Filter and Organize the Gradebook in Canvas

Often, I see people scrolling through what feel like endless gradebooks in Canvas. This guide shows you some ways to quickly and efficiently navigate through your gradebook.

Strategy #0: Only Put Graded Assignments in the Gradebook

The easiest way to avoid a cluttered gradebook is to only include assignments that you are going to grade or track completion for. For example, if you want to create a HW assignment so that it appears in students' To-Do list, but you know you aren't going to grade it or track completion, just set it as Not Graded in the assignment options.

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Strategy #1: Sort and Order Assignments

In your gradebook, you can change the default order of assignments. To do so:

Click View.
Hover over Arrange By.
Select the order that works best for you. I am partial to the Due Date- Newest to Oldest option.

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Strategy #2: Filter Assignments

You can also filter the assignments in your gradebook. Keep in mind that your filters will remain even if you leave the gradebook for a different Canvas page and then come back.

To enable filters:

Click View
Hover over Filters
Select the filters that you want to enable.

Once you do this, the filters will appear in the upper righthand section of the gradebook page.

To actually filter the gradebook:

Click the desired filter
Select the desired content type that you want to appear in your gradebook. In the example below, only assignments that are in the Essays group would appear if I selected the Essays option.

Keep in mind that these filters interact with each other. I select a filter option in both multiple filters, like I have in the screenshot below, the gradebook will only show assignments that fit into all of the selected filters. Here, the gradebook would only show assignments that are in the Essays assignment group and in the Week 1 module.

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Strategy #3: Hide Unpublished Assignments

If you have a lot of unpublished assignments in your gradebook, they are likely just clutter. To hide them from the gradebook:

Click View
Click so that there is no checkmark next to the Unpublished Assignments option.

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Strategy #4: Search for Specific Assignments

You can also search for assignments by name in the Assignment Names section. You can choose multiple assignments and the gradebook will only show the chosen assignments. Note that this filter does reset if you navigate to a different Canvas page.

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Strategy #5: Turn on Enhanced Gradebook Filters

The biggest benefits of using the Enhanced Gradebook filters are that 1) you can filter to show only assignments that have ungraded submissions or by a specific time period and 2) you can create and save your own complex filters to save time if you find yourself returning to a particular filter setup.

Note: As of Dec 2022, this feature is in active development. This means that things might not be perfect or might change without notice. For updates, see this Canvas community page.

To enable the feature:

Click Settings
Select Feature Options
Find Enhanced Gradebook Filters, click the red X, and select Enabled. A green check mark will now appear.

To actually filter the gradebook:

Select the Apply Filters button
Choose the desired filters.

Any filters that you choose will show up in a line above the gradebook. You can quickly remove individual filters by clicking the X next to their title or you can remove all filters by clicking Clear All Filters.

To create your own custom filter presets:

Click Apply Filters and select Create & Manage Filter Presets
Select any choices that you want to save in your preset filter and give it a name.
- If you already have any filters applied to the gradebook, these will automatically get pulled in to your custom filter preset. You can still change them if you want your preset filter to filter something different.
  - For example, in the screenshot below, I already had Section 2, Week 5, and Reading Checks selected when I clicked Create & Manage Filter Presets. This means that those options were automatically pulled in to the Create Filter Preset options. I can still change them if I want my preset filter to filter something different.
Save the filter.

Once you have saved your preset filter, it will appear in the Apply Filters menu. When you click it, it will automatically apply all the filter options you chose.

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