For instructors
Scheduler Helper
A small, free Chrome extension that brings your class list from your school's Canvas into Scheduler with one button, so there's nothing to download, copy, or drag. All you do is sign in to Canvas. Afterwards, it offers to delete itself.
Add Scheduler Helper to Chrome
It works in Google Chrome (and Microsoft Edge), on a computer.
Scheduler Helper works in Google Chrome, on a computer. To use it, open Scheduler in Chrome there. Or download Canvas's file of your students instead: a sign-up sheet's Your students step shows you how, click by click.
What it does
- On a sign-up sheet's Your students step (or, later, under Class changed in Canvas? on its class page), a checklist: 1. add it, 2. press Import class list and pick the class, 3. all done: delete it? The page checks each step off as it goes. Added from that step, it carries on by itself.
- The first time, it opens a small window of its own naming your school's Canvas (say, canvas.myschool.edu): press Allow, then Allow again in the box Chrome shows. Once per school.
- The helper asks your school's Canvas for your list of courses, then for the students in one course: the one your sheet is named for, or, if that isn't clear, the one you pick. It does that as you, signed in to Canvas the usual way. If you aren't signed in, Canvas's sign-in page comes up for you to sign in (with Duo, as always), and you're brought straight back.
- It hands Scheduler's page each student's name and email address, and nothing else, and they go right onto your sheet (an update shows you who's new and who's gone first).
- Then the page offers to delete it from Chrome, in one click (or, with older versions, shows you the three clicks in Chrome's menu). It also shows its own small box at the top right of Chrome: All done!, with a Delete me button.
What it never does
- It never sees your password, and never changes anything in Canvas.
- It does nothing until you ask on Scheduler's own site: by clicking that button, or by adding it from there, which carries straight on. No other site can ask it for anything.
- It keeps nothing: it has no storage at all, so not your class list, not your course, not your Canvas sign-in. It sends nothing anywhere but Scheduler's page.
- Scheduler keeps only the names and email addresses you add (not the Canvas course, its number, or which Canvas). Your own browser remembers which Canvas course a sheet is for, so updating the list later is one press.
What your browser will tell you
Adding it asks for nothing. The first time you import a class list, Chrome asks whether it may “read and change your data” on your school's Canvas site. That's the permission it needs to ask Canvas for your class list; it only ever reads your list of courses and the names and emails of one course's students, and only when you ask. Its code is public: see exactly what it does, and check the copy in the Chrome Web Store against it.
Removing it
Once your class list is in, Scheduler offers to delete it for you (or shows you the clicks): press Delete Scheduler Helper (or, if it says Show me how to delete it, follow the three clicks it shows). Or, any time, click the puzzle piece at the top right of Chrome, then the three dots next to Scheduler Helper, then Remove from Chrome (in Edge, Remove from Microsoft Edge). Without it, you can still use Canvas's file of your students (the Your students step shows where to click), or add the helper again later.