Restore or identify deleted accounts

[Lassio]

Some accounts have been deleted manually by an admin. When we try to look up the account we get a 404 error,  but when we try to make a new account with the same SIS Id we get an error that SIS Id is already in use.

Is there a way to look up deleted accounts and/or is there a way to restore deleted accounts?

[matthew_buckett]

Do you mean a Canvas sub-account/account or a user account, it wasn't clear from your original message. It doesn't matter too much as the solution should work for both.

Using account reports allows you to find all the accounts that have been deleted (there's an option to include deleted), then as long as the account has a SIS ID you can use a SIS import to restore them.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-view-reports-for-an-account/ta-p/109

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/What-are-SIS-Imports/ta-p/47

[Lassio]

Hi, thank you for your reply.

Yes I can see that my question was a bit lacking, I was talking about a Canvas account. I was wondering if/hoping that there was a way to do this with the API: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/accounts.html

I guess for restoring we can use the sis imports api https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/sis_imports.html

Would you happen to know if there is a way to finding accounts which are tagged as deleted using the api?

[matthew_buckett]

I'm not aware of any way (it would be really handy), apart from running the provisioning report through the API and asking for accounts (included deleted).

https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/account_reports.html

[JedKeenan]

Hello Lassio,

There are no deleted accounts, the account has the status 'deleted' but still exists. Use this file as a csv import to change the user account to 'active' and it will work, as it did for me, correctly:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bQ8W0RTYZckk67KFV_EcXRXrE5Opq-TYpqKexvpJ1rA

Yours sincerely,

Jed Keenan