Pro Tip Tuesday – Customizing Your Canvas Notifications

Did you know you can customize your Canvas notifications by course? You can and it’s super convenient!

First, some general information about how notifications work in Canvas. Notifications in Canvas are set by the user. An instructor cannot force course notifications to be sent to students’ email. Students are responsible for setting their own notifications. By default, students will receive Canvas Inbox/Email messages in their WPI email. All notifications (including Canvas inbox/email messages) will ALWAYS be displayed on your Dashboard when you log into Canvas. Notifications that you want pushed out to your WPI or other personal email address are what is being changed when you customize your notifications. Now, on to customize those defaults! Let’s look at our global notifications first that affect all of our Canvas sites:

Setting Global Notifications

Your Canvas notifications for ALL courses can be set under Account > Notifications. These notifications can be sent to your WPI email, a personal email, and also pushed to your mobile device. You can also set how often to receive specific notifications: Immediate, Daily Digest, Weekly Digest, or Never.

But what if you have a specific course that you want more frequent notifications for… or less frequent? You can enable specific notifications at the course level so you never miss an update. You can also reduce unwanted notifications that could otherwise clog up your inbox and make it harder to find messages you need. Course level notifications in Canvas override settings at the global level.

Setting Course Notifications

In your Canvas course site, click on Home > View Course Notifications to open the settings for this specific course site. Same as globally, these notifications can also be sent to your WPI email, a personal email, and also pushed to your mobile device. They also have the same frequency to receive specific notifications: Immediate, Daily Digest, Weekly Digest, or Never.

More Information

Customize Account Level Notifications (All Courses)

Customize Course Level Notifications (Per Individual Course)