Legacy to New Sidebar Transition Steps
Admin Guide Transitioning from the Legacy to New Sidebar
So you're ready to move to the new sidebar, but not sure where to begin? You've come to the right place!
#1 Identify Your Institution's Needs
1 Identify Your Institution's Needs
Explore our white paper on the Best Practices for the Sidebar Transition Links to an external site., synthesized from the experience of customers who have already made the switch.
Then use our Rollout Approaches Decision Tree to identify the recommended method of installation for your needs.
If you have questions or concerns along the way: Connect with your Customer Success Manager Links to an external site.
#2 Installation
2 Installation
Install the New Sidebar and the LTI 1.3 versions of the Upload/Embed Image tool and the Multi-Tool LTI products (if you haven't installed them already).
You can do this yourself, by following these guides:
Installing the New DesignPLUS Sidebar Guide Links to an external site.
Alternately, if you would like to walk through the upgrade process with someone from Cidi Labs, please reach out to our Cidi Labs Support Team to schedule an appointment.
#3 Train the Trainer
3Train the Trainer
Next, let's get your Canvas admins, trainers, and instructional designers (i.e. "power users") up to speed with our DesignPLUS Training:
Live Training via Zoom...
Send your power users to attend live training (as often as desired!), so they can get their questions answered.
🖌️ DesignPLUS Sidebar Training - great for any power users, trainers, instructional designers, etc.
🎨 DesignPLUS Customizations Training - intended for admins and instructional designers who will be building customizations content for their institutions or departments to access through the Sidebar.
... or On-Demand Video Training!
Alternatively, anyone at your institution can sign up for our DesignPLUS Sidebar Training via email, with on-demand videos.
This series is a high-level overview, intended to provide a quick onramp to using Design PLUS. It does not cover Customizations.
Training Videos Direct to Your Inbox Links to an external site.
You may also want to consult our list of DesignPLUS Sidebar Resources for Legacy Customers, and our DesignPLUS Sidebar Resources. These guides contain several links to one-pager documents -- created specifically with this transition in mind -- that can be downloaded and/or printed for quick reference.
We also have a one-stop-shop where you can browse all of our training resources for DesignPLUS:
#4 Migrate Legacy Customizations
4 Migrate Legacy Customizations
The Legacy and New Sidebars each have their own dedicated Customizations courses. In order to continue using Customizations that were created for the Legacy Sidebar, they must be migrated to the New Sidebar's Customizations course(s) in a specific way.
You'll also want to keep your original Design Tools Customization Course (the Legacy one) safe and sound in your Canvas instance, so your Legacy content and sidebar continue to function properly during the transition.
Live Training Via Zoom...
Have an admin or power user attend one of our live Migrating Legacy Customizations to the New Sidebar trainings to see how to properly transfer this content. Ask any questions that might arise!
... or On-Demand Video Training!
Alternately, you can view our pre-recorded video training at your convenience. This allows you to pause and follow along in your own Customizations courses, use the chapters to jump to sections you need, and slow or speed up the video playback.
On-Demand Video for Migration of Customizations Links to an external site.
#5 Get Creative with Templates & Themes
5Get Creative with Templates & Themes
Our New Sidebar offers a much broader variety of tools and customizations than our Legacy sidebar did, including the ability to use our What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors to build custom themes for your institution! Also, our new content blocks, columns, background, and cards tools all offer amazing designing capabilities that just weren't available in Legacy! 🤩
Your educators will embrace the new sidebar a lot more readily if they've got some amazing new templates and themes to utilize, so spending some time creating new Customizations can really pay off!
But what's that, you say? You're concerned you don't have enough time to build your own cool templates and themes? We hear you! Check out our DesignPLUS Library to find pre-built Customizations that can be pulled directly into your Customizations course and used by your institution. 🥳
We recommend that anyone who will be participating in creating Customizations for your institution attend our live 🎨 DesignPLUS Customizations Training. Check our Live Training Calendar for dates and times.
#6 Use Our Resources to Train Your Educators
6Use Our Resources to Train Your Educators
We know Canvas admins and trainers have too much on their plates already, so we've tried to tackle a lot of the heavy lifting for you!
