05-Acting As Users
Last updated by neal.legler 4 years agoActing As Users
As noted in the page on finding users, if you have “Act as user” admin privileges, you can access Canvas through the account of another user.
There are several reasons you may need to use this feature, including (but not limited to) the following:
Troubleshoot a reported user issue to make sure it’s not a permissions problem for the user and to verify what the user can and cannot see and access.
Upload videos to a user’s “My Media” account and access videos from his or her “My Media” account to embed on a page. This cannot be done on behalf of another user in Canvas without “acting as” that user.
Post discussion topics and announcements on behalf of (and at the request of) an instructor. If you don’t “act as” the instructor, the post will show as having been added by you.
Copy content from one course to another. Although this is doable as an admin without “acting as” a user, it’s sometimes much easier to “act as” the make finding the right course to copy from easier.
Upload an assignment on behalf of a student, when the student has run into difficulty and has requested help.
Test a quiz or assignment using a test user without having to logout and log back in as the test user.
It’s important to note that when you “Act As” another user, you need to be careful, because you can do things like start exams, submit assignments, and more that will actually apply to the student in question. Also note that it is possible to identify that a user’s actions were done by an administrative user acting as that user, so abusing the “act as” functionality can’t be done anonymously.
To “act as” a user:
Once you are acting as the user, every screen in Canvas will be surrounded by a pink box making sure you know that you are acting on someone else’s behalf.
Click the Stop Acting as User button at the bottom-right corner of the screen when you are done.
