Last ditch attempts to troubleshoot student Canvas entry issues

[silvamayflower]

Is there anywhere I can turn when I've exhausted all the apparent steps to help a student who is stranded outside Canvas?  I'm a lone tutor, so don't send me to my organisation support.  I'm using free for teacher, which is fine as long as it works.  My problem is that even one student out of 50 or 60 who can't access the course causes stress for them and extra work for me.

Examples:  One student can't get past the 'I'm not a robot' message - and I've even tried to walk him all through the steps via Zoom.  He's no longer a student because he was so frustrated, even though I compensated by sending him a google doc each week.

One has 2 accounts, and logged in successfully in both accounts last term.  This term she can't get in via one gmail account because it says the account is being used by someone else.  I can't invite her because it says the account is being 'checked' for some reason.  Hoping her icloud account works this time, but it's very frustrating, and time-consuming for me if I have to prepare her google doc separately from the rest each week.

In recent times, little help messages have appeared in my Canvas account - the 'help' button has not only been used to no avail, but it's directly over the editing buttons at the bottom of the page!  Tell me, is there any help whatsoever available?  I'm looking for an alternative, paid or otherwise, because Canvas has to work for all my students or none, but so far I'm drawing a blank on anything as useful as Canvas, and I'd really like it to work.

[nmbucklein · Accepted solution]

Hi @silvamayflower 

I am sorry to hear you are having such a time with Canvas! We love our Free for Teacher users and hope to be able to help you overcome these issues.

Canvas Support is most easily accessible with a paid account, which is something you are free to discuss with our Sales team! https://www.instructure.com/contact-us
Our Support team has to prioritize paid accounts, but you can still reach out to them via email queue and they will get to your questions, or the questions of your students! How do I contact Canvas Support? 

Additionally, most questions that individual students have are browser related, so these are useful guides you can send your users: How do I clear my browser cache on a Mac? How do I clear my browser cache on a PC? 

Our Community Guides also have many walkthroughs to help overcome the different challenges you may face while using Canvas, but when it comes to individual, in-depth questions, your best bet is going to be through Support.