Calendar

Learning Intentions

Success Criteria

create an event on their Canvas calendar.
add an assignment shell to the calendar.
create a way for students (or parents) to schedule a meeting time through the Canvas calendar.

What is the Canvas Calendar?

Task: Locate and go to to the calendar in your Canvas account.

One of the challenges facing both students and teachers is keeping track of all of the assignments planned throughout the term. Teachers are teaching multiple courses and students are learning in multiple courses. Every class has its own timeline for when things need to be done. The Calendar helps everyone stay on schedule and up to date.

Helpful tips about the calendar:

The Calendar is used for reminding students of graded Assignments with specific due dates. To provide students with detailed descriptions of how synchronous class time will be used, consider using Pages or customizing the Course Home Page.
The Calendar automatically syncs with other features in Canvas, such as Assignments, Syllabus, and Grades, so if you create, change, or delete the due date of an Assignment on the Calendar, it will show up in all the others and vice versa. You can change dates easily by dragging and dropping assignments from one date to another.
The Calendar in Canvas is a global feature, meaning you can see all of your assignments from all of your courses in one place. If your Calendar becomes too crowded, you can filter the number of events listed on your Calendar by selecting or deselecting courses in the Sidebar.

Note: Students and teachers can sync the Canvas calendar with the calendars on Google, Outlook, and their iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch).

Access the Calendar

Task: If you haven't yet, open your Canvas calendar.

The Calendar is a great way to view everything you have to do for all your courses in one place. You can view calendar events by day, week, month, or agenda list. The calendar also includes access to the Scheduler, which is an optional scheduling tool in Canvas.

Open Calendar

In Global Navigation, click the Calendar link.

View Calendar

The Calendar spans all courses and displays information for each of your enrolled courses and groups. In the navigation bar, you can choose to view the calendar in Week, Month, or Agenda view [1]. The view you choose dictates the style of the calendar window [2]. By default, the calendar appears in Month view.

The sidebar shows a quick-view calendar [3], your list of courses and groups, and undated items for your courses and groups.

To view the iCal link for exporting your Canvas calendar to other calendar apps, click the Calendar Feed link [4].

Adding an Event

Task: Add and event to your calendar.

A Canvas event is a non-graded Canvas activity Links to an external site.. Events you create on the Calendar will not appear in the Assignments page or in the Gradebook. But they will show up on the Syllabus page and student calendars. You can create events with due date times as well as all-day events.

For example, you may create a course event with a link to the readings that you want students to do in preparation for a class discussion in the Calendar. You will not grade students on whether or not they have done the reading, but you are providing the readings on a specific day to help them organize their time more efficiently.

You can also duplicate an event Links to an external site..

Open Calendar

In Global Navigation, click the Calendar link.

Add Event

Click any date on the calendar to add an event [1]. Or, click the arrows next to the month name to navigate to a different month [2] and select a date.

If you don't want to manually locate the date, you can click the Add icon [3].

Add Event Details

Enter a title for the event [1].

Depending on how you added your event, the date may be populated for you. If not, enter a date in the date field [2].

The calendar times may also be populated for you in the From fields [3]. Edit or enter the start and end time for your event. To create an all-day event, leave the From fields blank so there is no start and end time for your event.

If a location is required, enter a location for the event [4].

In the Calendar drop-down menu [5], select the course calendar for the event.

Submit Event

Editing a Calendar Event

Task: Edit an event in your calendar.

You can change the date of an Event or Assignment by clicking on the Event or Assignment or by dragging and dropping the Event or Assignment to a different date. This lesson shows how to edit a calendar item, but you can also delete items from the Calendar. Please be aware that deleting a Calendar entry also deletes the associated content elsewhere in Canvas.

Open Calendar

In Global Navigation, click the Calendar link.

Edit Event

View event details by clicking the event you want to view [1] and clicking the Edit button [2].

