WHAT YOU TEACH WITH · DELTAMATH

DeltaMath — get it wired right, then fix what breaks

Almost everything that goes wrong here is one of three things. This page fixes them in order.

ONE

You're not on the license

It fails silently. Top ticket by a distance. §01

TWO

It wasn't built inside Canvas

No launch, no token, no grade. §03

THREE

Two late penalties are stacking

Students hit twice for the same day. §05

The mechanics here are tested. The judgment calls — hide the nav item, let Canvas own lateness, don't cross-list if your sections run apart — are recommendations. Nothing is required and nobody is checking. On skills, pacing and what a mastery check should demand, you are right and I am not. Tell me where this is wrong and I'll fix it.

00 START WHERE YOUR PROBLEM IS

Nothing works for me

USUALLY Not added to the site license.

GO TO Section 01

A student can't get in

USUALLY A pasted link, or a blocked cookie.

GO TO Section 07

The cell is blank

USUALLY They never opened the Canvas assignment.

GO TO Section 04

Grades look too low

USUALLY Two penalties stacking, or a duplicate.

GO TO Sections 05 and 07

My sections need different dates

USUALLY Cross-listing collapsed them into one class.

GO TO Section 06

I'm starting from scratch

COSTS Twenty minutes on day one.

GO TO Sections 01 to 03

01 GET ON THE LICENSE FIRST

We hold an INTEGRAL license for the whole school. Email jbeyer@regisjesuit.com and I'll add you.

Until you're added the integration looks installed and quietly does nothing. No error, no message. That is the single most common reason DeltaMath “isn't working.”

NEVER CLICK ADD NEW CLASS

It creates an orphan class — no Canvas link, no roster, no passback — that then competes with the real one.

ROSTERING IS AUTOMATIC

The class appears when you first open the sidebar. Students add themselves on first launch. An empty roster isn't broken — nobody has launched yet.

TWO HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS

Match your DeltaMath email to your @regisjesuit.com Canvas one. And Declare Your School once a year, or the site grays out.

Set up the Canvas integration → · Create classes and roster students →

02 DAY ONE — THREE THINGS, IN THIS ORDER

STEP 1

Launch once from course navigation

Creates the account, adds them to the roster, sets the session, plays the intro video. No password — the integration signs them in.

STEP 2

Then hide it from navigation

Settings → Navigation → drag to disabled → Save. Still visible to you with the crossed-eye icon. Students stop seeing it.

STEP 3

Check “Load In A New Tab”

On every assignment. This alone pre-empts the most common access failure there is.

WHY HIDE IT

Two doors means two places to look, and students pick wrong. Hidden, every DeltaMath assignment sits in Assignments, Modules, To-Do and the calendar with everything else. One habit instead of two.

THE HONEST TRADEOFF

They lose DeltaMath's own Past Due list. In exchange each past-due item becomes a Canvas assignment with its own due date — where they were already looking.

WHAT TO TELL STUDENTS, IN ONE LINE

DeltaMath assignments live in Canvas Assignments like everything else. Click the assignment. Don't bookmark DeltaMath and don't use the Canvas app — use a browser.

How do I manage Course Navigation links? →

03 THE ONE RULE

Build every DeltaMath assignment inside Canvas as an External Tool assignment, chosen through Find.

WORKS — FIND → DELTAMATH

Canvas hands DeltaMath a token naming that student, that assignment, that gradebook cell. DeltaMath posts the score back to exactly that address.

FAILS SILENTLY — A PASTED URL

An ordinary hyperlink. Nothing tells DeltaMath who the student is or what they came for. No launch, no token, nowhere to send a score.

The distinction people miss: setting Submission Type to External Tool isn't what connects the gradebook. It has to be picked through DeltaMath's own picker. And a blank white page at deltamath.com/app/ is the signature of a pasted link, not a broken tool.

Every route, and what it actually does.
How you set it up	What students get	Grades
Build in Canvas — Find → DeltaMath	The right problem set, already signed in. In To-Do and on the calendar.	Automatic
Link to existing	Identical. One assignment shared across sections.	Automatic
Copy an outside assignment	Clean going forward. Prior student work stays on the original.	From the copy forward
Link pasted on a page	Blank page, or “you do not have access,” unless they happen to have a session open.	None
Built on DeltaMath, no link	Nav → Past Due → hunt. Nothing in Canvas says the work exists.	None
URL pasted into the External Tool box	Looks configured in the editor. Same blank page.	None

THE EIGHT CLICKS, CANVAS SIDE

Assignments → + Assignment
Name it, set the points
Submission Type → External Tool
Click Find — don't type a URL
Select DeltaMath
Check Load This Tool In A New Tab
Canvas due date, plus any Assign To
Save and Publish

Canvas holds the points; DeltaMath sends a percentage Canvas scales to them.

