Bring sent course updates into Canvas discussions
Give a course update you have already sent a shared home in the relevant Canvas discussion.
Trigger
Email Sent
Triggers when a Gmail message is sent by the authenticated user. It polls the 'SENT' label and emits metadata including sender, recipients, subject, timestamp, and thread ID.
Action
Create discussion entry
Tool to create a new entry in a canvas discussion topic. use when posting a message with optional attachments to a discussion topic.
Why this helps
Useful course updates can reach one recipient by email without becoming visible in the class discussion.
- Make selected updates visible in a class discussion
- Keep course information in a shared space
- Reduce repeated forwarding and copy-paste
Setup
Build it in a few focused steps.
- 1Connect Gmail and Canvas once in the Notis portal.
- 2Create an automation in Automations, New Automation, and name it.
- 3Tell Notis which sent updates to post and how to identify the existing Canvas discussion topic.
- 4Choose Email Sent as the trigger and set the report destination.
- 5Test with one real sent update and confirm the discussion entry.
Questions about this workflow
Does this create a new discussion topic?
No. It creates an entry in an existing topic. If a matching topic is not clear, instruct Notis to report that.
Can this post email content that the trigger does not provide?
The listed sent trigger provides metadata including subject and thread ID. If the message body is needed, specify that Notis must retrieve it or report when the content is unavailable.
When this happens · Trigger
Do this · Action
Supported Triggers and Actions
Notis builds workflows that link Gmail to Canvas. A trigger fires from one place; an action lands in another.
Gmail triggers
Canvas actions
Recurring trigger
Notis starts this workflow on a schedule, such as daily, weekly, or during business hours.
Create account notification
Creates a global notification within a canvas account, ensuring `end at` is after `start at` and any specified `notification roles` are valid.
Webhook trigger
Notis starts this workflow when an external tool or custom backend sends an HTTP request.
Create appointment group
Creates a new appointment group in canvas for schedulable time slots within specified course or group contexts.
Email Sent
Triggers when a Gmail message is sent by the authenticated user. It polls the 'SENT' label and emits metadata including sender, recipients, subject, timestamp, and thread ID.
Create an assignment
Creates a new assignment within a specified course in canvas lms.
New Gmail Message Received Trigger
Triggers when a new message is received in Gmail.
Create assignment override
Creates an assignment override to adjust due/unlock/lock dates for an assignment in a course, targeting specific students (requires `title`), a group, or a course section; at least one target (`student ids`, `group id`, or `course section id`) is required.
Create Calendar Event
Creates a calendar event with options for recurrence (finite `rrule` series only), section-specific timings, and blackout dates within a specified context.
Create communication channel
Creates a new communication channel (e.g., email, sms, push) for an existing canvas user to receive notifications.
Create content share
Shares a canvas content item to specified users, if the sender has necessary permissions and receiver ids are valid.
Create conversation
Use to send messages in canvas by creating a new conversation or adding to an existing one; an existing conversation with the same recipients (and matching scope/filter, if specified) may be reused unless `force new` is true.
Connect any two apps with Notis in the middle.
Gmail and Canvas, or any other combination from 1,000+ integrations.
When this happens · Trigger
Do this · Action
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