If you are grading with points Canvas is a very friendly environment with automatic summarize and weighting options.

Course total

Canvas automatically calculates a course total in percent based on all the assignments and their points for the entire course. A students course total is the percentage of the points they have scored. As a default option this total percentage is hidden from students (always visible for teachers though) but if you would like students to see this information you can activate it by going to the course Settings, Course details tab and at the bottom there is a link more options. If you click that link the option to Hide totals in student grades summary will appear.

Course total as percentage.

You also have the option to let this percentage generate a grade in accordance with a grading scheme. If you do so you are recommended to create your own, course specific grading scheme instead of using the system wide ones since they contain the "grade" Revision required/Komplettering. You can set the course grading scheme by going to the course Settings, Course details and then Enable course grading scheme. The grade will then be visible in the Total column in the Gradebook.

Weighting

You can only weight assignment groups, not single assignments. So if you want to use weighted assignments in regards to course total be sure to setup your assignment groups. This is done by heading to Assignments in the course menu and they can look something like this.

An example setup of assignment groups.

To enable weighting click the three dots just right of the + Assignment button and then Assignment groups weight (on the Assignments page).

Setup assignment group weights.

Check Weight final grade based on assignment groups, then enter your values and click Save. Your weighting settings are visible to students in their Grades view.

Assign weight values to assignment groups.

Head back to the Gradebook and check out your weighted final grades. They are easily controlled by checking the percentages of each assignment group (every assignment group have their own column).

A table of weighted total grades.