Hi everyone,
After a long back and forth I found out that the form that people need to fill out to create non-UMD accounts during the registration process is the thing that is keeping this feature from working correctly. Originally, when I created this feature idea I was expecting that at the subcatalog level this feature would only allow the specific demographic enroll but what Instructure is stating this only works if you use the Instructure login (not CAS like us). I am asking if it is worth it to submit a feature request for the subcatalog level to restrict specific types of enrollments such as .umd.edu and not necessarily registrations.
Below, is their response and I hope this helps.
Jessica
The form your custom css/js directs users to seems to be a general account creation form that could be used for creating canvas accounts in general, and I'm not sure where the submissions go or who manages them, but they don't seem to be tied to the built in Catalog registration workflow. The new feature of domain restrictions only restricts domains when a user attempts to register in Catalog. What your form seems to do is create a submission for an account to be created in Canvas first, which could then be used to login to Catalog and enroll in courses from there. The restrictions in Catalog don't care about the domains used for registrations in Canvas.
The feature's main purpose, from my perspective, was to help limit spam accounts which had been on the rise in several institutions. The spam accounts were taking advantage of the basic registration form Catalog had been using where anyone could use it to create an account. To help prevent this we added the domain restrictions and a Captcha to validate users when they register in Catalog. Your custom css/js already was working around both of these implementations by forcing users to already have Canvas account and preventing them from registering in Catalog.
The bottom line, enabling the domain restrictions seems more like a backup precaution if someone were to disable your css/js and then try to register for a course in Catalog. I don't see it being able to do any harm enabled and certainly adds to validation if for some reason in the future you get rid of your custom css/js, you just won't be able to test it in your normal work flow because your custom code takes you out of Catalog and to a custom form that seems to register users through your authentication system and Canvas first.