PRE-FLIGHT — BEFORE YOU WALK AWAY

Chosen through Find, not pasted
Points set in Canvas
Passback timing chosen on purpose
Right classes on the DeltaMath side
Due date set; late tiers set or deliberately off
Published in Canvas
Posted in DeltaMath
New tab checked
No duplicate pointing at the same work

THE MOST COMMON FALSE ALARM

Published in Canvas and Posted in DeltaMath are two different switches. Both are required. Either one off and students see nothing at all.

External Tool vs. Sidebar → · How do I add an assignment using an external app? →

04 WHAT YOU CAN PUT IN, AND WHAT YOU SET

Create/Edit → Create Assignment → Skills. Search by year and topic, by keyword, or — on INTEGRAL — by standard.

Eight content types. Yes, including video — two kinds.
Type	What it is	When to use it
Skill	A bank of about 100 questions served at random, so students get different versions.	The default building block.
Problem subtypes	Narrow a skill to specific variants: skill name → Problem types → Assign Subtypes.	One flavor of a problem, not the whole range.
Assign THIS Problem	Every student gets the identical question.	Warm-ups, and anything you'll discuss as a class.
Mixed Problem	Several skills blended into one item, with frequency ratios from one to nine.	Spiral review. Red/White already leaves the gap for you.
Mixed Timed	The same, built from several timed skills.	Mixed fluency across a unit.
DeltaMath Video	Their own instructional video, embedded in the assignment. Watching it counts toward the grade. Available or forthcoming for every skill — so check the skill you want actually has one.	Flipped intro, remediation, a student who was out.
YouTube Video	Your own recording or an outside one, viewed inside the assignment. Default weight is 1 — so watching or not watching moves the grade. Set it to zero if you don't mean that.	Your own screencasts. Canvas Studio is the other route.
Timed skill · Custom problem	N correct in a row against a clock, with optional credit for speed. Custom problems are your own questions — part of INTEGRAL, so you have them.	Fact fluency; and anything DeltaMath doesn't cover.

WATCH THIS ONE

Videos and timed skills do not survive conversion to a test. Convert an assignment to a test and they are silently dropped.

PER SKILL, YOU SET

Required (the score needed for full credit) · Penalty per wrong answer (none, 0.5 off, 1 off, back to zero) · Weight · Attempts · Max Problems, which caps how long a struggling student can grind.

Passback timing — set on the DeltaMath side. Most “it isn't syncing” reports are the first row working as configured.
Setting	Behavior	Use when
At due date	Nothing posts until the due date, then updates continuously.	You don't want partial scores visible mid-week.
After 15 minutes	Posts after 15 minutes of inactivity, keeps updating, including past the due date.	The default choice.
Manual	Nothing posts until you click the passback icon.	You want to review first.
At Results Shown	Tests only. Syncs passback to when results become visible.	Timed or secured assessments.

THE RULE THAT CATCHES EVERYONE

If a student never opens the Canvas assignment, the cell stays blank — however much of the work they did. Have them open it once and the score follows.

Add skills to an assignment → · Skill settings → · Overview settings → · Assignment data view →

05 WHO OWNS LATENESS

Every DeltaMath assignment carries two due dates and two penalty engines, and neither knows the other exists. Here is the whole thing in one picture.

1 · DELTAMATH

Scores the work.

2 · DELTAMATH CUTS

Its late tiers apply. 100% → 75%

3 · HANDOFF

The reduced 75 passes to Canvas.

4 · CANVAS

Scales it to the points.

5 · CANVAS CUTS AGAIN

Its late policy deducts on top. Invisible from DeltaMath.

Step five is why grades look wrong. You open DeltaMath, see 100% → 75%, and reasonably conclude the student has a 75. The gradebook may say much less, and nothing in DeltaMath will tell you why.

Pick one owner. Running both is the failure mode.
	A — DeltaMath owns it	B — Canvas owns it
DeltaMath due date	Your real deadline	Generous — at or past your latest section
DeltaMath late tiers	Configured. This is the policy.	None
Canvas due date	Matches, for visibility	Your real deadline, per section via Assign To
Canvas Late Policy	Off	On
Best for	One class, or sections on the same calendar	Cross-listed courses, or sections on different calendars
The catch	No per-section variation inside a cross-listed course	Blunter — deducts from the whole assignment, not per question

INHERITED A COURSE WITH INEXPLICABLY LOW GRADES?

Check two places. DeltaMath's Assignment Data view for → arrows, and Gradebook → Settings → Late Policies for a deduction sitting on top of them. That is option C, and students take both hits.

One more wrinkle. DeltaMath judges lateness by when each question was answered; Canvas by the submission timestamp, which for an external tool is tied to launching and posting. So your passback setting changes what Canvas calls late. Worth testing once with a deliberately late student before you build a term's policy on it — ask me and we'll do it together.

