Open Calendar from the Canvas navigation and switch it to the Agenda view. The Calendar page already merges every course you are enrolled in, and Agenda turns that merged calendar into one list of everything coming up, in date order. That is the combined view most students are looking for, and it is built in. It misses three things: work with no due date, courses you have unticked, and anything assigned to another section.
The most common Canvas complaint is scattering: five courses, five separate assignment pages, and nothing that shows the whole picture at once. Below are the built-in views, in order of how useful they are, and what each one misses.
Where does Canvas show every course at once?
On the Calendar page, not the Dashboard. The Dashboard's course cards and its To Do list look like the natural starting point, and they are the most limited view Canvas offers. The Calendar page already shows every course merged into one view. You do not need to add anything.
Beside the calendar is a list of your courses, each with a colored checkbox. They start ticked, which is why everything shows together the first time you open it. Unticking a course hides its items from the view without changing anything about the course, which is useful in a busy week when you want to focus on two or three.
One exception: Canvas selects only the first ten course and group calendars by default. If you have more than ten, the rest start unticked, so check the list once at the start of term.
If you would rather see the same list with study time planned around it, Scholarwire for Canvas reads every course into one calendar and one planner. You can start free today; connecting Canvas takes the Chrome extension.
How do I get one list of everything that is due?
The month grid is fine for an overview and a bad way to answer "what do I have to do this week". At the top of the Calendar page, choose Agenda. The grid becomes a date-ordered list of everything coming up, grouped by day, across every course you have not hidden.
Agenda is the closest thing Canvas has to a combined to-do list, and it is the one worth checking a couple of times a week. It reads the same data as the rest of the calendar, so a new assignment or a moved due date shows up there as soon as the instructor saves it.
Is the Dashboard's To Do list enough?
No. The To Do list on the Dashboard is convenient because it is the first thing you see when you log in, and it is short by design: a handful of items a few days out, not the semester. Treating it as your source of truth is how things slip. Use it for "what is due tomorrow" and use Agenda for everything else.
Why is an assignment I know about missing?
Three causes account for almost every case. If none of them is it, the longer list is in Canvas calendar not showing assignments? What to check.
- No due date was set. The calendar and To Do are built around due dates. A reading with no due date, or an open-ended discussion, does not appear on the calendar even though it is assigned. The course Syllabus page and Modules list everything, dated or not.
- The course is unticked. A course whose checkbox is off looks exactly like a course with nothing due.
- It is assigned to another section. In courses with several lab or discussion sections, work posted to a different section does not show on your calendar. That is intentional. The course's People page shows which section you are in.
How do I focus on two courses in a busy week?
Once you are past two or three courses, one long list gets tiring in a crunch, such as finals week, when you only care about two. Untick every course except those two and Agenda narrows to match. Nothing is deleted or unsubscribed; it is a filter on what you are looking at, and ticking the boxes again brings everything back.
Does the Canvas Student app show the same thing?
The Canvas Student app has its own calendar and list of upcoming work, and it is useful for a quick check between classes. For planning more than a few days ahead, the web Calendar in Agenda view is easier to scan, because it shows the whole run of upcoming work in one list.
How often should I check it?
Knowing Agenda exists does not help if you never open it. The students who stop missing things usually check on a fixed schedule, for example Sunday night and Wednesday morning, rather than only when something feels urgent. Two short checks a week catch a new assignment or a moved date within a few days of it being posted, which is early enough to plan around it instead of reacting the night before.
Can I see this list outside Canvas?
Agenda only exists inside Canvas: you have to log in and look. To have the same dates in your normal calendar app instead, subscribe to the Canvas calendar feed, covered step by step in how to add Canvas to Google Calendar. To turn the dates into a week with the studying in it, the method is in how to turn Canvas assignments into a weekly study schedule.