Canvas administrator’s guide for registering Process Feedback LTI

This guide covers what a Canvas administrator needs to do to bring Process Feedback LTI into Canvas: registering the tool, installing it, and verifying that it works.

Before you start: Process Feedback accepts registrations and launches only from Canvas environments on our approved list. Send us your Canvas host URL first, and wait for our confirmation before you register the tool.

See it in action: The screenshot-by-screenshot walkthrough shows how the tool works inside Canvas. For architectural details and data flow, see LTI integration.

About the product

Process Feedback LTI is an LTI 1.3 writing tool that launches from inside Canvas. Students write their assignment in the Process Feedback editor, and the tool records the writing process as it happens and generates a writing process report. When a student submits, the writing process report (PDF) and the final draft (Word document) are passed back into the Canvas submission for grading. Teachers open the same link to see a dashboard comparing every student’s writing process in the class.

Neither teachers nor students need to create a Process Feedback account. All identity comes from your LMS through the LTI 1.3 launch: there is no separate password and no directory synchronization.

a) Product name (type): Process Feedback LTI (LTI 1.3 tool, installed as a Canvas External App)

b) Product description: Available online at the product description page

c) Developer: Process Feedback LLC, St. Louis, MO, USA

d) Standards used: LTI 1.3 Core, LTI Advantage (Deep Linking 2.0, Assignment and Grade Services, Names and Role Provisioning Services), LTI Dynamic Registration

e) Target platform: Canvas

Step 1. Contact us

Depending on where you are in evaluating Process Feedback, pick one of the options below:

1. If you are seeking to review Process Feedback’s accessibility and security documents, email us to request a VPAT, HECVAT, or any other document your review team needs.

2. If you have questions and want to learn more, email us. We can demo the flow and answer your questions.

3. If you are ready to test or pilot Process Feedback (the first term is free), email us directly with the Canvas host URL for every Canvas environment where the tool may be installed, including production, test, beta, and staging, for example:

   • Production: https://school.instructure.com
   • Test: https://school.test.instructure.com
   • Beta or staging: https://school.beta.instructure.com

   Each environment has its own host URL, and we approve each one separately, so please include all of them.

Step 2. Wait for our confirmation and pilot documents

We add your host URLs to our approved list and confirm by email. With the confirmation, we send the pilot documents for your institution, including:

• Service agreement
• Accessibility conformance report (VPAT)
• Security assessment (HECVAT), if your institution requires one
• Data Privacy Agreement or Data Sharing Agreement (DPA/DSA), if your institution has one

Continue to the next step only after you receive this confirmation.

Step 3. Register Process Feedback LTI

Dynamic Registration exchanges all of the LTI configuration automatically. No manual JSON configuration or public key exchange is needed.

Register in whichever Canvas environment your change process calls for, and repeat Steps 3–5 in each other environment you need. Before you do, check how your non-production environments are maintained:

• Instructure-hosted beta and test (for example school.beta.instructure.com) are overwritten from production on a regular schedule. A registration made in production carries over at the next refresh; one made only in beta or test is removed and will need to be redone.
• Self-hosted Canvas or separate test instances keep their own registrations unless your team copies data between them, so register in each one.

To keep a pilot small in production, install the tool only in a pilot sub-account or course (Step 5).

1. Sign in to Canvas as an administrator in the environment you are registering, for example https://school.instructure.com.
2. Go to Admin → select your account → Developer Keys.
3. Click + Developer Key and choose + LTI Registration.
4. When prompted for the Dynamic Registration URL, enter: https://processfeedback.ltiaas.com/lti/register
5. Click Continue.
6. Review and adjust the registration details:
   • User data shared with this tool: choose All user data (name and email are used to identify each student in reports and the teacher dashboard).
   • Course Navigation: turn this placement OFF. Process Feedback is used as an assignment, not as a course menu item; leaving it on adds a course menu entry that has no useful landing page.
   • Assignment Selection: leave this placement on, and set:
     • Title: Process Feedback LTI
     • Logo / Icon URL: https://processfeedback.org/pf-logo.png
7. Click Enable (or Install) to finish the registration.

Step 4. Enable the key and copy the Client ID

1. Back on the Developer Keys page, find the newly created Process Feedback LTI key.
2. Set its State to ON. A registration left in the OFF state cannot be installed or launched.
3. In the Details column, copy the numeric Client ID (it looks like 10000000000040). You will need it in the next two steps.

Step 5. Install the tool in your Canvas environments

Enabling the key makes the tool available to your account; installing it creates a deployment, which makes it appear for teachers. Install it at the highest level that should have access: the root account for the whole institution, or a single sub-account or course for a pilot.

1. Go to the account, sub-account, or course where the tool should be available.
2. Open Settings → Apps.
3. Click + App.
4. Set Configuration Type to By Client ID.
5. Paste the Client ID you copied in Step 4 and click Submit.
6. Confirm when asked whether to install the tool. Process Feedback LTI will now appear in the list of installed apps.

If you install at the root account, every course inherits the tool and no further per-course installation is required.

If your beta or test environment is refreshed from production, check after the next refresh that the tool appears there in the same account, sub-account, or course.

Step 6. Send us the Client ID

Reply to our confirmation email with the Client ID from Step 4 for each environment you registered, for example 10000000000040, and tell us which environment each one belongs to. We add them to the approved list alongside your host URLs and confirm by email. Until then, launches may be rejected.

Step 7. Check network, browser, and cookie requirements

Process Feedback does not require any inbound firewall changes or agent installation. It does require that student and teacher browsers can reach the following domains over HTTPS (port 443):

Additional settings to check if your organization restricts them:

• Third-party cookies. When the tool runs inside the Canvas iframe, the launch uses cookies on the tool’s domains. If your browser policy blocks third-party cookies, allow them for [*.]processfeedback.org and [*.]ltiaas.com. In Chrome this is the CookiesAllowedForUrls policy in the Google Admin Console (Devices → Chrome → Settings → Users & browsers).
• Pop-up and iframe policy. The tool is launched in an iframe by default. If a teacher selects Load This Tool In A New Tab on the assignment, allow pop-ups from your Canvas domain.
• Local browser storage. The editor keeps the in-progress draft and its edit history in the browser’s local storage (IndexedDB) until the student submits. Policies that clear site data on every tab close, or block storage for these domains, will interrupt student work.
• Content filters. If your web filter performs SSL inspection or category blocking, allow the two domains above so that launches are not silently dropped.

Step 8. Test it in a course

After we confirm that your Client ID is approved, go to a test course and create an assignment with Submission Type set to External Tool and Process Feedback LTI selected using Find.

The Canvas walkthrough shows each screen, from creating the assignment to reading the writing process in SpeedGrader and the class dashboard.

Support

Email us at contact@processfeedback.org. We are glad to join a call with you for the initial registration.

Related guides

• LTI integration
• How Process Feedback LTI works in Canvas
• Process Feedback for Canvas
• Institutional pricing