External Tool addition to assignment erases text field?

[CaitlinGewin]

I have a professor who is using an external tool in assignments. However, when the external tool is added to the assignment, everything in the text field above (where the summary for the assignment would go) is deleted. Is this supposed to happen? Does it happen with every external tool? Is there a way to stop that from happening? 

[gnoack · Accepted solution]

Hi @CaitlinGewin 

I use several external tools and they all work differently.  If it is a publisher tool, you would be best to contact them to find out how it works. 

Typically, content from publisher external tools should be edited in the publisher site, not in Canvas.

[joshbolakowski]

I also have an instructor experiencing the same issue. Curious if it is the same tool, mine is Pivot Interactive. Not sure if it is a Canvas issue or on the external tool.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @joshbolakowski ...

I've never heard of or used Pivot Interactive before, so I wouldn't be able to assist with that.  However, I tried doing a Google search to see if I could find anything for you that might help.  I came across this...which you may have already seen:

Linking a Pivot Interactives Assignment to a Canvas Course | Pivot Interactives Help Center

It looks like there is some kind of interactive chat system in the bottom right corner that you can interact with if you still have questions for the folks at Pivot Interactive...since it is their product and not Instructure's (Canvas) product.

Hope this will help in some way.

[alurom]

This is also happening to me. I set up the title and assignment prompt and after adding the external tool submission it is all erased. The external tool submission I am using is Google Cloud Drive. All my work is replaced by the title of the Google doc and I do not know of a way to recover what was erased. This did not occur last school year, was there an update that is not working correctly? The workaround will be to add the external tool and then edit the assignment. 

[AMYSTREET]

Did anyone find a solution? Same thing has been happening to me.

[DanJ]

This is happening to me too.  I'm using WAMAP (math assessment tool).  I've used this external tool for 5 years and this has never happened until this month.

All my assignments are already created in Canvas and imported from previous years, so I can't just add the external tool first and then add the text.

[joshbolakowski]

I recently reached out to Canvas support and was informed this is an issue with information being sent by the external tool to Canvas.

The LTI is sending information like title and description (which may be blank) to Canvas when linked causing the information in the Canvas assignment to be replaced. 

Just thought I'd pass this along if anyone was still having issues or for anyone in the future looking into the issue. 

Canvas directed me to this page on LTI Deep-Linking. (See section on "Preparing for the Change")

[DanJ]

I also reached out to Canvas, and after running me around in circles for a while they finally gave an answer:

Next step: Assist the user with addressing their request to disable the feature option completely in the ________ School District Canvas instance.

Additional notes: We have provided the instructor with details on the feature option and how this can be rectified. 1. The feature option can be disabled. 2. They can reach out to the tool provider and request they stop sending the data that overwrites these details, we do not have a mechanism that can disable this for tool providers. 3. They can select the tool before adding the assignment name and description that would prevent any content from being overwritten as this only occurs at the time the tool is selected.