How do enrollment caps and waitlists display for a course or program listing in Catalog?
As a Canvas Catalog admin, you can set an optional enrollment cap and waitlist when you add a course listing or add a program listing. An enrollment cap allows you to limit the number of students who can enroll in a listing. When an enrollment cap is set, you can add a waitlist for the course or program.
Although it is possible as a Catalog admin to manage enrollments in the Canvas dashboard, it is best practice to use the Catalog dashboard to manage Catalog enrollments. Managing enrollments in the Catalog dashboard ensures the accuracy of enrollment caps and waitlist counts.
Notes:
- When an enrollment cap is added to a listing, the enrollment number begins at zero, even if students have already enrolled in the listing. To maintain an accurate student count, it is best practice to set enrollment caps prior to publishing a course or program listing.
- Enrollment caps are applied per listing. A single listing can have an enrollment cap as both a stand-alone course and as part of a program.
- Enrollment caps and waitlists are only recognized in Catalog when listings are added or dropped in Catalog. If you need to drop a student from a course, create a secondary login for the student in Canvas, log in as the student in Catalog, and drop the course through the Catalog dashboard.
View Listing Enrollments
To view enrollment details for a listing, click the Listings tab [1].
On the list, the number of enrolled students in a course or program displays in the Seats taken column [2]. Courses with an enrollment cap display the current number of enrollments compared to the number of allowed enrollments [3].
View Total Enrollments for Courses within Programs
When a course is listed both individually and as part of a program, each listing has a separate enrollment cap. The total number of enrollments allowed for the course is the sum of the enrollments allowed for both the course and the program.
Note: Enrollment caps are only enforced at the level for the listing where you want to apply the limit; any nested listings (such as another subprogram) don't apply to the limit.
View Limit on Enrollment Page
On the enrollment card, the number of spots remaining displays when the number of spots remaining drops to 20 or fewer.
View Waitlist on Enrollment Page
When the enrollment cap is reached, the Enrollment is closed message displays [1].
If a waitlist has been enabled for the listing, the Add to Wait List button displays [2].
Notes:
- When a spot opens, students who add their name to the waitlist are automatically enrolled in free listings, and notified to register for paid listings.
- Spots can become available if a student drops a course or program, or if you increase the enrollment cap for the listing.
- To activate the waitlist, a course or program must be dropped in the Catalog dashboard. Courses dropped in the Canvas dashboard are not recognized by Catalog.
View Enrollment Changes
When you increase the enrollment cap for a listing with a waitlist, Catalog displays the number of students to be enrolled from the waitlist [1].
To approve the enrollment changes, click the OK button [2].
