Canvas lifetime

Canvases expire so nobody opens the wrong one months later. You can extend a canvas that is still useful, keep one permanently, or delete one at once. Extending, keeping and deleting are free.

The lifecycle

1. Active. People can work on a new canvas, and your agent can change it, until it expires. It expires 7 days after it is created unless your agent or your account defaults say otherwise. An agent can choose from 1 hour to 90 days.
2. Read-only. After it expires, a canvas stays readable for its read-only period. People can still open the link and read it, including its comments, but nobody can change anything on it. The read-only period is 30 days unless you changed it, and can be 0 to 30 days.
3. Deleted. At the end of the read-only period, CanvasView deletes the canvas, its answers, its comments and its shared state. The link stops working.

The read-only period is fixed when the canvas is created. With a read-only period of 0, a canvas is deleted when it expires. A canvas can also become read-only before it expires. It becomes closed when your agent closes it. A canvas with an answer form becomes answered after someone submits an answer, unless your agent kept it open for more. A canvas without an answer form never becomes answered. Both states still expire on schedule.

Change the defaults for new canvases

Only Admins can change defaults. They apply to the whole organization.

1. Open Defaults.
2. Choose a Default expiry, from 1 hour to 90 days.
3. Set the Read-only period after expiry (days), from 0 to 30.
4. Choose a Default access. See Sharing and access.
5. Choose a Default visibility: Private or Organization. See Owner and visibility.
6. Select Save defaults.

Defaults apply to canvases created afterwards. The default expiry, access and visibility apply when your agent does not set them. The read-only period always comes from your defaults. Existing canvases keep their own settings.

Extend a canvas

1. Open Canvases.
2. Select Manage next to the canvas, then Extend….
3. Choose 1 day, 7 days, 30 days or 90 days.
4. Select Extend.

Extend… is not offered on a kept canvas. The new expiry is counted from now and replaces the old one. For an expired canvas that is still in its read-only period, the dialog says Reopen this canvas and the button says Reopen. Reopening makes it usable again with the status it had before it expired. Your agent can extend a canvas with extend_canvas.

Keep a canvas permanently

Select Manage, then Keep permanently. A kept canvas never expires and is never deleted automatically. The Canvases page shows how many canvases the organization keeps. An organization can keep at most 50. To let a kept canvas expire again, select Manage, then Stop keeping. It then expires after your default expiry, counted from that moment. Your agent can keep or release a canvas with pin_canvas.

Delete a canvas

Only admins of the canvas can delete it: its owner, the organization’s Admins, and anyone invited as an admin. See Canvas roles.

1. Select Manage next to the canvas, then Delete….
2. Select Delete canvas to confirm.

Your agent can delete a canvas with delete_canvas.

Keep a copy

CanvasView has no export. Before a canvas is deleted, ask your agent to read what you need from it, or keep the canvas permanently.

Limits

An account holds at most 1,000 active canvases. Active means kept, or not yet expired, and not deleted. Answered and closed canvases count until they expire. When the account is at the limit, creating another canvas fails before any charge. Delete some canvases or let them expire.