Canvas Notification Settings Guide

You can select when you would like to receive notifications from Canvas (immediately, daily, weekly, or none). Listed below are FSU's recommended notification settings. If you are an instructor, click here.

Please note: As of May 2, 2020, Canvas will only allow users to enable SMS Notifications for announcements and grading.
We highly encourage users to transition to the Canvas Mobile App for push notifications as these notification types are more consistent and reliable. Read more about this Canvas SMS messaging update.

STUDENTS

Keep in mind:

These settings are applied to all courses and organizations across Canvas; you cannot adjust notification settings for an individual course or organization.
If you are forwarding your emails to another email account, these addresses MUST be added to your Canvas account in order to successfully reply to a Canvas email notification using that email account. Otherwise, your reply won't actually send.
Please abide by FSU's Policy on Self-advertising through Canvas. Official FSU policy states that FSU-owned resources may not be used to solicit sale of class notes, study guides, textbooks, apartment leases, etc.
If there is a Canvas organization or an old class that you no longer want to receive notifications from, you can disable all notifications for that course or organization. We do not recommend switching off notifications for any courses that you are currently taking otherwise you may miss important information from your instructors.

We strongly recommend that you select the following settings for your Canvas notifications:

COURSE ACTIVITIES
	Email Notification	Push Notification
Due Date	Immediately	On
Grading Policies	Send weekly summary OR do not send me anything	Off
Course Content	Send daily summary	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
Files	Send daily summary	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
Announcement	Immediately	On
Announcement created by you	Immediately	On
Grading	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
Invitation	Immediately	On
Submission Comment	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
DISCUSSIONS
	Email Notification	Push Notification
Discussion	Distance students: Immediately, or send daily summary Face-to-face students: send daily summary	Distance students: On Face-to-face students: At your discretion - choose your preferred option
Discussion Post	Distance students: Immediately Face-to-face students: Immediately, or send daily summary	Distance students: At your discretion - choose your preferred option Face-to-face students: At your discretion - choose your preferred option
CONVERSATIONS
	Email Notification	Push Notification>
Added to conversation	Immediately	On
Conversation message	Immediately	On
Conversations created by me	Immediately	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
SCHEDULING
	Email Notification	Push Notification
Appointment signups	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
Appointment cancellations	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
Appointment availability	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
Calendar	Immediately, or send daily summary	At your discretion: choose your preferred option
CONFERENCES
	Email Notification	Push Notification
Recording ready	Send daily digest	Off
ALERTS
	Email Notification	Push Notification
Global Announcements	Immediately	On

Only announcement and grading notifications can trigger SMS notifications. For more information about what each of these notification preferences entails, see Canvas's Notification Preferences PDF.

Further resources:

What are Profile and User Settings?
How do I set my Canvas notification preferences?
How do I add a text (SMS) contact method in Canvas as a student?
Keep in mind: SMS notifications are only available for course announcement and grading items.
- Android: How do I set Notification Preferences in the Canvas Student App on my Android device?
- iOS: How do I set Notification Preferences in the Canvas Student app on my iOS device?

INSTRUCTORS

The settings you choose may vary depending on how actively you participate in Canvas organization sites and how "plugged in" to your Canvas course sites you want to be. We recognize that everyone will have different preferences. With that in mind, we put together the following table containing our recommendations to help guide you in selecting your Canvas notification settings:

Keep in mind:

These settings are applied to all courses and organizations across Canvas; you cannot adjust notification settings for an individual course or organization.
If your department uses a vanity email domain (e.g., @business.fsu.edu, @med.fsu.edu, @ringling.org), these addresses MUST be added to your Canvas account in order to successfully reply to a Canvas email notification using that email account. Otherwise, your reply won't actually send to your intended recipient.
To ensure compliance with various laws and regulations, FSU employees should NOT respond to emails using their personal email accounts (Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, etc.). Please only add your FSU email accounts to Canvas and refrain from forwarding your business emails to a personal email account.
Submission Comments: these are assignment submission comments entered by your students. These notifications may include some context, but often do not. To ensure that you receive these submission comments, we recommend that you use the email notification setting below. If you have more students than you can keep track of with these submission comments, we recommend communicating to your students that they should email you directly rather than using a submission comment to ask a question about their grade. This way, students will need to provide you with appropriate context for their question/concern regarding the assignment in question.
If there is a Canvas organization or another Canvas site that you no longer want to receive notifications from, you can disable all notifications for that specific course or organization. We do not recommend doing this for any courses that you are currently teaching or organizations that you lead, otherwise you may miss important communications from your students and organization members.

