Can't do Collaborations?

[willtolive2004]

Hey all, I have 5 classes, all of which I started using Collaborations tab and I explained to students how to set it up and all, but I just received an email from a student with the screenshot below saying she couldn't follow the directions.  I then went and my screen says the same thing.  All my other classes have the normal set up, just this one class is like this...Anyone know why and how to fix?  Thanks!

I tried to go into settings and navigation, disabling and then enabling again, but no change...

[James]

 @willtolive2004  

I looked at the source code for Canvas and the only place that shows up follows a comment that it should only happen when you have no LTI tools configured data as a teacher (or a student).

For the student, the message says "You have no Collaboration apps configured. Talk to your teacher to get some set up."

That makes it sound like a setting that the teacher can control.

So, I went into course Settings > Feature Options and looked for things related to collaborations. There is an "External Collaborations Tool" that is forced off for my class. I'm not sure if that's it, but you might want to check to see if that is different for the one course that doesn't work than the ones that do.

A second thing to check is the collaboration tools under course Settings > Apps > View App Configurations. We have Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps installed at our account (institution) level. When you click on the information link for either one of those, it shows that "Collaboration" is one of the App Placements.

A logical check would be that something that you can collaborate with is enabled for the course giving your trouble. If none of the placements have Collaboration placement, it seems logical that you would get that message.

[willtolive2004]

Doh, never mind, it works now...I forgot to hit UPDATE COURSE details before I clicked Collaborations again after I unchecked the External Tolls tab...Great fix man....Thanks so much!  I don't understand why UNCHECKING it makes it work since it is an outside tool. oh well, it works now.  Cheers!

[James]

 @willtolive2004 ,

Glad to help. It may be hard to tell, but the feature is not to allow external collaborations tool, but to allow the external collaborations tool.

Some collaboration tools are built-in, which is what setting it to Off allows. There's a new tool that enables more options for tools. That is what appears to be what wasn't working. If you stick with the old, tried and tested, internal one (the off setting) then it worked.

The feature apps are sometimes barely mentioned in the documentation in the lesson about the topic and you need to look at What feature options are currently available for Canvas courses?  It says

External Collaborations Tool allows users to view an updated interface for Collaborations. This feature option only applies when the Microsoft Office 365 LTI and Google Apps LTI are enabled as external apps.

Enabling the External Collaborations Tool removes the links to all existing collaborations and no longer allows users to create collaborations with the existing Google Drive option. If you want to retain existing collaborations, do not enable the External Collaborations Tool feature option.

The lesson from the Canvas Guides  What are Collaborations? has key sentences spread throughout the document.

• All Canvas courses support Google Docs as the default collaborations tool. Collaborations that leverage Google Docs require that all participating learners have created and linked their Google account to their personal Settings.
• The Google Apps integration requires enabling the External Collaborations Tool feature option. However, enabling this feature option changes the Collaborations interface and removes any existing Google Docs collaborations.
• The Office 365 integration requires enabling the External Collaborations Tool feature option.
• Collaborations can also be created when the Microsoft Office 365 LTI is enabled in a course as an external app.

Putting all that together seems to match both of our experiences.

• I have Google Docs, Google Apps, and Microsoft Office 365 available to me as collaboration tools. That's because Google Docs is available to everyone and I have Google Apps and Office 365 as external apps. 
• With the External Collaborations Tool feature turned on, it removes the Google Docs collaboration and since you didn't have any external apps for the course, you got nothing.

[willtolive2004]

Thanks again for your help!

[willtolive2004]

Thanks so much for your answer.  It is so weird, I checked the things that you said.  And the "External Collaborations Tool" is CHECKED (Green) on the class that DOESN'T work...lol  The other classes that do work, are NOT checked...Naturally, I unchecked it but nothing changed.  all other factors are the same between all classes...

So, part two, I went to the View Apps as you said and there is NOThing there for ANY of the classes as far as Google Or Office...so weird...I really have no idea what the problem could be or why it only happened with one class...It would make more sense if it was consistent with all the classes...