Canvas LMS cloud application

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsWeb and mobile apps.
3. Click Add appSearch for apps.
4. Enter Canvas LMS in the search field.
5. In the search results, hover over the Canvas LMS SAML app and click Select.
6. On the Google Identity Provider details page, download the IDP metadata.
7. Click Continue.
8. On the Service provider details page, edit the ACS URL, Entity ID, and Start URL, replacing {your-account-id} with your organization’s account ID provided by and registered on Canvas LMS.
9. Click Continue.
10. (Optional) To map Google directory attributes to the corresponding app attributes, in the Attribute Mapping window:

    1. Click Add Mapping.
    2. Click Select fieldselect a Google directory attribute.
    3. For App attributes, enter the corresponding app attribute.
11. (Optional) To enter group names that are relevant for this app:

    1. For Group membership (optional), click Search for a group, enter one or more letters of the group name, and select the group name.
    2. Add additional groups as needed (maximum of 75 groups).
    3. For App attribute, enter the groups attribute name of the corresponding service provider.

    Regardless of how many group names you enter, the SAML response includes only groups that a user is a member of (directly or indirectly). For more information, go to About group membership mapping.

12. On the Attribute mapping page, click Finish.

On a publicly accessible file server, host the Google IDP metadata file downloaded in step 1. The file must be served directly, not via any redirects. The file also needs to be permanently available at a specific URL. It is requested by Canvas LMS each time a user signs in.

1. Open a new incognito browser window.
2. Sign in to https://{your-account-id}.instructure.com with your organization's Canvas LMS administrator account.
3. Click Admin on the left and select Authentication.
4. Add SAML as the authentication provider.
5. In the IdP Metadata URL field, paste the URL of the Google IdP metadata hosted on the file server as detailed in step 2.
6. Click Save. The values of the rest of the fields are populated based on the IdP Metadata.
7. Ensure that the Identifier Format selected is nameid-format:emailAddress.
8. Ensure that the Authentication Context selected is classes:Password.
9. Enable Just in Time Provisioning.
10. For SAML authentication, select 1 for Position.
11. Click Save.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsWeb and mobile apps.
3. Select Canvas LMS.
4. Click User access.

5. To turn a service on or off for everyone in your organization, click On for everyone or Off for everyone, and then click Save.

6. (Optional) To turn a service on or off for an organizational unit:

   1. At the left, select the organizational unit.
   2. To change the Service status, select On or Off.
   3. Choose one:
      • If the Service status is set to Inherited and you want to keep the updated setting, even if the parent setting changes, click Override.
      • If the Service status is set to Overridden, either click Inherit to revert to the same setting as its parent, or click Save to keep the new setting, even if the parent setting changes.
        Note: Learn more about organizational structure.
7. To turn on a service for a set of users across or within organizational units, select an access group. For details, go to Use groups to customize service access.
8. Ensure that your Canvas LMS user account email IDs match those in your Google domain.

Canvas LMS supports both Identity Provider (IdP) initiated and Service Provider (SP) initiated SSO. Follow these steps to verify SSO in either mode:

IdP-initiated

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsWeb and mobile apps.
3. Select Canvas LMS.
4. At the top left, click Test SAML login. 

   Canvas LMS should open in a separate tab. If it doesn’t, use the information in the resulting SAML error messages to update your IdP and SP settings as needed, then retest SAML login.

SP-initiated

1. Close all browser windows.
2. Open https://{your-account-id}.instructure.com. You should be redirected to the Google sign-in page.
3. Enter your username and password.
4. After your credentials are authenticated, you are redirected back to Canvas LMS.

If the user account authenticated by Google IdP does not already exist in Canvas LMS, a new user account is automatically provisioned by Canvas LMS for the signed-in user.