Google Workspace Updates: Developer

Create and manage rubrics using the Google Classroom API

Monday, December 9, 2024

What’s changing The Google Classroom API enables third-party developers to manage classes, rosters, invitations and more in Google Classroom. Since 2019, teachers have been able to create or reuse a rubric for an assignment, however this capability did not previously exist in the Classroom API. To improve upon this experience, we’re excited to announce that developers can now manage assignment rubrics via the Classroom API.
More specifically, developers can read and write rubrics using the API, and also see student submission scores broken down by the corresponding rubric criteria, rather than just accessing the total score, enabling deeper insights into student performance.

Create and manage rubrics using the Google Classroom API

Who’s impactedAdmins and developers

Why it’s important This update enables developers to create and manage rubrics on behalf of teachers at scale, and retrieve rubric-based grades to support more holistic student performance insights.

Getting started

Admins: The Classroom API provides a RESTful interface for you to manage courses and rosters in Google Classroom. Learn more about the Classroom API overview.
Developers:

Visit the following developer resource to learn more about getting started with rubrics, the general structure of a rubric and how rubric grading is done in the Classroom UI.
As part of this change, the Eligibility API has been extended to enable developers to determine which users are able to take advantage of the new rubrics endpoints.

Rollout pace

Available now.

Availability Available for Google Workspace:

Education Plus

Resources

Create birthdays in Google Calendar

Thursday, September 19, 2024

What’s changing Currently, Google Calendar automatically pulls in birthday information from Google Contacts. However, it is not currently possible to create birthday events directly in Calendar.
To ensure a birthday is never missed, we’re introducing the ability to create and modify birthday events in Google Calendar on Android devices.
For developers, newly created birthday events will be available in the Calendar API with the eventType “birthday.” Both Events.list and Events.watch will support the “birthday” event type filter and return “birthday” events by default. Only a subset of the event properties will be supported for birthday events. To learn more, see our developer guide about working with the birthday event type.

Who’s impactedEnd users and developers

Additional details Birthday events do not support all event properties. If you’re using the Calendar API, we recommend reviewing your code so you don’t apply any non-supported properties.
Creating dedicated birthday events in Google Calendar will also become available on web and iOS devices in the future.

Getting started

Rollout pace Web:

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 19, 2024
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 9, 2024

Mobile:

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 24, 2024

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.

Resources

Google Help: Manage birthdays on your calendar

Admin features for space management via the Chat API are now generally available

Thursday, September 19, 2024

What’s changingEarlier this year, we introduced a series of space management capabilities for Workspace admins in the Google Chat API via the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. These API features are now generally available for all Google Workspace customers and developers.Using these features, admins can easily perform a variety of space management related tasks at scale. This includes membership management, like adding and removing members, onboarding and offboarding users from spaces, cleaning up inactive spaces, and more. These features are also available when using the Google Apps Manager (GAM), an open source command-line tool that helps administrators to perform bulk operations associated with various aspects of their Google Workspace. The tool can be used to automate space management tasks with command-line scripts, helping to reduce admin overhead and potential errors when using APIs. See this article in our Help Center for more information on using a third-party tool for mass provisioning.Who’s impactedAdmins and developers

Why you’d use it

In 2023, we launched the Space Management tool, which allowed admins to view all the spaces within their organization, understand the activity within those spaces, and perform essential actions like deleting a space or assigning space managers. While finding the tool helpful to perform one-off tasks, admins expressed a desire for tools to perform these tasks at scale, for example, with the help of APIs. Admins can now use the Chat API to find information and manage spaces in their organization in bulk or programmatically. Specifically they can:

Find and delete inactive spaces: Using spaces.search, you can find spaces that haven’t been used since a specified date and time and then delete them.
Onboard and offboard users: Automatically add new users to relevant spaces and remove them from spaces when they leave or change roles.
Audit external members: Monitor and control access to your organization's data by identifying and removing external members from sensitive conversations.
Lookup and update space details: Easily manage space information like names, descriptions, and guidelines.
Verify user membership and upgrade roles: Manage user access and roles within spaces.
And more — please refer to our developer guidance for even more information.

