Canvas Release Notes (2020-06-20)

[#1]

Upcoming Canvas Changes
2020-07-18
Features previously introduced as part of a regular release date or as a Ready Release will become default for all institutions, unless otherwise indicated.
                       
For more information, please see Upcoming Canvas Changes
                                                       

In this Canvas release (June 20), Canvas Permission status options have been simplified to enable, disable, and lock to support grouped permissions. Additionally, the Pages - Add / Edit / Delete permission has been grouped into three separate permissions.

Feature Options

• For institutions using the Assignment Bulk Editing feature option, the page supports enhancements to select multiple assignments, batch edit dates, and improve date validation.
• For institutions using the Mute Notifications by Course feature option, the Course Notification Settings page supports granular notifications for the course.

Release notes describe upcoming Canvas functionality and are subject to change.

• Follow the Canvas release notes space to be notified of updates
• For all release changes to this document, view the Release Notes Change Log
• If you notice any contrary functionality compared to the outlined behavior in these notes, please file a Canvas support case according to your institution's support protocol
• Deprecations and end-of-life announcements related to Canvas Platform Services (APIs, GraphQL, Canvas Data) are located in the Canvas Platform Breaking Changes page.
• Other questions? View the Canvas Release Notes FAQ

• Updated Features
• Assignments
• Bulk Editing Enhancements
• Courses
• Course-Level Notification Preferences
• Permissions
• Permissions Status Options Updates
• Granular Pages Permission
• Platform/Integration
• Browsers
• TLS Protocol Changes
• External Apps
• Modules IMS Deep Linking

Release Notes Change Log

Updated Features

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Assignments

Bulk Editing Enhancements

This feature is used in conjunction with an existing feature option in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                       

Feature Functionality Details	Assignment Bulk Editing Feature Options doc
Affected Canvas Areas	Assignments
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Assignments feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	assignments
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/16898-bulk-update-selectedall-assignments
Feature Video

Summary

The Edit Assignment Dates page supports enhancements to select multiple assignments, batch edit dates, and improve date validation. 

Change Benefit

These changes provide faster management of assignment dates in a course.

Affected User Roles

Instructors

The Edit Assignment Dates page includes additional enhancements to help instructors manage assignment dates more quickly.

Bulk Selection

Each heading and assignment row includes a checkbox that can be used to select assignments. The checkbox in the heading can be used to select all assignments. The top of the page displays the number of selected assignments.

If an assignment includes overrides (differentiated assignments), only the main assignment includes a checkbox.

Note: Checkboxes are grayed out for assignments that cannot be edited, such as if the assignment falls in a closed grading period.

Assignments can also be selected by choosing a specific date range.

Batch Edit Dates

Assignments can be managed in bulk by selecting the assignments and then selecting the Batch Edit Dates button. The batch edit feature allows multiple assignments to shift all dates by a specific number of days (including differentiated assignment overrides, if any). Assignment due dates can also be removed for the selected assignments.

The OK button applies the desired changes for the selected assignments, but changes are not applied to the course until the Edit Assignment Dates page is saved.

Assignment Changes
Any assignment that includes a date change includes a Remove icon. Icons display for both assignments manually updated or updated via batch edit. Changes can be reverted by clicking the Remove icon next to the applicable row.

Validation Errors

If the date validator discovers individual errors, the error is displayed immediately near the due or availability date with the error. Previously errors were displayed only after page updates were processed.

Courses

Course-Level Notification Preferences

This feature can be enabled in Canvas through a feature option in Account Settings. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                       

Location to Enable Feature	N/A
Configuration Details	Mute Notifications by Course Feature Options doc
Affected Canvas Areas	Course Home Page
Beta/Test Environment Support	Yes
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	All Users
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Notifications feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	Notifications
Feature Video

Summary

The Course Notification Settings page supports granular notifications for the course.

Change Benefit

This change allows users to specify notification preferences within an individual course.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

All Users

The Notification Preferences page for a user’s account specifies the user’s notification preferences and communication channels for all courses, and preferences are automatically passed down to each course in the Course Notification Settings page.

