Canvas Commons Links to Content

[DanielGraham]

Hi Canvas Community

When sharing resources using the Canvas Commons, after a period of time the links appear to expire and require users to login into Canvas Commons again.

This doesn't appear to happen for newer links and if they are already logged into Canvas, they are taken directly to the resource in Commons. 

We'd prefer to be able to share links rather than asking users to search for the resource. 

Has anyone else experienced this and have found a workaround for this?

Thanks 

Dan

[ryan_corris]

Hey @DanielGraham!

I have not had an issue with newer or older links exactly.  What I have found out is that if you are not logged in to the Commons, links to the content in Commons do not take you to the content.  Any time I share links from the Commons, I include directions stating that logging into Commons first may be necessary.  To log into the Commons, they will just have to open up Canvas, click on the Commons link in the course navigation menu, and then try the links to the Commons content.

Seems like a few extra steps, but logging into the Commons is different than logging into one of your courses.  As far as I am aware, this method has worked every time. 

I would love to hear if someone else has a different way of doming this. Hope this helps.

[jsowalsk]

@DanielGraham Has this been reported to Instructure support?

[DanielGraham]

@jsowalsk This has been reported via our CSM and I'll be following up with our users here to try to establish why this is happening. I'll report back when we know. 

[jsowalsk]

@DanielGraham Thank you for the update.

[DanielGraham]

We have found a solution to the issue (we think). As suggested above by Ryan, users need to be logged into our Canvas instance before they use the link to Canvas Commons. When they do this, it appears to work. Otherwise they'll be presented with a login screen for Commons. We've provided additional guidance to this for our users when sharing future resources. 

[tom_gibbons]

It looks like the issue isn't just being logged into Canvas--you also have to have an active Commons session going. This was not always the case.

There also seems to be something weird going on with the authentication process--the login redirect for Commons shouldn't send you to canvas.instructure.com/login/canvas. Given the way that other passthrough systems work in connected Canvas tools, like the Community and Service Cloud, the user should just pass through, based on their current Canvas user session. It's kind of a drag.