What You Need to Know About the Third-Party Tool Request Process
If you are interested in requesting a tool to integrate into Canvas, please contact your Academic Liaison. The Academic Liaisons are responsible for following the approved third-party tool intake process and working with partners for potential integration within college/school/branch campus subaccounts. If the requested tool meets all compliance, testing, contract, and other required approvals, it may be implemented in the next release window (typically in May, August, and December).
No changes will be made to the Digital Learning Environment during the semester to safeguard student data and experience. Please note that this is not a quick process and implementation varies based on a number of different factors. Common areas include no current TX-RAMP status, security/accessibility compliance concerns, procurement, and integration issues within Canvas during testing.
Third-Party Tool Request Process
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Intake and Dean's Approval
Academic Liaisons can submit requests at any time that includes the Dean’s signature and any commitment to fund.
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Compliance Review
CTE will work with the Academic Liaisons and central offices to collect and review vendor's security, accessibility, and technical requirements documentation for compliance.
Note: the process will not move forward until approvals are cleared -
Testing
Academic Liaison(s) test the tool in the Canvas Test environment to confirm that the tool meets the needs of teaching and learning with support by the CTE.
Note: testing must restart if not completed by the 3rd Saturday each month due to Canvas refresh -
Contracts
CTE will liaise the evaluation of the vendor's data privacy and contract terms.
Note: in some cases, this process may take place in tandem with testing -
Approved for Use
CTE will approve the tool to be enabled in the Production environment during the next maintenance release window once all requirements are met.
Time Required for Third-Party Tool Approval Process
The image below illustrates the importance of timing associated with the steps in the Third-Party Tool Approval Process that includes the LMS Implementation Team units responsible for how each step progresses: *Due to Canvas refresh every third Saturday, testing cycles will need to fit within certain windows of time.
Please click on the image to increase the size