If a supported notification preference is changed for a user’s account in the Notification Preferences page, that preference will also be reflected within each course as long as none of the notifications are manually changed.

The Course Notification Settings page only displays the following notification types:

• Course Activities
• Discussions
• Scheduling
• Conferences

Once a notification preference is changed at the course level, the course creates a notification override, meaning it is no longer associated with the preference set in the Notification preferences page. Any additional changes for that notification type must continue to be managed within the course. Notification preferences available within the course are identified by icon: notify immediately, daily summary, weekly summary, and notification turned off.

If SMS notifications are enabled for a user, the page also displays notification types that are not supported.

Permissions

Permissions Status Options Updates

Location to Enable Feature	N/A
Affected Canvas Areas	Permissions
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Admins
Feature Enhancement Ideas	Existing permissions feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	Permissions
Feature Video

Summary

Canvas Permission status options have been simplified to enable, disable, and lock.

Change Benefit

This change simplifies permissions options and supports future granular permission functionality.

Affected User Roles

Admins

All permission options in the Permissions page have been changed from four to three. 

For each permission, the permissions option list formerly included four options: enable, enable and lock, disable, and disable and lock. The options have been simplified to enable, disable, and lock. The Lock option is independent and can be used with either status. When the Lock option is selected, a lock icon displays next to the status.

For grouped permissions that are partially enabled, neither the Enable nor the Disable option will be shown as selected. However, if a permission group for a user role is later changed to be fully enabled or disabled, the relevant option will also update with a checkmark.

Granular Pages Permission

Location to Enable Feature	N/A
Affected Canvas Areas	Permissions
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Admins
Feature Enhancement Ideas	Existing permissions feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	Permissions
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/2326-in-permissions-separate-manage-wiki-addeditdelete-pages-i...
Feature Video

Summary

The Pages - Add / Edit / Delete permission has been separated into three separate permissions.

Change Benefit

This change provides granularity among the three options to manage pages. This update does not affect the Pages API.

Affected User Roles

Admins

The three Pages permissions are grouped at the bottom of the permissions list in the Manage Pages permission.

As with other permissions, the row displays icons that represent the permission status for the user role. All three permissions within the group can be managed together by clicking the main icon for the user role. 

To manage individual permissions within the group, the group can be expanded. Each granular permission that is enabled includes a check mark. Individual permissions for the group can be managed by selecting or deselecting the relevant permission. When the permission includes a mix of enabled and disabled permissions, the main permission status indicates the permission is partially enabled, using a half-filled green circle as the icon.

Individual permissions for a user role can be changed to the full enabled or disabled state at any time by changing the status for the main permission. 

Platform/Integration

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Browsers

TLS Protocol Changes

This feature is only available in the beta environment until further notice.

Summary

TLS Protocols 1.0 and 1.1 are not supported in Canvas.

Change Benefit

This change ensures all customers are using the highest encryption protocols to protect user interactions with Canvas. TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocols support usage of ciphers that do not sufficiently secure web traffic by modern standards and can easily be decrypted.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Developers

Users who rely on browsers to interact with Canvas should test their applications using the beta environment to ensure correct functionality, as support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are no longer available. Users who rely on TLS protocols should ensure they are using the latest version of each supported Canvas browser. Users may be affected if applications are parsing page content or using a script against Canvas APIs. Background regarding these changes can be found in Deprecating TLS 1.0 & 1.1.

External Apps

Modules IMS Deep Linking

This feature is only available in the beta environment until further notice.

Summary

For IMS Deep Links, the accept_multiple setting is included for non-graded items in Modules.

Canvas Benefit

This change expands deep linking capabilities for partners supporting this functionality.

Affected User Roles

Developers

The accept_multiple setting is noted in IMS Deep Linking Settings. This setting supports non-graded items in Modules.

