The Global Navigation Menu is on the far left of every page in Canvas and allows you to quickly access common Canvas features.

The Dashboard is your one-stop portal to get to all the courses you’re associated, while the Sidebar on the right displays various notifications from each course.

3 Main Components

1. Global Navigation

2. Dashboard

3. Sidebar

1. Global Navigation

The global navigation provides direct access to courses and other areas of Canvas, and is accessible from anywhere in Canvas.

You'll find direct access to your courses via the Courses link in the Global Navigation, where you can view all courses. These courses will also show as course cards on the dashboard. From the All Courses page, you can add and remove your courses as favourites (starred). Note that once favourited, only your favourite courses will be displayed via the Courses link and on your dashboard.
You can also find the Calendar in the Global Navigation where you can create events and see assignments in your courses, as well as the Inbox in the Global Navigation to send messages to members of courses as well as other Canvas users.

2. The Dashboard

This is the first page that you'll see upon logging in to Canvas. There are two different viewing options that can be toggled using the toggle switch in the upper right corner of the dashboard:

Canvas views.png

a. Course Cards | b. Easy Access to Course Content | c. Recent Activity

Course Cards shows your favourite courses as card icons on your dashboard.
You have easy access to course content for academic courses with the 4 tabs under each course tab—i.e. Announcements, Assignments, Discussions, and Files. Each tab will have a badge indicating the number of unseen items for that tab.
Recent Activity shows all notifications (e.g. announcements, recent messages, assignment notifications). If you have no recent notifications in this view, you'll see a message that reads: No Recent Messages.

Canvas recent activity.png

3. Sidebar

The Sidebar helps you see what you need to do (e.g. assignments, upcoming lectures) next across all your courses, including items in your To Do list. You will also see a Coming Up section that shows assignments due and events coming in the next seven days. The sidebar also includes a link to the global Calendar page as well as the View Grades page.