TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Overview
• User Guide
  • Configuration Step
  • CSV Step
  • Example
  • Plan Step
  • Canvas Course
• Feedback

Overview

When creating a ‘Bulk survey distribution’ (or ‘bulk’ for short), you may wish each of the assignments that will be created in Canvas to have separate publish, due, and available/from dates.

This can be accomplished with the ‘Assignment dates mode’ setting in the bulk wizard.

User Guide

Configuration Step

On the ‘Configuration’ step of the bulk survey wizard, you can specify whether you would like a shared set of dates for every assignment that the bulk creates, or individual sets of dates.

Fig 1. A screenshot of the ‘Configuration’ step of the bulk survey wizard, showing the new ‘Assignment dates mode’ setting, set to ‘Individual (Each assignment will have its own set of dates)’.

This setting is compatible with all other permutations of the configuration: you can still choose to distribute the survey in Blueprint courses (’Course type’) and the method with which you would like to select the Canvas courses that the assignments will be created in (’Course selection mode’).

Regardless of which other configuration settings you use, you will need to upload a CSV file in order to set the dates.

CSV Step

Alongside the introduction of this feature, we revamped the CSV step. You will now see which columns are required in the CSV file based on the settings you’ve chosen in the ‘Configuration’ step (plus whether your chosen survey has any ‘Custom text’ embedded data fields activated on it).

Fig 2. A screenshot of the new CSV step of the bulk survey wizard. Shown are three new ‘CSV columns’ detailing which columns are required in the CSV file, their header names, and the values that they should contain. A new ‘Date & time format’ field is present under the ‘Set the CSV format’ field set.

Example

Imagine a scenario in which you want your bulk survey to be distributed in two courses: one of which ends on the April 28th 2025, and another which ends on May 4th 2025. You want to give students 2 days to complete the assignments. In this scenario, the CSV file you upload will need to look as like the file represented in Fig 3 below.

Fig 3. A screenshot of a CSV file, showing two rows that represent an assignment that will be created in two courses with different publish, due, and available from/until dates.

The assignment for the first course will be published on the April 28th @ 16:00, be due by April 30th @ 16:00, and will be unlocked in Canvas between April 28th @ 16:05 — April 30th @ 17:00.

Likewise, the assignment for the second course will be published on the May 4th @ 16:00, be due by May 6th @ 16:00, and will be unlocked in Canvas between May 4th @ 16:05 — May 6th @ 17:00.

Plan Step

If you have chosen ‘Individual’ assignment dates mode, you don’t need to specify one set of dates that will apply to all of the created assignments in the Plan step. However, the assignments will still all be created at the same time, and so you still need to pick a ‘Creation date’ that will apply to all of them.

Fig 4. A screenshot of the ‘Plan’ step of the bulk survey wizard, showing date value in the ‘Creation date’ field, and disabled ‘Publish date’, ‘Due date’, and ‘Available from’ fields.

Note: Naturally, Canvas assignments cannot be published until they’re created. Therefore you will need to ensure that the creation date is before the earliest publish date in the CSV file.

Canvas Course

When the bulk generates, you can find the assignments in your chosen courses as per usual, but with different publish, due, and available from/until dates!

Fig 5. A screenshot of the first assignment created in the first course with dates set in April.

Fig 6. A screenshot of the second assignment created in the second course with dates set in May.

Feedback

If you have any feedback about this feature, please don’t hesitate to get in touch: support@drieam.com.