August 2023 Classroom add-ons monthly developer update

[Classroom Developer Announce]

Below are this month's Classroom add-ons news items. Please reach out to our support resources with any questions or concerns.

Announcements

• The Classroom add-ons "Posts" resource is being removed. Instead, new functionality makes it easier for add-on developers to interact with items in Classroom by improving compatibility with other API features. You can now know whether the add-on is attached to an Announcement, CourseWork assignment, or CourseWorkMaterial. You can also access the underlying item, which was hidden by the previous post endpoints. This lets you take advantage of core Classroom API features such as subscribing to change notifications.
  
  Specific changes:

  • As of August 10 2023, the posts resource has been deprecated. Instead, you can call add-ons methods under the announcements, courseWork, and courseWorkMaterials resources. This change makes clear the type of resource that the teacher has shared with their students. The posts resource will continue to be available through January 2024.

  • As of August 10 2023, the postId query parameter has also been deprecated. Two new query parameters will be passed to all iframes: itemId and itemType. All three query parameters will be passed to all iframes through January 2024.

  • See the Classroom add-ons Posts migration guide for more information, which steps through the changes in detail. It also demonstrates how to interact with the new announcements, courseWork, and courseWorkMaterials methods.

Reminders

• The new Upgrade links to add-ons and Create an add-on from your web site or app features are now fully available. These help your users discover your add-on and quickly create add-on attachments. We recommend adopting them to encourage add-on adoption. Here’s what implementing partners had to say:

  • "Adapting our Google Classroom AddOn to the new Upgrade Link feature only took a few hours for us. Documentation and support were very helpful and I would recommend anyone with a Google Classroom AddOn to try it out!" - Genially

  • "Adding support for link upgrades to our add-on was a quick and easy win: combining the (already existing) necessary pieces together took less than a day." - Bookwidgets

• Through the app access control settings, we’re making it easier for Google Workspace for Education admins to control how third-party apps access their organizations' Google data when users sign-in using their Google Workspace for Education accounts. We are introducing these controls in a way that we hope will help Google and our ecosystem partners ensure that our customers can continue to effectively manage students’ data when accessing third party apps.
  
  We are requiring Edu Admins to review & confirm currently accessed Third-Party Apps Apps used in their district by October 23, 2023.

  • After Oct 23, 2023, users designated as under 18 will no longer be able to use their Google Workspace for Education account to sign into or share data with any app that is not confirmed by Edu Admin.

  • If your app is already being used in a district, it will be available for Admins to review and approve to help avoid any disruption.

There is no required action from Developers. Google has notified all Edu customers and is continuing to drive communications to education admins.If a customer does reach out to you, you can point them to this help center article , blog post, and instructional video on how to confirm access to third party apps.

See the new access control enhancements guide page for developer best practices.

Documentation changes

Link: Classroom add-ons documentation

Please be advised of the following documentation changes this month:

• We have merged our add-ons EAP documentation with the main public Classroom API documentation. You do not need to take any action; we’ll automatically redirect old URLs to the new ones.

• Added the access control enhancements guide page.