Canvas Admin Checklist

[janieruddy]

Root Account Admins hold the keys to creating and maintaining a successful Canvas Instance. 

No pressure there!  Many decisions and considerations need to be made when choosing settings, customizing roles, adding integrations and more.  The Canvas Training team with in the Learning Services Department provide advice and guidance to help you with those decisions.  A comprehensive list of recommendations from CSM's and Trainers based on the practices of scores of successful instances would be helpful.  And so the Canvas Training team and  @jbailey6 , a CSM, have done just that in this Canvas Admin Checklist 

This checklist is a reference source that provides the following details for root admins:

• Guidance on Essential, Best Practice, and Above & Beyond settings and practices related to the following:
  • Sub Account Structure
  • Account/Course Roles & Permissions
  • Feature Options
  • Apps
  • Customizations
  • Account Settings
  • Course Settings
  • Term Organization
  • Free Training resources
  • General resources every admin should have
• The checklist is organized by function but a sister checklist is linked to view by rating: Essential, Best Practice, and Above & Beyond
• Links to guides related to the setting, feature or tool discussed
• In most cases, details the reason for the recommendation is included
• We will keep this checklist up to date with each monthly release.  

Access

This checklist is available via a public Google Docs link.  "Make a Copy" so you can customize for your institution. Please select the following link for access: Canvas Admin Checklist 

 

Preview

Please share your recommendations, they might make the checklist!

[britain_woodman]

Those are excellent suggested bookmarks! I wanted to share a few of mine for a future version of the document:

The first folder on the left in my browser's Bookmarks Bar is "Canvas Admin," and it's all links to the Courses, People, Sub-Accounts, and Admin Tools pages in our Canvas environment.

I have an additional folder next to that with links I use almost as often -- the Live API page for our environment, How do I format CSV text files for uploading SIS data into a Canvas account?, Canvancements - Canvas Enhancements, and some other local-to-us resources. (You may not need or want the SIS Upload documentation, but if you have an unusual Canvas use suggestion there's a distinct possibility  @kona  and James have created something that serves its purpose.)

I also have a Chrome Search Engine configured that maps "comm" to https://community.canvaslms.com/search.jspa?q=%s, because nearly any behavior I encounter in Canvas has probably been documented somewhere here already. So I type "comm" into the address bar, hit Tab, and then enter a few keywords, and there's almost always a relevant document or feature request.

[JenniferKelly1]

Under "Turn On Feature Option: Wrap event title in the Calendar month view" the link leads to an instructor account about calendar but does not (unless I overlooked it multiple times) explain how to enable this feature. I searched the forums and found a reference to this feature post by scottdennis on 4/8/20 that references this option availability, but does not give info where to find the instructions. It is the only option that pops up for this search.

[erin_keefe]

Hi @JenniferKelly1 ! This checklist is on our list for a refresh. Apologies that this sent you on a hunt for where this feature is located. It's actually a part of Core Canvas at this point, so it's automatically enabled!

[KarlaREID]

I am having trouble downloading any of these checklists. What am I doing wrong with this process?  Any help is appreciated.