Microsoft Education: Create a Team / Course Group From a Canvas Course

Note: This guide assumes Microsoft Education has already been set up in your course. If not, follow the Microsoft Education setup guide to establish the initial connection.

Microsoft Teams spaces excel at fostering community beyond Canvas courses. While Canvas provides communication tools, Teams offers better channel organization, file collaboration, and quick messaging that many instructors prefer. However, managing both a Canvas course and manually enrolling users in Teams is time-consuming.

Microsoft Education solves this by creating Teams spaces for Canvas courses with a few clicks. The integration automatically syncs rosters and assigns appropriate permissions. This guide covers creating a Teams space directly from your Canvas course.

Create a Team From Your Canvas Course

By default, the option to create a Microsoft Team is turned off. To enable it, open the Microsoft Education app from your course navigation, then follow these steps:

Click the round profile icon in the top-right corner and choose Course Settings.
Toggle the Teams option on.
Enable the Add Microsoft Teams option, then select Done.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is added to the Team, and what permissions do they have?

This process creates a Team outside of Canvas that syncs with the course roster. Everyone currently enrolled—and anyone added in the future—will be automatically added to the Team.

Users with teacher-based roles (Teacher, TA, Librarian, Colleague) will be assigned as owners, allowing them to manage users, channels, and settings. Students are added as members, giving them access to participate without management permissions.

How can participants access the Team?

From Canvas

In the Microsoft Education space, select Teams to find a shortcut to the class team.

From Cardinal Apps

Participants can access their Team by opening the Microsoft Teams app from Cardinal Apps.

Desktop or Mobile Apps

If participants have the Microsoft Teams desktop or mobile app installed, they can access the course Team there for a more complete and flexible experience.

When does the Team roster sync, and how often?

The roster syncs several times a day and whenever enrollment or role changes occur within Canvas.

Someone has left the course but is still listed in the Team. What should I do?

If there’s a mismatch between your Canvas roster and the Team, you can perform a manual sync:

Open the Microsoft Education app and select the round profile icon.
Choose Course Settings, then go to Advanced.
Select Sync roster to force a refresh. You can also view the list of users and their roles.

I'm experiencing the error "Sync error We couldn't locate the group in your course resources."

This error occurs when the Team/Course Group associated with the course via Microsoft Education was deleted.

To resolve this, you'll need to restore the deleted Team/group. If you are an instructor in the course, you would have been an owner in the Team/group. You can restore deleted spaces through the following:

Login to Cardinal Apps
Select My Groups
Select Deleted Groups
Select the three dots next to the appropriate group (matched course title)
Select Restore group

If you require assistance, contact helpdesk@uiwtx.edu for support on restoring deleted groups.

What is a Course Group?

A course group is a Microsoft 365 group that automatically syncs with your Canvas course roster through the Microsoft Education integration. When Canvas is connected to Microsoft, the system automatically creates this group containing all enrolled students and instructors, making it seamless to share content and collaborate using Microsoft apps like OneDrive, Stream, SharePoint, and Teams.

Not every instructor takes advantage of these groups, but many use them to share materials in bulk or to facilitate Teams or spaces outside of Canvas within the Microsoft ecosystem.

How Course Groups are Created

Course groups are generated automatically through Canvas's Microsoft Education integration. Once your Canvas course is synced with Microsoft Education, the integration creates and maintains a corresponding Microsoft group that mirrors your course enrollment. This happens behind the scenes, you don't need to manually create or manage group membership, as Canvas handles the synchronization automatically.