We offer two on-demand video training options for your designers and educators:
High Level, Faster Paced Training (~90 min)
We built an on-demand version of the same training we offer live in our Train-the-Trainer sessions, added a few things, and made it available to anyone at your institution!
These sessions are great for those who want a quick onramp to what DesignPLUS can do.
The videos:
- Introduction
- Creating a Basic Page
- Creating a Home Page
- Styling Existing Content
- Accessibility & Usability
- Using Templates
- Elements & Resources
- The Multi-Tool
High-Level Training - Direct to Your Educators' Inbox Links to an external site.
In-Depth, Designed for Educators (five 1-hour videos)
We also created a 5-part series, designed with educators in mind. Each session is an hour long, and educators can watch one or all - depending on their level of interest and how deeply they want to dive into DesignPLUS!
These sessions are great for those who want a little more guidance through the individual steps.
The videos:
- Getting Started with DesignPLUS
- Elevating Canvas Content
- Course Building with Templates
- Exploring the Tools
- Course-Level Customizations
In-Depth Training - Direct to Your Educators' Inbox Links to an external site.
Would you prefer to embed our videos directly into your own resource pages and training courses? No problem! 😁
This page contains an ever-growing list of videos and their associated embed codes:
DesignPLUS Training & Tutorial Video Embed Codes
We also have lots of resources built right into the New Sidebar to help your educators and designers!
While viewing any tool, as available, you can quickly launch a video tutorial, walkthrough, or user guide for that tool:
And the Help / Tutorials tab of the sidebar offers many additional resources, such as:
- Local support contact information for your institution
- Searchable tutorials that allow users to learn and try things out all from within Canvas
- Searchable user guides
- Training videos and video tutorials
- Walkthroughs that launch an overlay on top of the sidebar, highlighting different interface options and what they do
- Release notes so users can learn about new and updated features/tools
We've built out many of these resources already, and we're continuously working to bring you more. 😊
Lastly, we'd like to note that feedback from educators who've upgraded from Legacy to using the new sidebar has been wildly positive, once they've gotten through that initial cognitive dissonance and learning curve. Please ensure your educators that this transition will be worth the effort, and highlight all the awesome new tools and features that the new sidebar brings. (Just the ability to search for any tool you need is such a major time-saver!)
Change is always a little challenging, but this change is absolutely worth the effort!
#7 Upgrade Legacy Course Content
7Upgrade Legacy Course Content
When you're ready to begin using the New Sidebar to edit pages with pre-existing DesignPLUS content, you'll first need to Upgrade the existing content. We have an Upgrade tool that quickly converts your Legacy pages to New-Sidebar-friendly code.
This process can be done in whatever way is best for your workflow. While you can certainly go through all your content and upgrade everything, you can also choose to only upgrade whenever you're on a page that you need to edit with the new sidebar. We will continue supporting the legacy sidebar and all content created with it until December 31, 2025 We'll ensure legacy content renders indefinitely unless and until Canvas makes a major change that breaks it, at which point upgrading will be required.. Just make sure that you're using the upgrade tool before you use the new sidebar to edit your content.
Please understand that, while we have done our best to minimize the impact of upgrading content, there will be some visual changes to things like font size, margins, etc. Many of these are due to changes in best practice for web design and changes to the Bootstrap framework we incorporate in our tool. If there are changes that are problematic for your institution, please reach out to our support team for assistance.
See our Knowledge Base Article: Why does font size change when I use the upgrade tool?
We are also working on an option that will help you upgrade entire courses worth of content more quickly. Sign up for our Newsletter to be notified as we release new tools and features!
#8 Enjoy!
8Enjoy!
You've made it! 👏🥳👏
The hard part is over, and now you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor - a miraculous new sidebar, that will help you build content exponentially faster and with more aesthetically-pleasing designs than ever! 😁
Adding New Sidebar CSS Selectors
If you have previously built custom CSS in the Canvas theme that was scoped to legacy selectors, your upgraded content will look different than expected, because that CSS would not work anymore with content created by or upgraded to New Sidebar code.
During installation, you'll want to add the New Sidebar selectors to the CSS in the Canvas Theme as well, so both versions will display appropriately.