One can choose to implement this process as an activity guide. The guide starts off with an intro page, then goes to a custom page, which displays an entry from the message catalog. The message catalog entry has a tag where we want the URL to be included. When PeopleCode encounters that tag, it will replace that tag with the NSSE URL for that student, which we have stored in a custom table. The activity guide simply provides the NSSE URL to the student, which is opened in a new page. After completing the survey, student can return to the activity guide to mark it complete so that it drops off their to-do list. We do not receive notification from NSSE to confirm that the student actually completed the survey.

The items that we developed for this are as follows:

1. Create new custom record (UP_IR_NSSE_URLS) to load and store survey links for students
2. Configure File Parser to parse through CSV file from NSSE
   1. Context Definition
   2. File Mapping Definition
      1. YEAR field value set to current year
   3. Create Run Control to load and store survey links for students in UP_IR_NSSE_URLS record
3. Create UP_IR_NSSE_CURR_YEAR population query using EMPLID data from UP_IR_NSSE_URLS record and the current year
4. Create a custom component called UP_CC_ACTGD_MSG that simply displays a message catalog in an HTML area
   1. Create component PeopleCode (UP_CC_ACTGD_MSG.PreBuild) to replace "NSSE_LINK_TEXT" variable with survey link for user
   2. Grant component to students
   3. Register component on the Related Content Service page so that it can be utilized in an activity guide
5. Create new Message Set, for display on custom page within activity guide
   1. Message contains variable/tag for survey link to replace
6. Configure Activity Guide
   1. Create Template, using custom page that displays message catalog entry (message set and number defined within Context data)
   2. Create Task
   3. Assign Tasks
      1. Utilize population select query UP_IR_NSSE_CURR_YEAR
7. Launch Activity Guide via Assign Tasks Run Control (UP_NSSE_XX)
8. Close Activity Guide/take down to-do link after March 29th, 2017

Used VLOOKUP in an Excel Spreadsheet to match the "canvas_user_id" to the "student_id" that was sent in the NSSE data file. One can get the canvas_user_id from the Provisioning Report in Canvas. This report includes the student_id and the canvas_user_id.

=VLOOKUP(C2,Sheet1!$A$1:$B$29803,2,FALSE)
=VLOOKUP(C3,Sheet1!$A$1:$B$29803,2,FALSE)
=VLOOKUP(C4,Sheet1!$A$1:$B$29803,2,FALSE)

You would include the formulas above in a column. Column C would be the column that had the "student_id" for each student. VLOOKUP would take the student_id in cell C2, and go to the data array that I have in another worksheet (Sheet1) find the matching student_id in the array and put the matching canvas_user_id that is in column 2 of Sheet1 and put that number where the VLOOKUP formula is located. It would do this for each student_id until it has matched them all. Copy the column with canvas_user_id and save it as a number (not the original formula). You can then delete the formula field.

Your source_file_names file (CSV) might have a field for canvas_user_id, first_name, and survey_url for each student.

---
Generate the Canvas user token with a user that has enough permissions to post via the API. The user created a NSSE user, so that the conversation comes from "NSSE".

They used the Windows PowerShell ISE and pasted in the following formula:

---
$token = "3254~hdcopj1tAXEBUyzw4zwZjYlQu2LLd3KWDYxEXS12OsKDaBWqGdOPIHam6Zygnli"
$canvas_domain = "yourcanvas.test.instructure.com" # Your Canvas domain. Use the .test area at first
$headers = @{"Authorization"="Bearer "+$token}

Import-Csv C:\canvas_conversations\source_file_names.csv | ForEach-Object {
$user_id = $_.user_id
$first_name = $_.first_name
$survey_url = $_."survey_url"

$uri = "https://"+$canvas_domain+"/api/v1/conversations/?recipients[]=$user_id&subject=NSSE Survey&body=+$first_name, `r`nPlease take the NSSE Survey. `r`nEach survey is especially designed for you. `r`n+$survey_url"

Invoke-RestMethod -Method POST -uri $uri -Headers $headers | Out-File -Append C:\canvas_conversations\logfile.txt

}
---

Comments from users of the above code

Just ran my first complete test on our test Canvas site. A little over 2700 students in the list. It took almost 14 minutes to complete, and generated a log file of 10.5 MB. I'm not sure how much quicker it would complete if I did not generate a log file, but the file lists the canvas_user_id, and the survey URL, and a bunch of other data for each student that I really don't need, but don't want to take the time to figure out how to get the sparce info I do want in the log file. I randomly selected 4 students, and checked the generated conversations and the survey URL to make sure they matched with the data file, and they did.

I know there are many 3rd party applications that use LTIs to authenticate and communicate between an LMS and the Cloud hosted application. We use an "83#" as the unique IDentifier for each Canvas user. I'm not familiar with NSSE, but how do you generate unique survey links for each student who is contacted by email? Is the student's ID appended to the survey URL and thereby redirects the student to the survey specific to them?

They are 83#s because they all begin with 83xxx;-)

This PowerShell script will pull user info from a CSV file and create a Canvas Conversation for each, with the unique Survey URL for each. I'm not a programmer, and there is no guarantee with this script, but if it helps, please use it. I have only used this in our test environment.

---

$token = "3474~MA07brX7mM7PzhkgIW0m8sp0H0XjHW5CUFJwoiNrRxnrOkWN0ONXDUEjAucDmYza"
$canvas_domain = "myschool.test.instructure.com" # Your Canvas domain. Use the .test area at first
$headers = @{"Authorization"="Bearer "+$token}

Import-Csv C:\canvas_conversations\source_file.csv | ForEach-Object {
$user_id = $_.user_id
$first_name = $_.first_name
$survey_url = $_."survey_url"

$uri = "https://"+$canvas_domain+"/api/v1/conversations/?recipients[]=$user_id&subject=NSSE Survey&body=+$first_name, `r`nPlease take the NSSE Survey. `r`nEach survey is especially designed for you. `r`n+$survey_url"

Write-Host $uri

Invoke-RestMethod -Method POST -uri $uri -Headers $headers

}

---

The source_file.csv would have three columns: user_id, first_name, survey_url

*I have not seen the actual source_file provided by NSSE, but might have to translate the STUDENTID to the Canvas UserID which is used in the API call. I generated the "Provisioning Report" from the Canvas Admin Menu to give me the Canvas UserID. Also remember that the access token needs to be generated by a user with enough permissions to create the Conversations. I created a "NSSE" user and assigned them to the Account Admin role.

NOTES: Further caveats...

What if you want to recall these generated Conversations? The Conversations API does have a "delete" option, but you have to know the Conversation "ID". I have not found an easy way to create a list of these Conversation IDs. I thought pushing display output to a logfile would be nice, but it does not appear to be straightforward for PowerShell.

More instructions from another school: We created custom Canvas calendar events for each student that included their custom survey link. The process was written in PL/SQL and ran on our Banner server.

See the following web page:

http://bsblackboard.blogspot.com/2014/11/defining-custom-template-variables-in.html

Other advice provided by another user: We took a list of usernames and links provided to us by NSSE, and created a script that looked up the NSSE link for the given username. We then showed a generic link to the students this applied to, and appended their username to it to direct the students to the correct spot.

The individualized student link info was placed in a new table (NSSE_ASSESSMENT) within the Moodle database, then created a Moodle block for front page display. The block is only visible if logged in user has a row in the NSSE_ASSESSMENT table. The block displays the individualized NSSE link for the logged in user.