Managing your district with Google app licensing
Our partnership with Google allows for a quick, same-day setup using Google app licensing as a provisioning method.
This guide is for Canva Education admins and owners who will manage their school or district’s Google app licensing settings.
Setting up Google app licensing
Sign up for Google app licensing
- Before you begin, make sure you meet the following requirements:
- You must be a school admin or other individual in charge of technology management
- Your school or district size must be no more than 10,000 users
- Your school or district must be part of a K12 institution. If your organisation is for higher education, you’ll need to sign up for Canva Campus
- Please make sure your Google Workspace meets the following criteria:
- Is a Google Workspace for Education
- You’re a super admin in your Google Workspace
- Access to additional services is turned on in your settings
- The “organizational unit” for admins is set to 18+
- Your district’s "organisation type" must be set to Primary/Secondary Education
- Sign up for Google app licensing here.
Redeem your licence in Google
The following can be done from the email from Canva or on your Google app licensing page in Canva:
- Select Redeem in Google.
- Follow the prompts in your Google Workspace to redeem your licence for your district.
For more information on redeeming your license, read Manage app licenses.
App-Pinning (New Feature)
To help teachers and students easily find and open Canva, you can now pin the Canva app to the Chromebook shelf for assigned users. This applies if you’re using Google Workspace for Education with app licensing integration.
This helps boost adoption and keeps Canva Education accessible from the Chromebook’s main toolbar.
If you're assigning licences for the first time
When you assign Canva licences to teachers or students, you’ll see a prompt to pin Canva to the Chromebook shelf. This happens automatically during the licence assignment flow.
If you’ve already assigned licences
You can still pin Canva to the shelf at any time using this deep link: Custom Canva deep link
Please note: Depending on your setup in Google Workspace, you may need to apply these license types to multiple organizational units.
Set up access for your staff and students in Google
To provide the relevant permissions and access for your district, you’ll need to apply different licence types:
Set up access for staff and students
- Under organisational units, select your students' organisational unit.
- Your Canva licence will be set to OFF by default. Change this dropdown to Standard.
- Accept the prompt to allow API access and confirm the admin contact details.
Set up extra permissions for staff
- Under organisational units, select your staff-only organisational unit.
- Your Canva licence will be set to Standard. Change this dropdown to Staff.
What happens next?
After you’ve redeemed your licence, we’ll email you to let you know when Canva has been enabled for your district.
Troubleshooting and errors
I’ve run into an error during sign up
- First, check your account and Google Workspace meet the eligibility criteria outlined in Step 1 in Setting up Google app licensing.
- Depending on the error, we’ll provide a link to the Google Workspace settings that need to be adjusted, or direct you to the relevant party to resolve the issue.
- If you are unable to resolve the issue, please contact our team for support.
Why can’t I log in to Canva?
Make sure you’ve set up your school or district in Google Workspace correctly by checking Steps 2 and 3 under Setting up Google app licensing.
- For existing Canva users: The forced logout of existing users (logging back in to Canva to be provisioned and managed under the GAL-enabled district) can take up to 3 hours.
- User doesn’t belong to relevant organisational unit: In Google Workspace, check that your user is in an organisational unit with the Canva licence and relevant licence type (Staff or Standard) applied to it. If a user has been moved to an organisational unit that does not have the Canva licence applied, please note that it can take up to 24 hours for their access to be updated.
- User doesn’t belong to captured domain: The user may be logging in with another email domain that wasn’t selected during sign up. See which domains are captured under Google app licensing in Settings.
- Licence is turned off: Select the user’s organisational unit and ensure the licence type is set to Staff or Standard.
- User's Google Workspace account is closed: You’ll need to add the user back into Google Workspace and place them in their relevant organisational unit.
- User’s licence has been revoked manually: Search for and select the user in Google Workspace. Select the Canva app to view their licence access, and assign the app licence if needed.
- Canva Marketplace app hasn’t been installed in your Google Workspace domain: Follow the steps to install the Canva app in Google Workspace (see: “If you’re a school IT administrator”).
For more information on these steps, read Manage app licenses.
A user belonging to one of the domains selected during sign-up hasn’t been provisioned into their school yet?
Domain capture can take up to 3 hours. This means existing users may be able to continue accessing Canva with their original account for up to 3 hours before being automatically logged out. After the forced logout, users will be redirected to log back into Canva, where they will be provisioned and assigned to the appropriate school within the district.
To speed up the process, ask your user to log out and log back into Canva.
FAQs
Add a new user
You’ll need to add a new user to your Google Workspace, not Canva.
- Add your new user to the highest-level organisational unit that has the relevant licence type assigned to it. For example:
- Staff: Add new staff members to an organisational unit with the licence type Staff applied
- Student: Add new students to an organisational unit with the licence type Standard applied
- After completing these steps, your user will be able to log in to Canva with their Google account. To check they’ve been added successfully, you can search for them on the People page under School Settings.
Please note: Depending on your setup in Google Workspace, you may need to apply these license types to multiple organizational units.
Remove a user
You’ll need to revoke user access from your Google Workspace, not Canva.
- In Google Workspace, navigate to Directory > Users.
- Search for the users whose access to Canva you want to revoke.
- Select More options, then Change organisational unit.
- Select an organisational unit that has the licence type set to OFF.
- Follow the prompts on screen to change the organisational unit and remove the user's access.
To revoke access for a specific organisational unit:
- In Google Workspace, navigate to Devices > Chrome > Apps & extensions.
- Navigate to the App licensing tab.
- Search for and select the organisational unit whose access you want to revoke.
- Under Licence, change the dropdown to OFF.
Please note: The removal methods described above will revoke a user’s access to Canva within 24 hours.
However, if a user is removed or suspended from Google Workspace while still active in Canva, their Canva account won’t be removed automatically and they will continue to appear as a team member. In this case, admins must manually remove them from Canva to fully revoke access.
All Canva users are automatically signed out after 30 days of inactivity. Once signed out, users cannot sign back in without a valid app license.
Change a user’s role
Update your user's role in Canva by:
- Navigate to the People page under School Settings.
- Select the dropdown next to their role to open the option flyout, and select a role.
See below to understand how changes made in Google Workspace or Canva will impact the user's role when they log in to Canva next.
Please note: The following will be for the pilot version only. Following the main launch in January 2025, the license change in Google Workspace will be reflected in Canva.
Licence change in Google Workspace | Resulting role in Canva |
|---|---|
Standard to Staff | Teacher |
Staff to Standard | Teacher |
Role change in Canva | Resulting role in Canva |
Student role to Teacher (remains Standard licence in Google Workspace) | Teacher |
Student role to Admin (remains Standard licence in Google Workspace) | Admin |
Teacher role to Student (remains Staff licence in Google Workspace) | Teacher |
Teacher role to Admin (remains Standard licence in Google Workspace) | Admin |
For more information on school roles and permissions, read our Help Centre article.
Was this helpful?
Helpful
Unhelpful