Messaging Observers of Students in Canvas

[Steve_25]

Hi All,

We've put together a script here at Strath to allow us to send messages to the observers of students from the Canvas Inbox (Conversations) and Marksbook ('Message Students Who...') pages. We're a K-12 institution, so while the ability to send messages to students who have not submitted their assignments is awesome, sometimes we need to let their parents know too! It looks a little something like this:

It's pretty simple. The script inserts some buttons on the 'Message Students Who...' and Inbox 'Send Message' buttons for inserting observers and removing students. Once clicked, the script does a few API calls in the background to determine who the observers of the students are and pops them in the recipient list.

Our CSM mentioned this might be something that other institutions might be interested in, so I've made the script and some instructions available here: https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs.

If you decide to give it a crack, I'd be interested to hear how it goes! I've tested this with a demo Canvas instance and it's worked ok, but that's the extent of my testing.

All the best!

---------------

Download v0.07 Here: https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs

---------------

Changelog:

Version 0.07 on 17/04/20

• Fixed issue where conversations (Inbox) recipients would become invalid after a recipient was removed.

Version 0.06 on 11/10/17

• Added support for courses with more than one hundred enrolments.

Version 0.05 on 07/07/17

• Added auto tick "Send an individual message to each recipient" function. This behaviour is active by default, but can be disabled in the msgobs options.

Version 0.04 on 06/07/17

• Fixed issue where multiple course enrolment lookups were made for the same course in account admin mode.

Version 0.03 on 03/07/17

• Added support for any kind of group in the recipient list.

Version 0.02 on 15/03/17

• Fixed issue with unescaped message content.
• Prevented clicking Remove Students while Include observers function is running.
• Added dialog to preserve message content if sending fails in Gradebook function.

Version 0.01 on 20/09/16

• Initial Release

[DeletedUser]

Wow! That is so awesome and simple to use. Thank you!

[dlourcey]

Thank you @Steve_25 for your timely response. Honestly, I think it was user error:). It seems to be working now with no issue, but I do look forward to see your upgrades to the script.

[dlourcey]

Hey @Steve_25. Just thought you would be interested in some feedback. I added the javascript file last Thursday and this is one of my teachers comments to me:

I wanted to share with you how much I like the feature of being able to email parent observers from the assignments section of the gradebook!  I saw the feature this weekend, and immediately used it to copy parents on the weekly "missing work" emails I send my students. Much to my delight, I have had great (student) response--both in terms of work completion and in terms of communication today!  I'd say it is a definite success!

I don't know if you get a lot of feedback, but I thought I would share. KUDOS to the work you are doing with this script.

Don

[Steve_25 · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

MSGOBS Version 1.01 is now available here https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs with the following fixes:

• Re-written for ES2020 and a slightly improved lookup speed.
• Fixed issue where students on gradebook with the same name could not be distinguished between.
• Fixed issue where that occurred when replying to a messages as a user with some admin privileges, but not all. In this scenario, MSGOBS now asks the user to select a course for observer lookup.
• Fixed issue with colour highlighting of observers after the insert observers button was pressed for a second time.
• Added warning message for replies in conversations that will create a group messages for all recipients.
• Added Observer and Student removal counts to success messages.
• Changed conversations behaviour as an admin sending a message. MSGOBS now asks the user to select a course for the observer lookup, rather than trying all enrolments for the user (which took a long time).

Unfortunately I wasn't able to build in New Analytics, for for that overzealous promise, I am sorry. I didn't notice that the New Analytics LTI is hosted on a different domain which means that browser security features prevent the script from accessing what it needs. I'll keep an eye on it in the future.

@dlourcey Thanks for the feedback Don, I'm truly glad to hear about this positive effect!

@christopher_gil I'm afraid that is the expected behaviour, as replies in conversations always create group messages rather than individual messages (the 'send individual checkboxes' element doesn't exist on a reply). Your feedback though inspired me to put a warning in for the teacher when they choose to include observers on a reply message. I'll address this problem further in a future update.

EDIT: 1.01 fixes issue with Safari web browser. 

[christopher_gil]

Thanks for the update and looking into my comment! 

Chris 

[Steve_25]

MSGOBS Version 1.02 is now available here https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs with the following fixes:
- Fixed issue with gradebook 'Scored less than' or 'Scored more than' options not showing any students.

[christopher_gil]

Hi @Steve_25  rookie question here, but do I need to remove our script and install new one? 

