You can add a text or SMS communication channel to receive Canvas notifications on your cell phone. Text or SMS channels appear under the Other Contacts sidebar heading.

Once you have enabled the contact method, learn how to set notification preferences.

SMS notifications are currently available for cellular numbers registered in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Uruguay.

Note: If you have a mobile device and have enabled push notifications, your Canvas profile will include a For All Devices push contact type. If you delete this contact method, the method will reappear the next time you enable the Canvas app on your mobile device.

Course-level roles include users with permissions in the course. Account-level roles include permissions that affect the entire account as well as courses. Learn how course-role and account-role permissions work in Canvas.

View a video about Permissions.

Canvas supports authentication with a variety of third-party identity providers, which can be configured in the Canvas interface. Each provider requires the admin to set an attribute to be associated with the account, such as a user ID, email, or login. Currently supported integrations include Facebook, Github, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Apps, Microsoft (Office 365), Clever, CAS, LDAP, OpenID, and SAML. Some providers require custom components for configuration. All providers support Single Sign On (SSO) authentication.

Third-party authentication providers can be used in addition to Canvas authentication.

User Credentials

Once a provider has been saved in Canvas, the provider’s authentication login credentials must be added to each Canvas user’s account through SIS CSV files or the Authentication Providers API. (Currently there is no support for adding user credentials through the Canvas interface.) Each authentication provider supports specifically recognized parameters; some providers may recognize additional parameters. Unrecognized parameters are not supported.

To get additional help about authentication systems, including Single Sign On (SSO) support, view the Authentication documents in the Canvas Community Admin Group.

Just In Time Provisioning

As part of the authentication process, admins can apply Just in Time Provisioning, which tells Canvas to automatically create a user's accounts if one does not already exist. Currently when a user logs in to Canvas using a third-party authentication system, Canvas searches users in the account looking for a matching user parameter for that service. If a matching parameter is not found, Canvas returns the user to the authentication provider portal with a message the user could not be found. When Just in Time Provisioning (JIT) is enabled, Canvas automatically creates the user using an ID that matches the username used with the authentication provider.

JIT provisioning must be configured via API for the specific authentication provider (see the Authentication Providers API). It does not need to be configured for individual users via API or SIS.

Federated Attributes

As a complement to JIT provisioning, all authentication providers support federated attributes. When users log into Canvas, more information beyond just ID is passed to Canvas, and that information is associated with their existing user accounts. More information can be found in the Authentication Providers API.