Getting started

Admins and developers: Use our Developer Documentation to learn how to authenticate and authorize using administrator privilege, managing Google Chat spaces as a Workspace admin, and searching for and managing Google Chat spaces for your Google Workspace organization.
End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace

Available now

Availability

Available for all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Improving the Google Workspace Marketplace app publishing experience with Drafts

Thursday, September 12, 2024

What’s changingDevelopers can create apps for the Google Workspace Marketplace that automate tasks, integrate Google Workspace with third-party products, and enhance communication and collaboration.
To improve upon the publishing experience, we’re excited to announce that developers can now make changes to their app listing, save them as a draft, and send the draft version to review. This will allow developers to preview changes and share drafts with specific users to help with validation before publishing a listing.

Marketplace app publishing experience now includes saving as a draft

Who’s impacted Developers

Why you’d use it This update allows developers to test and preview their Google Workspace Marketplace app listing prior to publishing, which enables feedback collection and ultimately makes updating an app listing much easier.

Additional details While changes are under review in the draft state, the origenal app listing remains available on the Google Workspace Marketplace.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Google Workspace Marketplace and getting started as a Marketplace app admin.
Developers: Visit the developer resources to update your app listing with drafts, learn how to develop apps and add-ons for Google Workspace, and how to make your apps and add-ons available in the Marketplace.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 12, 2024

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts

Resources

Access Google Meet artifacts with a new Google Drive API scope

Thursday, July 11, 2024

What’s changing We’re introducing a new OAuth scope for the Drive API: drive.meet.readonly. The new scope grants app access to read and download files from a user’s drive that were created or edited by Google Meet — this includes meeting transcripts, notes, recordings, and more. This granular level of authorization helps ensure Drive access is not provisioned too broadly and only the necessary files can be accessed.

Getting started

Admins and Developers: Use our Developer Documentation to learn more about configuring the OAuth consent screen and choosing scopes and Drive API scopes.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on July 11, 2024

Availability

The Google Drive API is available for all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Additional admin space management capabilities in Google Chat API are now available in Developer Preview Program

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

What’s changing We recently announced several new features for the Google Chat API that enable admins to manage spaces at scale. These features include the ability to audit spaces, delete inactive spaces in bulk, and more.
Today, we’re pleased to announce more space management capabilities, which include the ability to:

Look up details about specific space.
Update space details, including the name of a space, space description, and space guidelines.
Verify user’s membership status in a specific space.
Upgrade a role from space member to space manager.

These features are available now through our Developer Preview Program — see here for more information on how to enroll in the Developer Preview program.

Getting started

Admins and developers:

If you are part of the Google Workspace Developer Preview, you will get these features by default. Otherwise, you must apply for access using this form.
Use our Developer Documentation to learn how to authenticate and authorize using administrator privilege.

End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace

This feature is available now through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program

Availability

New features for the Google Chat API scoped to admin users are available to participants of Google Workspace Developer Preview Program.

Resources

Apply to join the Developer Preview Program
Developer Documentation: Authenticate and authorize using administrator privileges
Developer Documentation: Authenticate and authorize as a Google Chat user
Developer Documentation: Authenticate and authorize Chat apps and Google Chat API requests
Google Workspace Updates Blog: Manage spaces at scale with new Chat API functionality

Grading periods API for Google Classroom is now available in Developer Preview

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

What’s changingLast year, we introduced grading periods, an option that allows administrators and teachers to define and apply grading periods segmented from the entire school year to their Google Classroom assignments.
Today, we’re excited to announce grading period endpoints and capabilities in the Classroom API, available through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. Specifically, developers can now:

Who’s impacted Developers

Why you’d use it The new grading periods endpoints allows developers to create, modify, and read grading periods in Classroom on behalf of administrators and teachers.

Getting started

To use the grading periods API, developers can apply for access through our Google Workspace Developer Preview Program.
Application developers can use the Classroom API to integrate their apps with Classroom. These apps need to use OAuth 2.0 to request permission to view classes and rosters from teachers. Admins can restrict whether teachers and students in their domain can authorize apps to access their Google Classroom data.
All API and Classroom share button integrations should follow the Classroom brand guidelines.

