Is there a way to batch edit the available dates of imported announcements or hide them?

[ChenSong]

After spending 30 minutes in online chat, I couldn't find a solution to this issue. As an instructor, I consider this a major design flaw!

At the beginning of every semester, I import courses from the previous semester in Canvas, including all announcements. However, all imported announcements become immediately visible to my new class as soon as the course is published—unless I manually adjust the available dates for each announcement one by one. This process is tedious and inefficient.

Most instructors do not have the time to pre-edit announcements before the semester begins, as many announcements are created in response to specific situations throughout the course.

I strongly urge the design team to implement a feature that allows instructors to:

1. Hide all imported announcements by default upon course import.
2. Edit available dates for multiple announcements in bulk.

This improvement would save instructors significant time and ensure a better user experience.

Thank you for considering this feedback. I hope to see this enhancement in future updates.

[lshulman]

Making copied announcements unavailable upon copy process would make the process easier. 

My work-around: I do not include announcements when copying a course. 

I find it more efficient to keep a document with course specific announcements and using this to copy and paste and then edit as needed when it is time to post the announcement in the current course. 

Alternatively, when it is time to post the announcement, I will access it from the previous course (have two browser windows open and toggle back and forth between them). Manually copy and paste from the prior course to the current course.

Some announcements from previous course may not even be needed in current course. The "specific situation" may not come up this time around. I just like to start a new course with a clean slate for posting announcements. 

[suzanne_r_david]

Hi @ChenSong,

What I usually do is, when I copy the content over, I use the Date adjustment feature, which will shift the due dates automatically to the same number of days from the start of the class in the new class as the date was in the source class. For example, if the first day of my class last semester was set in Canvas as Monday, August 26, and the first day of my Spring class is Monday, January 13, then something that was due on Sunday, September 1 is now due on Sunday January 19. I do have to do some adjustment after the copy process, since there is a spring break in the middle of my class, but at least it gets it within a week, and I only have to fix the ones after the break.

I hope this helps, but I agree having the ability to default to hidden when announcements are copied would be nice.

[Chris_Hofer]

@ChenSong ...

I just wanted to chime in here quick and let you know there is an Idea out here in the Community that is related to your question:

[Announcements] Bulk Editing Options - Instructure Community - 365006

Currently, the whole Idea process is going through some changes, and you can read more about that here:

It’s Time for Your Feedback on the Future of Ideas... - Instructure Community - 619026

Finally, here are a handful of Guides about Ideas:

• What is the feature development process for Instru... - Instructure Community - 469504
• How do Ideas work in the Instructure Community? - Instructure Community - 2980
• What are the guidelines for submitting a new idea? - Instructure Community - 535609
• How do I create a new idea in the Instructure Comm... - Instructure Community - 2986

Also, if your school has purchased the DesignPLUS product from Cidi Labs that integrates with Canvas, the MultiTool (part of DesignPLUS) allows you to edit announcement properties on one screen.

DesignPLUS for Canvas | Cidi Labs (see the last minute or so of "The Multi-Tool" video on this page.)

I hope these resources will be helpful to you in some way.

[mgebara-lamb]

Hello,

This has been a concern and frustration for several years.

When transitioning a course at the end of the semester, I need to retain my announcements, as I have many. Unfortunately, there is no simple way to mute them all at once—I have to manually update the date for each announcement. This process is incredibly time-consuming, and there’s also a risk of announcements being released at unintended times. This has been a longstanding issue that many of us have been requesting a fix for.

Additionally, if I choose not to transfer the announcements, CANVAS does not retain the grading rules for the number of assignments to include in the final grade. This creates extra work and potential inconsistencies when setting up the course for the new semester. As the previous person mentioned, this is a major flaw in CANVAS.

I’d love to know if there are any planned improvements to address these concerns. When will we see this improvement?

Thank you for your consideration.

[lshulman]

<if I choose not to transfer the announcements, CANVAS does not retain the grading rules for the number of assignments to include in the final grade. >

How do announcements have any impact on assignments and the gradebook? 

I do not include announcements with course copy and have never had that impact on assignments or grading rules. 

[mgebara-lamb]

This happened last semester for the first time. I decided not to transfer the announcements, and I lost all the Rules. This semester I transferred the announcements, and the Rules transferred. I don't know if it was a glitch last semester, as I did not test it again!

Nevertheless, the main issue is the need to mute the announcements!

[lshulman]

I still don't understand what "grading rules" would be associated with announcements? Announcements are not "assignments" so how could those possibly be connected to anything in the gradebook?