What is Collaboration with Microsoft 365?

In Canvas, Collaboration with Microsoft 365 is the built‑in way for a students to co‑author Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files stored in OneDrive—without leaving Canvas.

Instructors and students can start a Collaboration in a Canvas course, which creates a Microsoft 365 file and shares it with selected students (or groups) in the Canvas course roster. Once it has been set up, students can quickly find the related collabortion files in Collaborations for real‑time co‑editing.

How to start a Collaboration?

1. From Collaborations section on your course or group, select +Collaborations.

2. Select Sign In to Microsoft 365.

3. At the Microsoft login screen, enter your SFU email address (i.e., yourSFUcomputingID@sfu.ca). You will be re-directed to the SFU CAS login screen. Log in using your SFU Computing ID and password.

4. If you're using Collaborations for the first time, you'll see this welcome screen. Select Continue Setup.

5. Select Done at the bottom.

6. Wait for the application set up your Microsoft collaboration space.

7. Your collaboration space will be empty. To create a new collaborative document, enter a Document Name and the individuals who you wish to have access to this document. Then, select Create.

8. Wait for the new document to be created.

9. The collaboration document has been created and accessible by those you have selected earlier. To access the collaborative document, select the document.

10. You may be asked to sign into Microsoft 365. Select Sign In and follow its steps.

11. Congratulations! You've successfully created and accessed a collaborative document on Canvas.