Connect Canvas to NudgeLearn Grader
Updated 19 September 2026
Connecting Canvas
- 1
Make a personal access token in Canvas
In Canvas, open Account, then Settings, and use New access token under Approved integrations. Name it anything you will recognise later. Copy it when Canvas shows it, because Canvas shows the value once and never again.
- 2
Copy your Canvas web address
The address you sign in at, for example https://yourschool.instructure.com. Pasting a deep link from inside a course is fine: only the root of it is kept.
- 3
Paste both into Connected apps
On your NudgeLearn Account page, in Connected apps, choose Canvas and paste the two values.
- 4
The pair is checked before anything is stored
The pair is tried against Canvas before it is stored, so a wrong value is caught at the form instead of halfway through your first import. A working pair is saved and the connection appears on the Account page.
- 5
Import a course from the wizard
Go to /grader/import, pick Canvas, then the course, the assignment and the submissions to grade. The last step sends the scores back.
What is sent back, and in what units
Grades go to Canvas as a percentage, which lets Canvas scale it onto whatever the assignment is worth. So an assignment marked out of 13 in NudgeLearn and worth 20 points in Canvas lands correctly without either side having to agree on a point scheme first.
Each student is reported separately when the batch finishes. One refusal on one student never hides the rows that landed.
When a push fails, what the message means
Canvas rejected the token. The token has been deleted or expired since you connected. Make a new one in Canvas and reconnect from your Account page.
Your Canvas account cannot grade this assignment. A permissions answer from Canvas about that course, not a problem with the connection.
Canvas has no submission for this student. The student is on the roster but Canvas has nothing filed from them on that assignment, so there is no submission to attach a score to.
What this will not do
The token is yours, not your school’s. It carries your own Canvas permissions and nothing more. If your account cannot grade a course, neither can this. Some institutions restrict or disable personal access tokens entirely, and that is an administrator setting we cannot work around from here.
Canvas shows the token once. If it is lost, make a new one and paste that instead. There is no way to read an existing token back out of Canvas, and we cannot show you the one we stored either.
Only files are importable. A file a student attached to a submission comes across. A text-entry submission or a URL submission has nothing to fetch.
Only papers tagged to a student are sent back. An untagged paper has nowhere to go, and the push reports it rather than guessing.
The address must be https and a real host. A plain word, an IP address or a local address is refused rather than guessed at, because a wrong root would send your token somewhere else.
Common questions
Why does Canvas need a token when Google Classroom does not?
Because there is no app to install. Google Classroom connects through a normal sign-in flow; Canvas connects with a personal access token you create in your own Canvas account and paste in. It is the same idea, minus the consent screen. No administrator has to approve anything for you.
Where exactly is the token screen in Canvas?
Account, then Settings. The button is called New access token and it sits under Approved integrations. Canvas displays the token once, when it is created, so copy it before you close that dialog.
What does the setup actually check?
It asks Canvas who the token belongs to before storing anything. If Canvas answers, the pair works and is saved. If Canvas refuses, or the address cannot be reached at all, the form says so and nothing is stored. An unreachable address is answered the same way as a rejected token, because a mistyped address is by far the more common cause.
It says the address does not look like a Canvas web address. What is wrong?
The message is: That doesn’t look like a Canvas web address. Use the one you sign in at, like https://yourschool.instructure.com. It appears when the address is not a real https host, so check for a missing dot in the domain, an http address, or a pasted word rather than a URL. A full deep link from inside a course is accepted, and so is the bare host without https in front.
It says Canvas rejected the token. What is wrong?
The message is: Canvas rejected that token. Check the URL and token and try again. Either the token was copied incompletely, it has been deleted or expired in Canvas, or the web address belongs to a different Canvas instance than the token does. Making a fresh token is the quickest test.
Does Canvas restrict which assignments a grade can be posted to?
Not in the way Google does. A score is posted onto the student’s submission on the assignment you imported, whoever created it. What can still refuse it is your own Canvas permissions on that course, which comes back as a message saying your Canvas account cannot grade that assignment.
How do I disconnect Canvas?
Account, Connected apps, Disconnect, which deletes the address and token we hold. It does not delete the token inside Canvas, so if you want it gone from both ends, delete it there too, under Account, Settings. Deleting it in Canvas alone also works: the next action simply fails as not connected. Grades already in your Canvas gradebook are untouched either way.
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