User status options

[wilsong]

We often have students who leave school for a year abroad or a semester domestic exchange. I remove them from their enrolled courses, but I don't want to deleted them from Canvas. Is there an option that keeps them in Canvas, but won't allow them to access our site? The only Action options I know about are, "deleted" and "active."

Thanks!

[bneporadny · Accepted solution]

Hi Gayle,

As far as I am aware of Canvas doesn't have a setting specifically for what you're looking for. 

There are a few things I can think of that might work depending on how your school is integrated to Canvas. 

1. If your school is using LDAP or other authentication for secure access to Canvas you could choose to mark them inactive in there and being inactive within LDAP will then cause them not to be allowed to sign into Canvas.
2. If you're using Canvas authentication or can't mark them inactive within your LDAP system because you still want them to be able to access their school email, etc. you could manually update their login name, but then would have to remember to go back and change it back when they comeback from studying abroad.

[jfountain · Accepted solution]

Agree, I wish Canvas would allow for a user status of "inactive."  Only having "active" and "deleted" is limiting for the admin.

[dtod · Accepted solution]

We often temporarily suspend people because they haven't done their security training, or for some other reason, and because Canvas doesn't support inactivating an account, I have to inactivate their enrollments instead. It's a real PITA.

[bneporadny · Accepted solution]

Hi Gayle,

As far as I am aware of Canvas doesn't have a setting specifically for what you're looking for. 

There are a few things I can think of that might work depending on how your school is integrated to Canvas. 

1. If your school is using LDAP or other authentication for secure access to Canvas you could choose to mark them inactive in there and being inactive within LDAP will then cause them not to be allowed to sign into Canvas.
2. If you're using Canvas authentication or can't mark them inactive within your LDAP system because you still want them to be able to access their school email, etc. you could manually update their login name, but then would have to remember to go back and change it back when they comeback from studying abroad.

[jfountain · Accepted solution]

Agree, I wish Canvas would allow for a user status of "inactive."  Only having "active" and "deleted" is limiting for the admin.

[dtod · Accepted solution]

We often temporarily suspend people because they haven't done their security training, or for some other reason, and because Canvas doesn't support inactivating an account, I have to inactivate their enrollments instead. It's a real PITA.

[pingcsm · Accepted solution]

We recommend suspending users. Once a user has been suspended, they can no longer log into Canvas via the web or mobile apps, but you can still access their profile, enrolments, results, etc, in the user interface of Canvas. This means accessing their data for audit/other purposes is much easier than if you try to set the user status to deleted (we do no recommend using the deleted status).