Canvas - Using Admin Tools to Check Course Status (Help Desk)

HDQA agents and Help Desk Contract Partner Support (CPS; formerly Level Two) agents have access to some administrative tools in Canvas. Both HDQA agents and CPS agents can search for courses and view course publication and activation settings. CPS agents have additional permissions, including the ability to view course enrollments.

Logging in to Canvas as an Administrator

HDQA agents will log into the administrator side of Canvas as detailed in HDQA Canvas Admin Account. Level Two agents will log in with their NetID credentials at https://canvas.wisc.edu.

   

Searching for Courses

Select the Admin shield in the left search bar and select "Course Guide" to search for-credit courses or "Manually-Created Courses" to search non-credit courses (e.g. HIPAA Training, Security Training).

Most of the cases you encounter will deal with Course Guide courses. After selecting "Course Guide," you can browse courses by name or use the search box on the right side of the page.

The main menu is on the left side of the page. After selecting Admin, you will be asked to choose a subspace, Course Guide or Manually Created.

If you are having problems finding a course when searching by name, you can try searching by the Class code. First, look up the section in the Registrar's Class Search tool and go to View Sections. The Class code corresponds to the last five digits of the SIS ID and is unique within a given semester, so searching with this number should bring up the class you need.

Example of a course as shown in SIS

SIS ID

Checking Course Publication and Activation

If a student is not seeing a course they are enrolled in, the course may be unpublished or inactive. On the search screen, unpublished courses will appear in gray, with an X in the icon next to their name. (Both courses in the example above are unpublished.)

On the course homepage, you will also see the publication status under "Course Status" on the right side of the page.

Course shows as "Unpublished"

To check activation dates, go to "Settings." The course activation dates will be in the "Course Details" tab. Students will not be able to see the course before the designated start date or after the end date.

Course activation dates are listed under "Settings"

Checking User Enrollment

Canvas syncs with SIS enrollment data once overnight. If a student has just added a course, they may need to wait overnight to access it in Canvas. Instructors should NOT manually add students to their for-credit courses in Canvas.

HDQA Tools

You should have the customer check the all courses tab as shown below. Escalate unresolved issues.

Select "All courses" to open a full list

CPS Tools

CPS (Formerly HDL2) agents are able to view course enrollments in Canvas. After opening the course page, select "People" from the left menu. You will then be able to browse enrollments, search by name, or filter by role.

CPS agents can view course enrollments by opening the course's "People" tab.



Keywords:
Canvas search subaccount sub admin SIS enroll enrollment troubleshoot 
Doc ID:
73762
Owned by:
Help Desk KB Team in DoIT Help Desk
Created:
2017-06-02
Updated:
2025-01-21
Sites:
DoITHelpDesk-internal, Learn@UW-internal