COURSE ACTIVITIES
	Email Notification	Push Notification	What Triggers This Notification
Due Date	Send weekly summary	Off	Changing an Assignment due date Creating an assignment, quiz, or discussion Changing an Assignment from non-graded to graded
Grading Policies	Send weekly summary OR do not send me anything	Off	Change in Assignment Group Grade Weight Change in the Gradebook Total Point column's display (percentage/point value)
Course Content	Send daily or weekly summary	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	Changes to: Page Quiz content Assignment content
Files	Send daily summary	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	New file added to your course. Notifications will not be sent to the user who uploads the file. If the Files tab is disabled within a course, then students will not receive this notification.
Announcement	Immediately	On	New announcement in your course or group. Instructors and TAs can receive notifications for course groups (i.e., student groups within course site) without being added directly to a group. For this to happen, you have to be enrolled in the course and enable this Announcement notification preference.
Announcement created by you	Immediately	At your discretion	Announcement created by you Replies to announcements created by you
Grading	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	Includes: Assignment/submission grade entered/changed Un-muted assignment grade Grade weight changed
Invitation	Immediately	On	Invitation for: Web Conference Group Collaboration (must enable Google Drive integration) Peer Review & Peer Review reminder
All Submissions	Send daily summary	Off	Assignment submission/re-submission, including assessments (quizzes) and graded discussion posts
Late Grading	Immediately, or send daily summary	Off	Late assignment submission
Submission Comment	Immediately, or send daily summary	Off	Assignment submission comment entered by student. The notification will include the text of the submission comment and may include the creator of the comment, the course, and the assignment name. If you have more students than you can keep track of with these submission comments, we recommend communicating to your students that they should email you directly rather than using a submission comment to ask a question about their grade.
DISCUSSIONS
	Email Notification	Push Notification	What Triggers This Notification
Discussion	Send daily summary, or send weekly summary	Off	New discussion topic in your course
Discussion Post	Send daily summary	Off	New discussion post in a topic you're subscribed to
CONVERSATIONS
	Email Notification	Push Notification	What Triggers This Notification
Added to conversation	Immediately	On	You are added to a conversation. Please note: you will need to log into Canvas to view any attachments that are sent via Canvas conversations.
Conversation message	Immediately	On	New inbox messages. Please note: you will need to log into Canvas to view any attachments that are sent via Canvas conversations.
Conversations created by me	Immediately	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	You created a conversation. We recommend this option so that there is a record of all messages that you send within Canvas.
SCHEDULING
	Email Notification	Push Notification	What Triggers This Notification
Student Appointment signups	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	Student appointment signup
Appointment signups	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	New appointment on your calendar. You will get this notification if you are signed up for an appointment by another user. For example, an organization site offers an appointment group and users are required to sign up in groups. After one group member makes an appointment, any other group member with this preference activated will receive a notification.
Appointment cancellations	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	On	Appointment cancellation
Appointment availability	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	New appointment time slots are available for signup
Calendar	Immediately, or send daily summary	At your discretion: choose your preferred option	New or changed items on your course calendar
CONFERENCES
	Email Notification	Push Notification	What Triggers This Notification
Recording ready	Send daily digest	Off	A conference recording is ready for viewing
ALERTS
	Email Notification	Push Notification	What Triggers This Notification
Content Link Error	At your discretion, but we recommend Immediately	Off	A student encountering a broken link in your course site, or trying to access an item that has not been published but should be published (e.g,. clicking on an module item to complete an assignment, but the assignment is unpublished). This notification contains the location & content of a failed link that your student encountered so that you can more easily fix the situation. Students do not know that this email notification has been triggered.
Global Announcements	Immediately	On	"Global Announcements" refers to the announcements that display on your Canvas Dashboard. We at FSU ODL Technical Support post these and they contain reminders of important events and information, such as extended technical support hours or information about service disruptions to learning technologies, like Turnitin or Zoom conferencing, and the resolution of service disruptions.