
4. Are there any recommendations you can make to help solve this issue?

I'm hoping that there are others who can chime in who have come across this situation. I'm looking for help in finding documentation so that we can justify an upgrade to the programming of the live trigger bridge we created. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

  Dave

[bneporadny]

Hi Dave,

I'll do my best to answer your questions here as for how we do it.

My question (or two, or three.... )

1. Is anyone else uploading data via live triggers, not scheduled csv? 
   • Yes we have a fully customized integration between our SIS(CampusNexus) and Canvas using their API's. 
2. If so, are you having issues with keeping the cross-listed courses/sections up to date?
   • We are not having this issue. We create both course and section even though our course is truly a section and keep a record of the Canvas ID that comes back in the response that we get from the API when it gets created. Top keep this issue from happening if we cross-list a course in Canvas we go into our table that holds the course and section information (Canvas ID's) and update the ID associated with the course that just got cross-listed to be that of the course ID it just got put into. 
3. Are there any discussions in the Canvas community that can confirm and validate this situation? 
   • I am not aware of any discussions in the community specific to this situation. 
4. Are there any recommendations you can make to help solve this issue?
   • Hope my explaining to #2 helps with how to solve this issue.

Brian

[ddieckmeyer]

Thanks Brian! 

I think the main objective for us will be to include the section sis_id when we import to Canvas. I am not the programmer for the integration tool, so I do not know if he uses the API's or some other method. I will pass this on to my managers and let thm know that it CAN be done! 

Thanks a million. 

 ~ Dave

[AdreannaGarn]

Hi Dave, 

Do you update the section ID into sis(campusNexus) so that the transfer goes smoothly? or do you do each transfer manually?

[AdreannaGarn]

It also seems like you would need to be the one creating the courses and enrolling students into the school database. I am a teacher, we use Encore, and as far as I can tell, I do not have access to change the course ID in Encore. 

[AdreannaGarn]

I have this same question/problem in Canvas. I really like your comment, "One solution might be to simply include section sis_ids in the upload as well as course sis_ids." I don't know all the fancy footwork behind this, but it seems like a simple enough solution. I have many co-workers that have the same issue, as our school always puts all 7th, 8th, and 9th graders into different "sections" of the same course. It is very inconvenient. 

[Quander]

Yeah, we’ve run into something similar. We also use a live integration (not CSVs) and had issues with cross-listed courses not updating properly when section IDs weren’t included. Once we started assigning SIS IDs to the sections too, the problem basically went away. Canvas just handles updates more cleanly when it can match on both course and section SIS IDs.

I’d definitely recommend adding section SIS IDs to the payload. It’s a bit of extra work upfront but saves a ton of headaches later. Haven’t seen much official Canvas documentation on this specific issue, but you’re not alone—it’s a known quirk when relying on Canvas’ internal IDs.