Using the Canvas Calendar

Getting Organized with the Canvas Calendar

The Calendar is a great way to view everything you have to do for all your courses in one place. You can view calendar events by day, week, month, or agenda list.

The Calendar spans all courses and displays information for each of your enrolled courses and groups. In the navigation bar, you can choose to view the calendar in Week, Month, or Agenda view [1]. The view you choose dictates the style of the calendar window [2]. By default, the calendar appears in Month view.

The sidebar shows a quick-view calendar, your list of courses and groups, and undated items for your courses and groups [3].

The top tool right bar of the calendar allows for shifting between Week, Month, and Agenda views. The Sidebar on the right shows a list of classes with colors indicating that align with their presence on the calendar as well

Your Calendar View

Each personal, course, and group calendar is identified by a separate color that populates the calendar view. Associated calendar items for each course or group display when selected in the calendar view [1].

By default, the first 10 course and group calendars will be selected and appear in the calendar view. To hide a calendar, click the box next to the name of the calendar [2]. Calendars that are not active within the calendar view display as faded text [3].

Note: Canvas will assign an arbitrary color for each calendar unless a custom color is chosen. Each calendar contains 15 default colors, but you can insert a Hex code to create any color of your choice. Colors set in Dashboard course cards also update in the calendar.

Canvas Calendar Screenshot point to the the colors associated with each class and faded text indicating inactive calendars that are not in the calendar view display.

Keeping Track of Your Assignment & Due Dates

Each item on the calendar is color-coded to match the courses or calendars in the sidebar. Calendar items display an icon next to the titles. The icon reflects the calendar item type:

Discussion [1]
Assignment [2]
Quiz [3]
Event [4]

Non-graded items with a to-do date may display in the calendar for a course. To view full details for an assignment or event, hover over the item [5].

Calendar assignments can also be crossed out [6], which is a simple way to keep track of assignments. Assignments are crossed out once the assignment has been submitted. In an instructor's calendar, assignments are crossed out when the due date has passed and all submissions have been graded.

Note: Assignments that have been awarded a grade but do not contain an actual submission are not crossed out.

Different types of assignments are represented on the calendar with different icons. When there is a deadline for an assignment it shows the time of the deadline.

Other Tips and Tricks

Adding Events to the Calendar

Calendar navigation tool bar showing options for weekly, monthly, or agenda view As a student, you can add events, including recurring events, and to-do items to your personal calendar at any time in the navigation bar.

Viewing Calendar by Week

To view the calendar by week, click the Week button. The Week view shows all calendar items by date and time. Weekly view of Canvas Calendar
Links to an external site.

Syncing other Calendars

You can import your Canvas calendar to Google Calendar. The calendar feed contains events and assignments from all of your Canvas calendars.

Click on the Calendar Feed Link
Copy the link in the URL Field [1] OR select 'Click to view the Calendar Feed' to download the feed as an ICS file [2].
Log in to your Google Account, Go to your Calendar, then Add Other Calendar
Add the Canvas Calendar either by URL or by uploading the ICS file

If you use Apple Calendar, Outlook, or Yahoo Calendar. The process is explained more in this Canvas Guide about subscribing to an external calendar.