Clever Instant Login

[learnzillion]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

Districts who use both Canvas and Clever want a single sign-on experience--not just a shared credentials experience between applications and content providers. Here is an example of how that would function:

1. Teacher or student (a.k.a. user) visits Canvas unauthenticated
2. User authenticates into Canvas via Clever Instant Login
3. User visits a third party web site, LearnZillion for example, via a hyperlink in Canvas or embedded as an iframe in Canvas. The user is already logged in to that third party site because it is also integrated with Clever Instant Login. There is no need for the user to log in to that third-party site explicitly.

Here is more information about the technology and APIs:

What is Instant Login? – How can we help?

About Clever Instant Login - Clever Developer Programs

We are asking customers of Clever and Canvas to upvote and comment on this idea so you can have clarity into which and how many customers of yours want this.

Thanks!

Ian Lotinsky

CTO

LearnZillion

[Renee_Carney]

Thank you for the feature idea Ian.

We discussed this as a team, as much as we would like to open it for voting, it's not really an advancement to Canvas.  We agree that it is an awesome integration with a third party.  Have you explored contacting Clever to see if they would develop the integration?

We encourage you to post this as a discussion in the Find Answers​ forum.  I could see our Community getting excited about exploring this tool and potential possibilities.

I am going to archive this thread, as it is not a Canvas feature.

[learnzillion]

Thanks for reviewing and commenting, Renee!

This would be a Canvas feature--not something a district or Clever could implement. Let me explain by first drawing a corollary to what Canvas already supports. (1) Canvas already supports SAML, so I'm assuming you and your team understand SAML and the concept of accepting authorization from another system as a client. (2) I also see that Canvas has implemented an OAuth 2.0 API to be an identity authority, so some of your team must understand OAuth 2.0, that you support it as an identity provider, and that you do not support OAuth 2.0 as a client.

This idea is to implement an OAuth 2.0 client inside Canvas similar to SAML.

Clever cannot implement this feature. The code to accept Clever OAuth 2.0 identity and authorization has to reside inside the Canvas app itself, just like Canvas accepts SAML identities today and the inverse of how it provides OAuth 2.0 to third parties.

This would be an advancement to Canvas the same way that SAML is an advancement to it. I don't think I need to elaborate, but happy to if this value is still unclear.

Karl and Troy at Instructure directed me to this forum to submit this idea and have Canvas+Clever customers upvote and comment. Since this is a Canvas feature idea, would add value similar to SAML but with a more widely-adopted protocol (OAuth 2.0), and you have district customers who we share who truly need this, can you please un-archive the idea and let your customers vote?

Thanks for reconsidering it. Happy to jump on the phone if you would prefer.

Ian

[kmeeusen]

Ian:

I am speaking only from my experience as a Canvas Admin for our institution, and not from any policy position within Instructure. I am also not a programmer. I am sure that someone with more coding knowledge than myself will soon chime in to this conversation.

Because Canvas has an open API, third party vendors can (and are encouraged to) develop LTI tools that can be integrated with Canvas. You are correct that sometimes Canvas initiates this from their end, but only when the integration represents a tool with a large and diverse user-base (such as with crocodoc). I think  that when Karl and Troy sent you here, it was to evaluate that user-base, and that was a good decision for you and Canvas.

I am not yet familiar with Clever, but I can assure you that it is very possible for them to build the Canvas LTI tool for their product. You have piqued my curiosity though, and I will be checking it out to determine if I want to vote this up.

Thanks you, I love learning about new instructional tech.

KLM

[learnzillion]

I received word from Clever this week that this was implemented. Thank you, Canvas!

Ian Lotinsky

CTO

LearnZillion

[Renee_Carney]

learnzillion​

Thank you for coming back to comment!  I also appreciate the additional information you provided back in February.  It helped me better understand the tool!  I'm doing a little checking & then hopefully we'll change the status on this idea to complete!

[Renee_Carney]

Information regarding Clever authentication can be found in the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-04-23)

[Renee_Carney]

Thank you to learnzillion for submitting this idea, as well as,  @kmeeusen  for your contributions. Your investment in this idea helped refine a feature which is now part of the Canvas!