Sub-Account Admins & Manually Created Courses

[mjacobson1]

I've created some new sub-accounts and added an existing Canvas user as Admin for each sub-account. When these sub-account admins go in and create a course from scratch, they always go into "Manually Created Courses." They do not have the option to change that in the Course Settings panel so it appears within their own sub-account. I change the sub-account to their local sub-account through the course settings panel because I have a drop-down menu allowing me to change that in the course settings. They do not, but other sub-account admins do. Here's what I see when I act-as-user: 

• Screenshot 1
• Screenshot 2

In contrast, sub-accounts that were created before I took over as super-admin (not feeling very "super" today) can change this through a drop-down that looks just like my view in the course settings panel. Here's another act-as-user example: 

• Screenshot 3

So here are my questions: 

• Why the difference / What did I do wrong?
• What can I do differently so that new sub-account admins can organize courses for themselves?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @mjacobson1 ...

This is just a hunch, but as a Canvas admin, you may need to click into a sub-account, and then go to that sub-account's "Settings" page.  Within that "Settings" page, click on the "Admins" tab to see the individual(s) that has/have access to that particular sub-account.  There should also be a role listed.  You may need to see if one person's role is different than another person's role.  Then, go to your root account, and then to your "Permissions" page.  If you saw different roles on those sub-accounts, you'd be able to see those roles on the "Account Roles" tab to see if some permissions are different than others.

I've also found that if you have to make any changes to those roles on the "Account Roles" tab of the "Permissions" page, you have to remove them from the sub-account screen and then re-add them right away...so that the new permissions you set apply.

Again, not sure if this will help or not, but thought I'd try and help.  Good luck!

[mjacobson1]

Thanks @Chris_Hofer  - I checked each step you mentioned in your reply with the appropriately-behaving subaccount and affected subaccount side-by-side. The settings and permissions are identical in both cases. I think that previously the subaccount admins were added as "account admins" instead. I'll have to fiddle with the permissions and roles a bit more to sort that out. Do you know if there's a report that shows roles assigned to users? (admin, teacher, student, etc.)

[mjacobson1]

Nope. I changed the course level settings for subaccount admins and I still get the same behavior. Newly created courses end up in the Manually Created Courses subaccount rather than the target subaccount. grrr... 

I don't want my subaccount admins to mess with other subaccounts. I'm sure if you had departments in a high school or college level this would certainly be desirable and possible. So how can I create a "walled garden" for each subaccount?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @mjacobson1 ...

Our sub-account structure looks something like this:

• Applied Trades & Technologies
  
  • Business & IT
  • Manufacturing
  • Trades
• General Studies
  • Adult Basic Education
  • General Education
• Health & Human Services
  • Health
  • Human Services
  • Nursing

For the three sub-accounts in blue bold lettering, we have three Deans that are each assigned to their respective program (sub-account).  Then, we also have eight Associate Deans.  Those individuals each have access to their own sub-account (the green text).  Since a Dean oversees the Associate Dean, the Dean is able to see all two or three sub-accounts under it.  For example, the Dean for "General Studies" can see the "Adult Basic Education" and "General Studies" courses in both of those sub-accounts.  But, the Associate Deans for those two sub-accounts can only see their respective courses.  For example, the AD for "Adult Basic Education" cannot see the courses in the "General Education" sub-account.

Does this help at all?

[mjacobson1]

@Chris_Hofer Yep, that's what I'm looking for. It has to be something in the Permission panel for my sub-account admins that I've missed.

[wlopez]

Hi...we have some similar situations with sub-account admins, and when the same thing has happened I have had to make sure the sub-account admin is first clicking on "Admin" in Global navigation, then going into their account in which they are admin of, THEN clicking on "+ Course" to create the course--as opposed to "Starting" a new course from the Dashboard (which will always create the new course in Manually Created Courses). Does that make sense? 🙂 Creating the course from within the account they're admin of should always automatically set it to that sub-account.

Hope that helps you as well!

[mjacobson1]

Thanks! That worked for me when I logged in as a couple of my subaccount admins. I'll add this to my quarterly update and my onboarding routine, too. 

[InsulatorsLU7]

I am sure you have found the answer by now, but I wanted to provide some insight anyway. Under the account level admin, in settings, Feature Options, toggle on Allow sub-account selection when users manually create courses.