Edit Event Details

Here you can edit the event Title [1], Date [2], specify a time range [3], and Location [4]. You can move the event to a different calendar using the Calendar drop-down menu [5].

To add a location address or use the Rich Content Editor to add additional event details or links, click the More Options button [6]. Otherwise, click the Submit button [7].

Edit To-do Item Details

If you assign student to-do dates to a page or ungraded discussion, the item displays in the course calendar. You can edit the to-do item Title [1] and Date [2], and specify a time [3].

To edit the discussion Links to an external site. or page Links to an external site., click the More Options button [4]. Otherwise, click the Submit button [5].

Edit Assignment

View assignment details by clicking the event you want to view [1] and clicking the Edit button [2].

Edit Assignment Details

You can edit the assignment title [1], due date [2], and assignment group [3].

If your institution has enabled a student information system (SIS) integration, you can manage the assignment to sync to the SIS by selecting the Sync to SIS checkbox [4].

To edit assignment details Links to an external site., click the More Options button [5]. Otherwise, click the Submit button [6].

Edit Appointment Details

When editing an appointment created in the Scheduler, a different menu will appear than assignments or events.

You can edit the description [1] or limit the amount of users for this appointment [2]. To submit your changes, click the Update button [3].

Drag and Drop Event or Assignment

You can also change the date of an event or assignment in the same calendar by dragging and dropping the event or assignment to a different date on the month view or mini calendar [1]. Click the event or assignment, drag to the new date, and release your mouse.

You can add items from the Undated list to the course calendar by dragging and dropping the item to a desired calendar date [2]. Adding items from the Undated item list to the calendar assigns them a due date and removes the item from the Undated list. The item displays on the student-specific List View dashboard and in the global and course home page to-do lists.

Note: You cannot drag and drop appointments created in the Scheduler.

Undated Items

You can drag and drop undated assignments to and from the month view of the calendar [1] or mini calendar [2]. Notice the due date of that assignment will change to 11:59pm on that day. Moving events or assignments to the undated items section will remove the date.

Adding an Assignment to the Calendar

Task: Add an assignment to your calendar.

You can create assignment shells from the Calendar. Assignment shells are placeholders for the assignment until you fill in the assignment details. You can also create assignments with differing due dates for specific students.

Note: Currently assignments added from the calendar are not validated against course or term start and end dates.

Open Calendar

In Global Navigation, click the Calendar link.

Add Assignment

Click the Add icon.

Enter Assignment Details

Enter a title [1] and due date [2] for the new assignment. In the Calendar drop-down menu [3], select the course for the assignment. In the Group drop-down menu [4], select the assignment group.

If your institution has enabled a student information system (SIS) integration, you can enable the assignment to sync to the SIS by selecting the Sync to SIS checkbox [5].

To publish the assignment, toggle the Publish icon [6]. If you choose not to publish, the assignment will still be created and remain unpublished.

Submit Assignment

What is Scheduler?

Task: Set up an appointment slot on your calendar using Scheduler. **Bonus: connect your Canvas calendar to your Outlook calendar.

Scheduler is a Calendar tool that creates appointment groups within a course or group. Students can sign up for a time slot within the appointment group. Some appointment time slots may only allow one student to sign up at a time, while others may allow an entire group to sign up.

Only students can sign up for appointment slots in the Scheduler. If a student signs up for an appointment slot, an observer who is observing the student can view the appointment in the student's calendar. Observers cannot sign up for an appointment on behalf of a student.

Instructors can use Scheduler to:

Create office hours
Schedule TA sessions
Schedule lunches
Assign presentation times
Host Student-Teacher conferences (students could also bring a parent or guardian)
Host other appointments

Setting Up Scheduler

The videos below walk you through how to create appointment time slots using the Canvas scheduler. You even have the option to connect the Canvas calendar to your Outlook (email) calendar. The third video shows you how to do that.

Creating Appointment Times

How a Student Signs Up

Connecting Your Canvas Calendar