Release Notes Change Log

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Date
2020-06-15	Changed—Platform/Integration Browsers: TLS Protocol Changes [added note that this feature won't be deployed to production until a future release]
2020-06-11	Changed—Platform/Integration External Apps: Modules IMS Deep Linking [added note that this feature won't be deployed to production until a future release]
2020-05-28	Changed—Upcoming Changes Assignments: Bulk Editing Enhancements [revised images; added Select by Date Range functionality] Added Feature Video Links
2020-05-19	Removed—Upcoming Changes Commons: Commons Guides Help Menu (delayed to July release)
2020-05-18	Release Notes Published

[trr10]

Well, at least this beats the time spent by the engineering team to show us confetti after we clicked a button...  Nonetheless, it still doesn't include the obvious change of grading by question on a single page, which Canvas reps have assured our teaching with technology team that it is happening. Thankfully we have now integrated with Google to allow me to move all of my quizzes there (it allows grade by question, just like Angel, Blackboard, Moodle, Schology, and others). It's insulting. Every time there is a change, I wait for it as do many, many others. 

But, hey, confetti. 

[agschmid]

The Course-Level Notification Preferences would be nice, but I noticed that in my courses on beta, not only is my active email address listed, but also "retired" email addresses that don't show up in my account settings page or if I do an api call using /api/v1/users/:userid/communication_channels. I also queried Canvas data and all except for my current active email address show as retired (2019 or earlier!). One of the retired email addresses has "green" icons. 

Will "retired" email addresses be removed from the course notifications page before this goes to production?

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Andrea,

Would you drop our Canvas support team a note about that behavior so they can look into it? 

Thanks!

Erin

[agschmid]

Hi Erin,

I filed a ticket: 05779097

[millerjm]

Thank you so much for the beginnings of granular permissions.  Look forward to seeing more. 

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Andrea,

Thank you. This should be resolved!

Thanks,

Erin

[agschmid]

Hi Erin,

It is! Thank you!

[bryan_biggers]

Great news about the more granular permissions and the assignment due date bulk editing.

We pay for a similar tool to the assignment bulk editing. We really love the functionality of the tool and would also love to not have to pay for it. :smileygrin: I think the rest of the Canvas community will also really like this feature. If it's not too greedy, may I request the below to help match the functionality of the other tool?

1. The current tool shows all the dates by module, which really helps faculty to bulk edit the due dates so all the modules have same due date, which really helps institutions/courses that run on a weekly format like ours. I understand that other people may want this visible in different ways (e.g. chronologically, by assignment type). May I suggest there be some type of organizer that allows you to pick between multiple display types?
2. The current tool shows the assignment icon. Some faculty like the due date for discussions to show the mid-week mark and some like the end-of-week mark. Knowing which assignments are discussions is helpful in setting those discussions to mid-week, if not obvious in the titles. May I request that you show the assignment type icon?

Thanks,

Bryan

[kimberley]

The granular permissions are a great idea.

We would really like to see a similar thing for 'Users - add/remove students in courses'.

For example, our trainers need to conclude completed students in courses but we don't want to them control adding or deleting from courses.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Bryan,

Our product team appreciates your ideas! The official communication channel for enhancement ideas is to post in our Ideas space, as enhancements aren't tracked in the release notes comments.

Thanks!

Erin

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Kimberley,

Our teams have reconfigured permissions to make them all more granular, and more granularity will be available at later dates.

Thanks,

Erin

[cesbrandt]

Can we expect to see non-graded activities added to the bulk date editor? As it stands, I'd consider the feature incomplete. A course that relies on ungraded activities to do the teaching and a couple of grades assessments gains practically nothing from this.

Here's a list of the activities I've found don't appear on the new editor:

1. Ungraded discussions
2. Practice quizzes
3. Ungraded surveys
4. Content pages
5. Calendar events

Here's what I've found does appear:

1. Graded assignments
2. Ungraded assignments
3. Graded discussions
4. Graded quizzes
5. Surveys

[venitk]

This would be extremely helpful! 

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Christopher,

The functionality is only currently supported by graded activities, but I have asked our product manager to consider adding in functionality for non-graded activities as well. Any updates to that feature will come through regular communication in future release notes.

Thanks,

Erin

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, all,

The notes for July 18 are now available: Canvas Release Notes (2020-07-18) 

Thanks,

Erin