@greydon  I don't know if you're a software developer or just providing answers, but you seem to answer on behalf of Canvas. What is being asked here is very basic. The fact that Canvas hasn't fixed this for years is at best embarrassing. As a software manager, parent and formal university instructor having to use Canvas, let me say this: 1. Significant gaps between apps and desktop versions are amateurish, to say the least. 2. If you can't provide a sorting or filtering function, you don't really have real software engineers on staff - why? Please choose another industry. 3. Bug test your products. Seriously. 4. You might not directly "sell" to your end users, the students themselves. But the students who use your software today are in charge of your future. Ignore your consumers at your peril. Or would you not want to stay in business?  ¯\_(ツ)_/   ... View more

Any software developer knows how to develop a sorting function. You are being gaslit when you read things like, "it's not possible 'at this time' ". Of course, it's possible, and the only reason Canvas has decided not to is that they don't have to in order to stay in profitable business. This is because they don't answer to anyone other than people who have no skin in the game. In other words - they sell to school district administrators who couldn't care a hoot about the actual UX of students or their parents. Canvas has been implored to provide this basic feature for a number of years, but has silently declined by their lack of action. ... View more

Thanks for clarifying @klundstrom, but please believe me when I say that this software is a nightmare and your students are paying dearly for it. I can understand that this might not be as apparent if you're not well immersed in what good software should accomplish in 2021. A lot of teachers are not very technical, and therein lies the biggest problem. Our school districts are being sold snake oil and as parents we can do nothing! We're not even considered end users. Neither are our children. I too have used Canvas as an instructor, and it's not nearly as bad (although still bad). Of course I've tried the links you point to, but the point is that Canvas couldn't care less. Just read all the comments in those links! We rely on you teachers to speak to Canvas as well as the school districts for us because, again, we're not considered "end users".  ... View more

Hi @KristinL I'm guessing that you work for Canvas. I don't see why you would otherwise try to seem excited that tabular data can get pasted into a spreadsheet without having to specifying how the the values are separated. However, this step is actually the least of the problems here. The problem is Canvas' continued refusal to provide essential functions such as sorting and filtering options. After much feedback from your observer class users (the N number of parents who have to teach their kids and work from home at the same time) STILL can't filter classes or assignments by child - and yes, in the desktop version so we can actually download CSVs, and in a way that recognizes completed  assignments. Nor have you fixed the inability for parents to get all assignments as a downloadable file and sort this data by status in real time, according to whether it's complete, late or missing. Can you please post the code snippet that your developers are struggling with because if your programmers can't fix it, I'm sure there's a few parents here who would like to give it a try.  The fact that our school districts have contracted with a company who couldn't give a hoot about the extra stresses their product puts on families during an unusually stressful pandemic is not going to age well.  You might not feel the effects yet, but the experiences millions of your users are complaining about right now are certain to damage your long term reputation as a brand. I know the school districts are slow to make decisions, but complacency and programming incompetence is starting to look very risky for your business. ... View more

Lindsey, you said, "In the desktop version, the Dashboard shows all courses where students are enrolled. But you can view student data individually within each course."  The OP is obviously asking about using the individual child as the filtering unit, not seeing the individual child in their individual course. Yours is a completely circular answer and doesn't resolve anything. Canvas has received plenty feedback and reviews on what UI/UX improvements are needed to approach even a basic level of functionalities, such as simple sorting and filtering. Not a finger has been lifted to fix these very simple developing issues while parents are spending 10x more time having to use this train wreck of a software solution. Leaving thousands of parents and a hole generation disappointed with the product, I can only conclude that Canvas is actively trying to tarnish its own brand. ... View more

To parents who feel they are too "stupid" to get it: please know, it's not you. You're being gaslit by an educational system that doesn't know how to evaluate what a good LMS looks like. Good software is intuitive and informative. Canvas is neither. ... View more

While students, faculty, parents and communities have frantically tried to maintain a normal learning environment outside of the schools physical walls due to a centennial pandemic, Canvas hasn't lifted a finger to improve their software - or even fix year old bugs that have direct effects on learning and grades! This company would never survive if they couldn't make some backroom deals with school districts whose superintendents are too stressed out/ uninformed on how to evaluate what good a LMS looks like. Even in the face of major competitors on the market. I doubt if they will be able to stay in business much longer like this, but by the time they are 1) our of business, or 2) made drastic improvements in UI, kids have already dropped out. ... View more