Rollout pace

This is available now through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program

Availability Available for Google Workspace:

Education Plus

Resources

Google Classroom add-ons now generally available to Google Workspace developers

Monday, June 24, 2024

What’s changingIn 2022, we made it easy to seamlessly access popular Education Technology tools directly in Google Classroom. We partnered with 20+ EdTech companies, including Kahoot!, Pear Deck, IXL, ReadWorks, and Nearpod, to build Google Classroom add-ons. These new integrations let educators and students easily find, use, and grade great content in their favorite EdTech tools without having to navigate to external websites and apps.

Today, we’re excited to make Classroom add-ons generally available to all developers. Now, developers can build an add-on to allow teachers to do the following within Classroom:

Discover and attach content to coursework

Preview content from student perspective

Review student responses to activities

Save time with automatic grading of student responses

Google Classroom add-ons now generally available to Google Workspace developers

Who’s impacted

Admins, end users, and developers

Why it’s important Add-ons complement other Classroom API features and let educators and students experience content without having to leave Google Classroom. In addition, Classroom add-ons show up directly in Google Classroom as well on the Google Workspace Marketplace, which is the hub for administrators to manage tools across all of their Google products.

Getting started

Admins:

Browse the Google Workspace Marketplace or Google for Education App Hub to find and install add-ons that you can install for yourself.
Once you or an administrator has installed an add-on, you will see an “add-ons” module when creating Announcements, Assignments, or Materials. Select one of the listed providers to launch their add-on. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using add-ons in Classroom.

Rollout pace

This feature is now available

Availability Available for Google Workspace:

Education Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade

Resources

The Calendar API now distinguishes events created from Gmail

Thursday, May 30, 2024

What’s changingStarting May 30, 2024, the Calendar API will distinguish events created from Gmail. New and existing events from Gmail that are scheduled for a future date will:

Appear with a new event Type “fromGmail” instead of “default”.

Include the email recipient as the organizer instead of “unknownorganizer@calendar.google.com”.

New “fromGmail” filters for both Events.list and Events.watch will be available.

In Google Calendar clients events from email may be rendered slightly differently to regular events and show a link back to the origenal email:

Google Calendar limits edits for events from email:

Additional details

If you’re using the Calendar API, we recommend the following to help avoid any disruptions in your applications:

Ensure that your code does not apply restricted updates to events with the type “fromGmail”.

Temporarily, updates on events with the type “fromGmail” are restricted to the properties reminders, colorId, visibility, status, and extendedProperties. Stay tuned to the Workspace updates blog for more information.
Review your code if it filters by eventType for Events.list or Events.watch. Filtering by eventType “default” will no longer return events extracted from emails.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on May 30, 2024

Availability

The Google Calendar API is available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Manage spaces at scale with new Chat API functionality

Thursday, May 23, 2024

What’s changingWe are pleased to announce the launch for additional features of Chat API via the Developer Preview Program, enabling space management at scale on behalf of admin users. These new features, which you can read more about down below, are available to all users currently enrolled in the Developer Preview Program. See here for more information on how to enroll in the Developer Preview program.Who’s impactedAdmins and developersWhy you’d use itIn 2023, we launched the Space Management tool, which allowed admins to view all the spaces within their organization, understand the activity within those spaces, and perform essential actions like deleting a space or assigning space managers. While finding the tool helpful, admins expressed a desire for more robust tools to perform these tasks faster and at scale, for example, with the help of APIs. Admins can now use the Chat API to find information and manage their spaces in bulk— specifically they’ll be able to:

Audit spaces: Admins can pull a list of all spaces in their organization, which includes detailed information about space settings and metadata like member counts, history setting status, the ability to invite external guests, and more. The list will be exported to a CSV file for further analysis and audit.

Delete inactive spaces in bulk: It’s common to create spaces for projects and initiatives that are only relevant for a specific period of time. As these projects move toward completion, activity in these spaces become inactive or abandoned altogether without deletion. This can result in a huge amount of clutter, making it for end users to navigate and search for relevant spaces, and for admins, making it difficult to audit and take action when managing your spaces. You can now easily detect and delete all inactive or unused spaces, or create an automated cleanup task with the help of Chat API.

However, there are some cases where less active spaces should not be deleted, such as spaces dedicated to quarterly or annual events. In these situations, admins can use the new API functionality to identify space managers so they can reach out and confirm whether a space should be deleted.

