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Configuring Canvas for use with Echo360 - Integration Overview

Echo360
  • Updated

Echo360 has developed multiple modes of interoperability with the Canvas LMS.

The steps below provide a high-level workflow for integrating Echo360 with Canvas, and provide links to more specific articles with more detailed procedures as needed. The procedures in the linked articles are provided as guidelines to the Canvas setup process. Refer to the Canvas documentation for additional details or contact Canvas product support if you need further assistance.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN: You will want to determine if your Echo360 Courses and Sections will be created separately in Echo360 and then linked to through the LMS, OR if you want to enable the simplified One-Click Provisioning feature for your institution. The One-Click course provisioning auto-creates the course and section in Echo360 from the LMS link, using the same course code and name as the LMS. This is designed to accommodate institutions who want to limit administrative involvement in Echo360 management, and use Echo360 primarily as a content management solution for instructor class materials. You can still create capture schedules for the sections, to record and publish lectures, or allow instructors to generate ad hoc captures for their sections, if lecture capture is part of your institution's workflow. Beyond the one-click course provisioning feature, all other LMS integration steps remain essentially the same and are described below.

Step 1: Add a Canvas LMS Configuration in Echo360

This step generates an authentication mechanism, allowing your Canvas instance to talk to your Echo360 instance. 

To add a Canvas LMS configuration to Echo360

  1. As an Echo360 Admin, click the Settings icon (it looks like a gear). 
  2. Select Configurations.
    The LMS Configurations page appears by default. 
  3. In the right side of the LMS configurations page, click Configurations, as shown below. 
  4. Click Add Configuration, then select Canvas from the drop-down list, and click Save.

A Canvas LMS Configuration appears on the page, as is shown in the below figure. The Key, Secret, and URL field values are the values you will copy and paste into Canvas for ALL of your Echo360 tool configurations.

LMS configurations page with Add Configuration button identified and a Canvas LMS Configuration block showing

For more detailed procedures, see Generating LMS/LTI Configuration fields in Echo360.

Step 2: Create Echo360 Apps in Canvas

Canvas uses "Apps" to integrate with external systems. Echo360 strongly recommends that the Echo360 Apps you add to canvas are added at the Account level and NOT at the Course level. Adding Echo360 apps at the Account level make those apps and their functionality available to all courses in the Account. We also recommend that you add separate apps for each feature you want to enable, because having them separate allows you to disable or remove them without affecting the others. 

As a Canvas admin, navigate to the Account and select Settings from the options on the left. Then select Apps > View App Configurations.

From the App Configurations page, you will use the + App button to add one or more Echo360 Apps into your Canvas installation, depending on what Echo360 functionality you want to provide to users. ALL Echo360 apps must be added using the By XML method. Refer to the following articles for detailed procedures:

The different Canvas apps are created using different XML cartridges generated in Echo360. Each Echo360 XML cartridge has a different feature enabled. This is done by using the feature sliders located in the LTI Config tab of the LMS Configuration shown below.

Canvas LMS Configuration with LTI Config tab showing and feature sliders identified as described
 

Enable the slider for the app you want to create, disabling the others, then click Save. This generates a new XML Cartridge that you can copy from the XML tab of the LMS Configuration. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you add each app SEPARATELY, generating up to four different XML cartridges to use for creating four different Echo360 apps in Canvas. This allows for later upgrades to EACH without affecting the others. If you need to update an app instead of replacing it, use the Canvas API to update the configuration (replacing the existing XML cartridge with  the new one from Echo360).

Step 3: Link Canvas Courses to Echo360 Sections/Classes

This is potentially the most complicated set of steps in the process, because there are several different ways to go about it, depending on whether it's the Admin or the Instructor who executes it, whether the instructor is exporting Echo360 analytic data into their Canvas course gradebook, and whether the Echo360 sections already exist for linking or are created as a process of linking through from Canvas.

Use the links below for more information as needed:

When a student passes through any course link from Canvas into Echo360, they are automatically enrolled into the Echo360 section as a student. If the student is not yet an Echo360 user, their Echo360 account is automatically created when they pass into Echo360.

Canvas course instructors are automatically enrolled into the Echo360 section as Instructors, if they are not already enrolled. Instructors may also have their Echo360 account created if it does not already exist when they pass into Echo360 from Canvas. See also Disabling Automatic Instructor Creation (for LMS users) if this is not appropriate for your institution.

Canvas Admins who pass into an Echo360 section this way are also enrolled as Instructors into the Echo360 course. See LMS to Echo360 User Role Mappings for additional details.

Step 4: Provide Articles to Instructors and Students as necessary

As noted in Step 3, some or all of those procedures can be done by Instructors or Admins. Once the functionality has been added to Canvas, let instructors and students know how to take advantage of it.