Office 365 Assignments allow you to share an editable "template" file with students. Canvas will create a unique copy for each student who opens it; they can make changes, add comments, and submit their revision directly to SpeedGrader. These assignment templates can be Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, or any other files from your OneDrive account.

Using a file as the basis for an assignment will not modify the original file; student submissions will each be their own distinct copy.

Setup

Ready to set up your first Office 365 assignment? Let's go!

#1 Pre-setup: Add Office 365 to the Course Navigation

Animation of Canvas screenshare with Office 365 being added to the course Nav menu

(Note: This step avoids a common software bug that can occur otherwise. We wish it wasn't necessary, but we hope it will help avoid later confusion!)

Before you or your students can use the O365 assignment integration, you'll need to authorize Canvas to connect with your Microsoft account.

Open up your Canvas course and select Settings from the course navigation.
Click on the Navigation tab.
Scroll until you find Office 365. If it has the text "Page disabled," click on the three dots and select Enable. This should move it to the first block of "enabled" navigation items, and remove the "Page disabled" text below it.
Scroll down and click Save.
When you reload the page (ctrl+r, or the button in your browser), you should see Office 365 in your course navigation without the eye icon next to it. This means students will be able to see it when they open the course.
Click on Office 365. If it asks you to login, you can do so. Once you click to authorize Canvas, you should be able to see your OneDrive files, See the Canvas guide on viewing OneDrive files for more information.

#2 Add your Assignment

Once you've added Office 365 to your course and made sure your Microsoft account is linked, you're ready to create your first O365 Assignment. This involves creating a new Assignment with a Submission Type of External Tool and selecting the Office 365 Cloud Assignment option. You can find detailed instructions from Canvas or check out the animation below for a quick overview of the process.

Animation of selecting the Office 365 Cloud Assignment submission type in a Canvas Assignment.

#3 Sharing Your Office 365 Assignment

Before you open up your new Assignment to students, please ask them to follow the Office 365 course navigation link to make sure their account is connected. Students can find instructions for authorizing their account through Canvas here.
- Note: They only have to do this before your first O365 assignment; after that, they will be all set for future assignments.
Once your Assignment is published, students will be able to edit their copy of the Assignment document directly in Canvas or open it in their OneDrive account. In order for you to see their changes, they will need to submit the assignment to you. They can find detailed instructions on submitting O365 Assignments in the Canvas student guides.

If you or your students run into any issues with O365 Assignments, you can always reach out to Academic Technology or the Help Desk.