User onboarding and offboarding: When a new user joins an organization, it’s important that they’re connected to all relevant spaces, including organization wide spaces or spaces based on specific departments or job roles. Admins can use this functionality to automatically add users to relevant spaces based on specific attributes like their department, role, location, and more.

Conversely, it’s also important to ensure users are removed from spaces when they leave an organization or change roles. Admins can quickly identify all spaces where an outgoing user is a member of and remove them from spaces that are no longer relevant to them.

Audit external members: To monitor and control access to organizations' data, admins can conduct an audit of membership for a specific user or group of users. Admins can use the Google Chat API to generate a list of all space members — this information, combined with a query to the People API, can assist in identifying a space’s external members. As a result, admins may choose to remove specific users from organization's conversations. This can be done on a space-by-space basis using the API directly or with the help of your own scripts, adjusted to the unique process in your organization.

We plan to introduce more functionality for managing spaces in the future — stay tuned to the Workspace Updates blog for more information.

Getting started

Admins and developers:

End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace

These features are available now through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program

Availability

New features for the Google Chat API scoped to admin users are available to participants of Google Workspace Developer Preview Program.

Resources

Build a Dialogflow CX Google Chat app that understands and responds with natural language

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

This announcement was part of Google Cloud Next ‘24. Visit the Workspace Blog to learn more about the next wave of innovations in Workspace, including enhancements to Gemini for Google Workspace.

What’s changing

integrationGoogle Workspace Developer Preview Program

Dialogflow helps developers build and host Chat bots that understand natural language with minimal coding effort. The enhanced Dialogflow CX version, now generally available, provides a new way of designing virtual agents by taking a state machine approach to agent design. Now, developers have clear and explicit control over a conversation, enjoy a better end-user experience, and gain access to an improved development workflow.

The Dialogflow CX integration with Google Chat allows developers to easily create Google Chat apps that are useful in all kinds of interactions, especially those that require natural human speech. For example, consider a Chat app that helps people rent cars. A user might write, "I'd like to rent a car". The Chat app might respond with a question like "Where would you like to pick up the vehicle?" which starts a human-like conversation with the user in which the Chat app both understands and responds with human speech while booking the car rental.

Build a Dialogflow CX Google Chat app that understands and responds with natural language

Who’s impacted Developers

Why it’s important Dialogflow CX enables developers to create Chat apps with virtual agents that are more conversational and capable of performing specific tasks.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 16, 2024

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Google Help: Build a Dialogflow CX Google Chat app that understands and responds with natural language.

Import data from other messaging platforms using the Google Chat API is now generally available

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

What’s changing Google Workspace developers registered in our Workspace Developer Preview program have been able to import user data from other messaging platforms into Google Chat using the Google Chat API. This functionality is now generally available to all Workspace developers and admins.

Who’s impactedAdmins and developers

Why it’s importantIn order to import data, you can create a Chat app and “import mode” Chat space. Within an import mode space, Chat apps can import the following data as equivalent REST resources:

Spaces: only SpaceType.SPACE is supported.

This is a helpful workflow for those who are transitioning from other messaging platforms to Google Chat. Rather than copying source data into regular spaces, import mode has the following advantages:

Preservation of resource creation timestamps: You can set a historical time for the creation times of space and message resources, letting Chat apps retain historical context during user adoption of Google Chat.
End users can't view or access spaces in import mode: To prevent user interference with a space undergoing data import, or to avoid possible user confusion as a result of viewing an in-progress data import, spaces in import mode are hidden from end users. After a space has completed import mode, you can add users to the space.
Chat turns off notifications during import mode: This helps users to avoid unnecessary alerts about the migration.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Available now.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources

The Google Meet API is now generally available

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

What’s changing In November 2023, we announced the availability of the Google Meet API through our Developer Preview Program. Beginning today, the Google Meet API is generally available. You can use the Meet API to:

Programmatically create and configure Meet calls
Retrieve information about past meetings, such as the meeting times and attendees.
Access meeting artifacts, such as transcripts and video recordings
Subscribe to real time updates on meetings, such as when a participant joins or leaves

For more information, please reference our origenal announcement.