Using Microsoft OneDrive with Canvas

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Overview


The integration between Microsoft OneDrive and Canvas allows you to:

  • Attach Office 365 files including Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and Excel from the Rich Content Editor

  • Distribute Office 365 cloud assignments.

  • View and organize your personal and course Microsoft Office files.

  • Create collaborations where course members can work together on shared documents in real time.

  • Access multiple Microsoft OneDrive accounts, including personal and school accounts.

  • Integrate Office 365 files with your course modules.

  • Use your Microsoft account for single sign-on with Canvas.

You can find out all these features in this instruction.




Enable Microsoft OneDrive assignments

You need to enable Microsoft OneDrive assignments in Canvas to ensure that students are able to utilize Microsoft OneDrive within their courses.

  • Navigate to your Canvas course.

  • Go to Settings [1].

  • Go to Navigation tab [2].

  • Enable Office 365 [3] by dragging it to the enable list.

course settings

  • Refresh the browser page.

Create a Microsoft OneDrive Cloud Assignment

Cloud assignments are templated assignments. All students get their own copy of the assignment and can edit their own copy. When students submit the assignment, their own copy gets submitted and is available to you in the speed grader for grading.

Microsoft OneDrive allows you to use Office files, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, to provide assignment instructions to students or assignment templates for students to edit and submit.

  • To include instructions about the assignment as an Office file within your assignment, go to Assignments in your course.

  • Click + Assignment to create an assignment.

add assignment

  • Select the Power Plug icon in the editor and select Office 365.

office365 in RTE

  • Click login.

login office365

For the first time, Office 365 may not show up. In that case, you can choose View All and select Office 365 from the popup.

view all in RTEoffice 365 icon

  • Select a file from your OneDrive file picker to embed or link the file.

Files with .xls extensions cannot be embedded.


  • To add a templated assignment, select External Tool [1] as the Submission Type and select Find [2].

submission type

  • Select Office 365 [3] to open Microsoft OneDrive file picker.

office 365 as external tool

  • Select the file you want to serve as the templated assignment.
  • Select Attach File.

onedrive file picker

  • Click Select to confirm the selected file.
  • Select other options for Submission Attempts and Assign, then Save or Save & Publish.

Important: After a Microsoft OneDrive cloud assignment is published, it should not be edited. If you edit it, a new document will be created and shared with students. If the students have attempted the previous assignment and you share a new assignment, the previous work of the students will be lost. 

Student view of templated assignments

After you created a templated assignment, students are allowed to work on their own assignments using the template you provide and submit a copy of the assignment individually. 

student view of templated assignment

If you add your OneDrive file via RTE (Rich Text Editor), the file will be considered as an instruction of the assignment that students only can read.

If you add your OneDrive file via External tool as the submission type of the assignment, the file will be considered as a template of the assignment that allows each student to edit and submit a copy.

If you want students to work on a file together in group settings, you need to use Collaboration in Canvas which we will introduce later.

Create a Templateless Assignment

This type of assignment allows students to upload any file from their Microsoft OneDrive account to submit for the assignment. Students are only able to upload Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.

  • Go to your Canvas course.
  • Navigate to Assignments [1].
  • Create a new assignment by clicking + Assignment [2].

add assignment

  • Select Online for the submission type.
  • Select the File Uploads box.

file upload

  • Select other options for Submission Attempts and Assign, then Save or Save & Publish.

Student view of templateless assignment

Students are allowed to choose their copies of assignments from OneDrive through the option of Office 365.  They still can upload their copies from local drive.

office 365 option

Collaborate Using Microsoft OneDrive

Collaborations allow students to work collaboratively on a given document. Students and instructors can start a collaboration. The document under collaboration remains accessible to you even if you are not added to the collaboration.

  • Go to the Collaborations from the course navigation.
  • Select Office365 from the dropdown.

office365 in collaborations

  • Choose your Type, Document type, and insert Description.
  • Assign the collaboration to students/groups and select Save. The browser will open a blank OneDrive document (Word, PowerPoint, or Excel) based on your choice.
  • Copy and paste your given document (Word, PowerPoint, or Excel) to the blank document.
  • This creates the collaboration for selected users, including you as the instructor. 

  • If you are using private mode of Safari browser, you will not be able to assign a collaboration to a group of students. 

  • If you are using Firefox browser, a dialog box will appear asking you to Resend or Cancel. You will need to Cancel to create the collaboration. 

Add Microsoft Office files to your course modules

Microsoft OneDrive integration allows you to add Microsoft Office files to your Canvas course modules. 

  • Go to Modules from your course navigation.
  • Click the + icon on the top right of the module.

add file in modules

  • Choose External Tool from the dropdown.
  • Choose Office 365 from the list.

external tool - office365

  • Choose the file that you would like to include from the OneDrive file picker and click or tap Select.
  • The selected file will be added to the course module. 

You can only add official school accounts. Personal OneDrive accounts are not yet supported.  

Use incognito or private browsing mode 

When using a shared device, you may access OneDrive in private browsing mode or incognito mode. Here is what you should know for the best experience.

Google Chrome

Cookies are disabled by default in the Chrome browser incognito mode. You can either enable cookies for all sites in the settings or allow cookies for Microsoft OneDrive.

If cookies are disabled while accessing Microsoft OneDrive in incognito mode, you will receive an error message or a blank OneDrive file list.

  • To allow the cookies, select the eye icon within the address bar.

eye icon

  • Toggle the button to enable the Third-party cookies.

third-party cookies

  • You will need to relaunch Microsoft OneDrive to begin using it in incognito mode.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft OneDrive works in private mode in Microsoft Edge browser. Ensure that you have not blocked cookies (which are enabled by default). 

microsoft edge settings


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