Apply a Late Submission policy →

06 CROSS-LISTED COURSES AND THE DUE-DATE TRADEOFF

CROSS-LISTED IN CANVAS

Three sections merged into one course.

IN DELTAMATH

One class, named from your Canvas Course Code.

SO STAGGERING

Works per class. You have one, so there is nothing to stagger.

RESULT

One due date governs every section, and it drives the penalty math.

NAME IT BEFORE ANYONE LAUNCHES

The Course Code at the moment the class is created becomes its DeltaMath name — and changing it in Canvas later does not rename it. Thirty seconds now saves you squinting at cryptic codes in March.

THE COUNTERINTUITIVE PART

Separate Canvas courses make due dates easier, not harder. Each becomes its own DeltaMath class; build once, post to all, stagger. That is the cleanest per-section setup there is.

ONE HONEST DISCREPANCY — SETTLE IT IN TEN SECONDS

DeltaMath's own help article says each Canvas section appears as a separate class, with staggering available. That is not what we see here. Rather than pick a side: open the sidebar and look at your class list before you build. One class, and this section is yours. One per section, and you have native Staggered Due Dates and need none of the workarounds below — please tell me, because it changes the guidance.

What teachers actually do when one due date has to serve sections meeting at different times. None official. Easiest first.
Workaround	How it works	Watch for
Night-before deadline	11:59 pm the night before the earliest section meets. Same for everyone, lands before every period.	Later sections get less time. Start here unless you have a reason not to — it removes every other complication.
Early-morning deadline	Same idea at 7:30 am on the day.	First block starts 8:30 am, so it usually holds — check a late-start day.
Grace-period late tier	Due date at the earliest section, then a late tier at 100% credit running through the last section's class time. Students see the early date; nobody is penalized until the real cutoff.	Depends on DeltaMath accepting a 100% tier. Docs show 70% and 50% and state no maximum. Test it on one assignment first.
Latest-date anchor	DeltaMath date past your latest section, no late tiers. Canvas Assign To per section, Canvas policy does the deducting. Option B above.	Use After 15 minutes passback or nothing posts until the anchor date. The Canvas policy is course-wide.
Forgive after the fact	One early date. Once every section has met, assignment list → bulk edit → Forgive lateness.	Manual, easy to forget, and it cannot be undone.
One assignment per section	Each its own External Tool assignment and due date, assigned to one section.	Real per-section penalties, but N columns and N edits. Don't link them — linking re-couples the date.
Don't cross-list	Separate courses, separate classes, native Staggered Due Dates on one assignment.	The actual fix, at the cost of what cross-listing bought you. Decide before the year starts — unwinding means rebuilding.

Found a better way? Email jbeyer@regisjesuit.com and it goes on this page. This list exists because teachers worked it out, not because DeltaMath documented it. Cross-listed classes →

07 WHEN IT BREAKS

Two failures, each in order. The grade causes stack — finding one doesn't mean it's the only one.

GRADES LOOK WRONG

1 · DELTAMATH'S OWN LATE PENALTY

100% → 75% means the tiers cut it, and 75 is what passed to Canvas. A column reading 18 / 56 / 73 / 75 across equal work is your late structure, not their math.

2 · FORGIVE IT IF IT WAS HARSHER THAN YOU MEANT

Click a grade lower than the completion percentage → forgive lateness. Re-posts automatically. Whole column: bulk edit. Cannot be undone.

3 · IS CANVAS CUTTING TOO?

Gradebook → Settings → Late Policies. Removing it retroactively affects graded submissions — spot-check a few after.

4 · ONE STUDENT ONLY

Grade cell → Grade Detail Tray → Status → None. Clears the Canvas-side deduction for that submission alone.

5 · IS IT ON A DUPLICATE?

The work may sit on the copy that isn't wired to Canvas, and the wired one reads 0%. No gradebook setting fixes this — reconcile the assignments.

6 · BLANK, NOT LOW?

They never opened the Canvas assignment. Then check everyone else — none of these are student-specific.

Also in the Student Data view: change a grade per skill, forgive by hovering, or reset an assignment for a student — which wipes their data and is irreversible. Student data view → · Assignment list view → · Change a submission's status →

A STUDENT CAN'T GET IN

Are they opening the Canvas assignment? Not a link on a page, not the nav button. Most failures stop here.
Third-party cookies. A login screen means the browser blocked the cross-site cookie. Check Load In A New Tab, or turn off Prevent Cross-Site Tracking in Safari. Integration students never set a password — that screen is a dead end by design. It looks like an account problem and isn't.
The Canvas mobile app. Unsupported. Browser only.
Not on your roster. Means they've never completed a launch — which points back at one and two, not at their account.
Not published, or not posted. Both are required.
Still stuck? jbeyer@regisjesuit.com. The question that sorts these fastest: does it break through Canvas, or on DeltaMath's own site too?

