Assignments in Canvas with Microsoft Edu LTI

Question

Hi everyone

We recently deployed the new Microsoft LTI in Canvas and have started using the option to create Microsoft Education assignments directly from Canvas. So far, the setup has been very easy and user-friendly.

Unfortunately, we've run into a problem: when we try to change the due date of an assignment after it has been created, an error message appears and the update fails.

For our institution, being able to update assignment dates is essential because we work with Blueprint courses. When course content is synchronized and reused, assignment dates often need to be adjusted for different course runs and cohorts.

Are there any colleagues here who are seeing the same behavior? If so, have you found a fix or a workaround?

I'd appreciate any insights or suggestions. Thanks!

EssieVdp · Accepted Answer

We found the reason for the error, and it does not appear to be a bug.

When an assignment is created with Microsoft Education Assignments in Canvas, there are actually two different date settings involved:

* the due date/end date configured in Microsoft Education Assignments;
* the due date/availability settings in the Canvas assignment settings.

We discovered that once the assignment has been assigned to students, date changes should be made through the Canvas assignment settings, not through the Microsoft Education assignment settings. If you try to modify the date from the Microsoft Education side after assignment, an error message is displayed and the update fails.

For institutions using Blueprint courses, this is an important distinction because assignment dates often need to be adjusted for different course runs and cohorts. In our testing, updating the dates from the Canvas assignment settings works correctly after the assignment has been assigned.

Hopefully this helps anyone else who runs into the same issue.