Thanks,

Chris

[travislape]

Has anyone gottent the observers to work in the New Analytics piece?

I added this into our Canvas instance  to allow teachers to include observers when using the Message Students Who feature. This works beautifully in grade book, but recently found that it is not an option when using the Message Students Who feature within New Analytics.

Thanks

[travislape]

I added into our Canvas instance the script to allow teachers to include observers when using the Message Students Who feature. This works beautifully in the grade book, but recently found that it is not an option when using the Message Students Who feature within New Analytics. Have you seen this or have any suggestions on how this might work? 

Thanks 

[Steve_25]

Thanks for your message @travislape. I did have a look at adding the script to the New Analytics section; however, because the New Analytics frame is loaded from a different domain to that of the school's Canvas instance, I'm not able to either read the data from New Analytics, or not able to do the API calls to send the message to the observers. It's a web browser security feature that prevents this from working. A bit unfortunate. 

I suppose if this is a feature that many are missing, we could do something like having the user copy and paste the list of students from New Analytics to a field I could insert on the main instance page. Could work, but it sounds a little... janky.

[ScottCargile]

Thank you so much for making this, it will be phenomenal for sending progress reports. 

1 question: Could you please add an image of what the inbox options should look like to the original post? I can find the options in the message students who..., but I am struggling to figure out how to use the script in the inbox region. Could you send me an image of what this should look like? No problem if not, thanks for all you have done!

[chadscott]

@Steve_25 will we need to do any updates or are you planning on making changes since part of the functionality of this will be put into place in the gradebook by Instructure?
https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Releases/Canvas-Release-Notes-2022-06-18/ta-p/524099

Cheers,
Chad Scott

[jsimon3]

Hey @Steve_25 / msgobs any thoughts on the new message students who module?

[Steve_25]

Hi @jsimon3 and @chadscott,

The new Instructure interface looks fantastic! A big win for the K-12 community I'd say!

If you'd like to keep using MSGOBS for the Conversations (Inbox) stuff while also using the new Instructure gradebook improvements, you'd just need to remove or comment out the following line (Line 75):

if (location.includes('/gradebook')) { mode = 'gradebook'; };

I'll update Github to note this soon.

[audra_agnelly]

@Steve_25 any thoughts on the new Inbox refactor? I checked Beta today and no longer see the Include Observers button.

[Steve_25]

Hi @audra_agnelly,

That is indeed quite a significant refactor! This would require a significant rewrite of my script as it looks like React Native is now in use. I'm actually not sure that it would be possible anymore; it would certainly be much more of a mission than it was previously! It would be much easier for the Instructure devs to build it in, rather than trying to hack it in after the fact.

I would encourage those who have been using the MSGOBS inbox feature to request that the ability to message observers be added to the Inbox, like it was with the grade book.

Thanks all for your support over the years. I've really enjoyed contributing to this project and working with you to keep things working smoothly. Hopefully Instructure will be willing to come to the party on this!

[audra_agnelly]

Thanks @Steve_25 for your work on this over the years. 

I hope others on this thread who have been using this tool over the years will provide feedback to on the new Inbox refactor post or the 10-15-2022 Release Notes Q&A. Canvas obviously has the code in place to do this since they've added this functionality to the gradebook.

[audra_agnelly]

@christopher_gil @chadscott @travislape @dlourcey @lgibson3 @sbevier @paula_setserkis and others who have commented on this thread. If you have added the MSGOBS script to you Canvas themes, the include observers inbox function will break once the Refactored Inbox moves from Beta to production on 10/15.  

Canvas Release Notes (2022-10-15)

 Features Q&A: Canvas Release Notes (2022-10-15)

[WolseyHallSupp]

I agree with many comments made here as we, too, still use the MSGOBS script, and I don't understand why Instructure, with the new update, couldn't also write the script rather than disrupting our work and maybe seeing it on Canvas sometime in 2023.

[kellsh]

Hello Steve_25 and community,

Appreciate the knowledge shared in this thread! I see that the last update to this script was not too recent, so please let me know if the latest version found at https://github.com/sdjrice/msgobs is still functioning for you in 2023, or if there are any recent/planned updates to keep it functioning with the latest changes in Canvas.

Many thanks,
Kelley

[jsimon3]

The project was cherry-picked and integrated into the Canvas repo...
Check out the latest instance...