The Unofficial Canvas Bot.

Welcome to the Setup Guide for Your Canvas Discord Bot! 🎉

This bot is designed to automatically fetch new announcements and assignments from your Canvas courses and post them in a designated Discord channel. The bot will also send reminders for assignments with a 7 day, 3 day, and 1 day notice.

Setup:

Step 1: Create a Discord Application in the Developer Portal

• Visit: Discord Developer Portal

• Navigate to OAuth2 -> OAuth2 URL Generator -> bot.

  

• Under bot permissions, select administrator. (Don’t worry, its permissions are limited by the intents.bitfields we set. See Discord Intents for more info.)

  

• Copy the generated URL at the bottom and open it in a new tab. This will let you invite the bot to your server. (Make sure you have admin permissions on the server to do this.)

Step 2: Clone the Repository on Your Server

1. Run npm install.
2. Create a .env file (use the example provided).
3. In your Discord application, go to bot -> reset token, and set this as the DISCORD_TOKEN in your .env.
4. Generate your Canvas API token via Canvas Settings and set this as CANVAS_API.
5. Update the CANVAS_COURSES_URL and CANVAS_BASE_URL with your institution's Canvas domain. Replace <YOUR-CANVAS-LINK> with the appropriate domain for your school.
   This could be for example: canvas.kdg.be

Ensure you only change the domain part (e.g., github.be) to match your institution's Canvas domain.

7. Add your SERVER_ID and BOT_ID to the .env. This will help you set commands faster without the typical wait. (Find your SERVER_ID by right-clicking your server icon -> Copy Server ID, and your BOT_ID by right-clicking the bot in the server -> Copy User ID). Make sure to enable discord developer tools (User settings -> Advanced -> enable "Developer mode") for this to be an available option.

Step 3: Set Up Your Database 🛠️

• Run the queries in the discordbot_setupdb.sql file from the repository to set up your database correctly.
• Use the command /addChannelWithCourse Course_id Channel_id ChannelName to link courses with channels.
• Fill in your database details in the .env file:
  • DB_HOST=""
  • DB_USER=""
  • DB_PASSWORD=""
  • DB_NAME=""

Usage

Slash Commands 🚀

We've built several useful slash commands to enhance the user experience and give your users access to important course information.

/add_channel_to_course

• This command allows you to add a course to the server. You will have to fill in the following:
  • Course_id (the number found in the URL when you have a canvas course opened, for example 49715).
  • Course_name (the name of the course, this can be anything you like).
  • Channel_discord_id (the ID of the designated discord channel you want to link the course to).
    • You can get this ID by right-clicking on a text-channel and selecting "Copy Channel ID" (make sure you have developer mode enabled for this to show up!).

/get_latest_announcement

• This command will ask for a course_name and fetch the latest announcement (if available) from that course. The result is visible only to the user who requested it.

/get_upcoming_assignment

• This command will ask for a course_name and return all upcoming assignments. Again, only visible to the requesting user.
  • (Note: If multiple assignments share the same due date, they will all be shown.)

/get_all_courses

• This command returns a list of all active courses in the database. Super handy when you’re adding new channels or checking course availability.

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And that's it! 🎉 You’re now ready to deploy your CanvasBot and stay on top of announcements and assignments in Discord. Enjoy!

Contact

Gilles Serrien - serriengilles@gmail.com - LinkedIn - [Discord: kingykongiee]

Rinus Van Linden - rinus.vanlinden@gmail.com - LinkedIn - [Discord: dark3art]