DeltaMath's Canvas FAQ → covers the browser and login cases in more detail.

08 TESTS, CORRECTIONS AND HOUSEKEEPING

Tests

A distinct type: Results Shown (per question or after the due date) · Solutions Shown · Allow Students to Change Answers · Restrict Other Assignments during a timed test · Secure with Passcode, which keeps absent students out.

Linked test corrections

On INTEGRAL, so you have it. Builds an individual remediation assignment per student from their own test. External Tool → Create Test Correction → link the test. You choose skills, videos or both, the credit-back percentage, and which grade goes to Canvas. The piece most worth the setup time.

Archive every June

Auto-rostering makes a fresh class per Canvas course, so without archiving your list accrues every section you've ever taught and it gets easy to build against last year's. Archiving costs nothing — data stays, and you can still copy from a past term.

CONVERTING COSTS YOU THINGS

Copy → Copy and Convert turns an assignment into a test or back. Videos and timed skills are dropped going to a test, and test corrections can't be converted at all.

WHAT A COPY COSTS

Settings carry over except classes, post status and due date. And student work does not transfer. There's no convert button and there can't be one — a link on a page isn't an assignment.

TWO SMALLER ONES

Co-teachers get equal functionality — use it for co-taught sections and student teachers rather than sharing an account. Calculator is per class, not per assignment.

Moving work that already exists on DeltaMath's site.
Situation	Do this
Students haven't started it	Copy it over now. Nothing is lost.
In progress, or finished	Leave it. Pull those scores by hand once. Don't create a second copy.
Everything new	Build in Canvas from the start.

Duplicates are the tell. If a gradebook shows a zero on work you know was done, look for a duplicate before changing any setting. Give the Canvas and DeltaMath assignments the same name — mismatched names are how duplicates go unnoticed. And edits to a linked assignment hit every course it's linked to: a feature across your own sections, a hazard across different preps.

Test settings → · Linked test corrections → · Class settings → · Copy → · Link →

09 ONCE IT WORKS — WHERE YOU COULD TAKE IT

Foundations

Everything built in Canvas. Nav hidden after week one. New tab checked. One owner for lateness.

COSTS Twenty minutes on day one.

GETS YOU Almost no tickets all year.

Enhance

Set skill settings on purpose — Required, Max Problems and penalty do different work on a first exposure than on a mastery check. Use Mixed Problem for spiral review; Red/White already leaves the gap.

COSTS One assignment's worth of fiddling.

GETS YOU Practice matching what you're asking for.

Deepen

Read the data view as a diagnostic, not a gradebook: which skill is the class worst at, and what changes in the next two weeks. Then linked test corrections do the individual reteaching. 9:55–10:20 is 25 minutes with no study halls competing — six four-minute one-on-ones without touching class time.

COSTS 25 minutes a quarter.

GETS YOU Reteaching aimed at what the data says.

Innovate

Custom problems are yours on INTEGRAL — write once, reuse. And a shared skill set across a level, run the same week in every section, turns individual data into a department picture. The caution: the platform measures what the platform measures. Improving on its items isn't by itself evidence of better mathematicians. That judgment is the department's.

COSTS A department conversation.

GETS YOU One question a level answers together.

10 WHO TO ASK, AND EVERY LINK

WHO TO ASK

Canvas integration, license, access, troubleshooting
Jason Beyer · jbeyer@regisjesuit.com · Teams is fastest

Licensing and site administration
Christine Archer Davison · carcherdavison@regisjesuit.com

Skills, pacing, what a mastery check should demand
Your department. They'll get you further than I will.

Inside DeltaMath — duplicate accounts, stuck records
support@deltamath.com

Who to ask →

DELTAMATH HELP CENTER

Set up Canvas integration →
Create classes and roster students →
External Tool vs. Sidebar →
Overview settings →
Add skills →
Skill settings →
Due dates and late dates →
Assignment data view →
Student data view →
Cross-listed classes →
Test settings →
Linked test corrections →
Canvas FAQ →
Help Center home →

CANVAS INSTRUCTOR GUIDES

Add an assignment using an external app →
Manage Course Navigation links →
Apply a Late Submission policy →
Change a submission's status →

THE SHORT VERSION

Never paste a DeltaMath link anywhere. Never click Add New Class. Never hand-edit a roster. Never stack two late policies. Never send students to the Canvas app.

Get on the license, build every assignment through Find, and pick one owner for lateness. That covers almost everything — and if you crack the due-date problem a better way, send it to me and it goes on this page.

Jason Beyer · Educational Technology · Regis Jesuit High School · A.M.D.G.

HelpDesk@regisjesuit.com · 303.269.8080 · LAST VERIFIED — 28 AUG 2026