Include teacher's comment in observer's Daily and Weekly email notification

[hinklemark]

As a Canvas observer and busy parent with already too many things to stay on top of I want the teacher's comments included in observer's Daily and Weekly email notification so that I can see the teacher's comment and can determine if I need to take an action in response. 

There's a huge difference between a teacher responding "Great job!" and "This was submitted incorrectly and can't be graded.  Please correct and re-submit before tomorrow."  The current implementation includes only the fact that a comment was made and a link to open the assignment.  Following this link requires signing in to Canvas, which is often too high a barrier when trying to quickly catching up on a mountain of emails.   The desired change is to include the comment in the body of the email notification.  An alternate approach could be to include a snippet of the comment, which would typically also be sufficient to determine if further action is needed.

[KristinL]

Hi @hinklemark -

I think this is already possible. 🙂

With my test accounts, I sent a reminder assignment comment to a student. The observer saw the message and was able to see it in their email notification (and know which assignment it was about and which teacher sent it).

Do you have your notification settings to include Submission Comments?

How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as an observer? 

[hinklemark]

@KristinL  Thank you for responding. My Submission Comments option is set to Daily Summary. 

See attached for a sample email of Recent Canvas Notifications including a teacher’s comment notification. 

Thanks,

Mark 

[KristinL]

Hi! I see the full comments when those notifications are set to immediate rather than the summary. What happens when you adjust the setting in your account? 

I think that this Idea Conversation could be modified to be "include full comment in daily and weekly summary" notification. I think others would find it helpful as they try to condense their notification emails.

[hinklemark]

Thanks @KristinL .  I’ve changed my setting to ‘immediate’ and will respond with the result after getting the next teacher comment. 

If by chance the immediate notification option does include the desired text please consider improving the Canvas Observer experience be including the content of teacher comments in the daily and weekly summaries as well. 

[hinklemark]

I can confirm the immediate option does include the teacher’s comment in the email notification.  Thank you, @KristinL .  

I tried to update my original post and can’t find a way to edit it. The request still stands and can be clarified as you suggest — to be "include full comment in daily and weekly summary" notification.  Please pass this request to the product development team for consideration. 

Thanks,

Mark

[Stef_retired]

Thanks, @hinklemark and @KristinL , for working through this! We've made the requested edits to the title and description and have moved it forward for broader discussion.

[ProductPanda]

Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.