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Help! API update user issue

Question asked by Adam Craik on Jan 29, 2019
Latest reply on Jan 31, 2019 by Adam Craik

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We've had a mishap.

The API that creates users in Canvas doesn't appear to have been including "communication_channel[skip_confirmation]=true" for an indeterminate amount of time.

Students have not been aware that they need to confirm the account in an email sent to them (nor have we) - the result being that students are not receiving Canvas announcements via email, causing some upset and confusion.

We'd like to resolve this ASAP, but I can't see anything in the API documentation about how we can change this parameter in the "edit a user" or "Update user settings".

Can it be done? Is there even a way to determine which users are affected (other than masquerading)? Or are we stuck with an awareness campaign to ask all users to check/resend the email and accept it?

Thanks for any help with this Canvas Developers & Canvas Admins

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Peter Love Jan 29, 2019 1:32 PM

You can list and change communication channels with the Communication Channels - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation endpoints.

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Adam Craik @ Peter Love on Jan 31, 2019 7:54 AM

Thanks for this Peter! Sometimes I sometimes find myself confused in navigating the API documentation, especially when there are parameters that don't live where I hope to find them.

So I've explored the comms channel endpoints, and was initially a bit disheartened to see there is no PUT call to update an existing channel, but this is how I think we're going to go about solving our predicament (in case someone else has it in the future):

1. Loop through a GET comms channel call on all existing Canvas users:

https://yourcanvas/api/v1/users/[add user id here]/communication_channels

Users may have added additional comms channels themselves, and we don’t want to disrupt that, so from each json response we want to capture the “id”, “user_id” and “address” of the first object in the array, but only IF "workflow_state":"unconfirmed" is true.

There may be more objects in the json response array if the user has added more comms channels, but the default email (the one we gave them in account creation) should always be that first object.

You should now have a ‘hit list’ of all users who have an unconfirmed default email address, including the data required for the subsequent calls

2. Loop through a DELETE comms channel call using data from step 1 (the hit list):

https://yourcanvas/api/v1/users/[“user_id” from hit list]/communication_channels/[“id” of comm channel from hit list]

3. Loop through a POST comms channel call using data from step 1 (the hit list) to recreate the emails as auto-confirmed:

https://yourcanvas/api/v1/users/[“user_id” from hit list]/communication_channels?communication_channel[address]=[“address” from hit list]&communication_channel[type]=email&skip_confirmation=true

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Peter Love Jan 29, 2019 1:32 PM
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You can list and change communication channels with the Communication Channels - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation endpoints.
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- Adam Craik @ Peter Love on Jan 31, 2019 7:54 AM
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  Thanks for this Peter! Sometimes I sometimes find myself confused in navigating the API documentation, especially when there are parameters that don't live where I hope to find them.
  
  So I've explored the comms channel endpoints, and was initially a bit disheartened to see there is no PUT call to update an existing channel, but this is how I think we're going to go about solving our predicament (in case someone else has it in the future):
  
  1. Loop through a GET comms channel call on all existing Canvas users:
  https://yourcanvas/api/v1/users/[add user id here]/communication_channels
  
  Users may have added additional comms channels themselves, and we don’t want to disrupt that, so from each json response we want to capture the “id”, “user_id” and “address” of the first object in the array, but only IF "workflow_state":"unconfirmed" is true.
  
  There may be more objects in the json response array if the user has added more comms channels, but the default email (the one we gave them in account creation) should always be that first object.
  
  You should now have a ‘hit list’ of all users who have an unconfirmed default email address, including the data required for the subsequent calls
  
  2. Loop through a DELETE comms channel call using data from step 1 (the hit list):
  https://yourcanvas/api/v1/users/[“user_id” from hit list]/communication_channels/[“id” of comm channel from hit list]
  
  3. Loop through a POST comms channel call using data from step 1 (the hit list) to recreate the emails as auto-confirmed:
  https://yourcanvas/api/v1/users/[“user_id” from hit list]/communication_channels?communication_channel[address]=[“address” from hit list]&communication_channel[type]=email&skip_confirmation=true
  
  1 person found this helpful
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Help! API update user issue

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