How can I monitor updates across multiple Google Classroom courses using a single Pub/Sub subscription?

Courses
1

Tracking Changes in Multiple Google Classroom Courses

I’m trying to set up a system that updates our Cloud Firestore when students finish assignments or new assignments are added in any of our Google Classroom courses. Right now I can only listen to one course at a time.

The Google Classroom API docs say I need a separate courseId for each CourseWorkChangesInfo feed. I don’t want to create tons of registrations and subscriptions for each course. That would be a mess to manage!

Here’s what I’ve got working for one course:

def make_registration():
    return {
        "feed": {
            "feedType": "COURSE_WORK_CHANGES",
            "courseWorkChangesInfo": {
                "courseId": "ABC123"
            }
        },
        "cloudPubsubTopic": {
            "topicName": "projects/myproject/topics/classroom-updates"
        }
    }

def setup_registration(classroom_service):
    try:
        reg = classroom_service.registrations().create(body=make_registration()).execute()
        print(f"Registration created: {reg}")
        return reg
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error: {e}")
        raise

# Pub/Sub stuff here...

Is there a way to listen for changes across all my courses with just one registration or subscription? I really don’t want to run a separate process for each course. Any ideas?

2

Hey there, fellow Classroom API explorer! :female_detective:

I totally get your frustration with managing multiple courses. It’s like herding digital cats, right?

Have you considered a workaround using Cloud Functions? Here’s a thought:

What if you set up a single Cloud Function that acts as a ‘hub’ for all your course updates? You’d still need separate registrations (bummer, I know), but they could all point to the same Pub/Sub topic. Then your function could sort out which course is which based on the message payload.

It’s not perfect, but it might save you from drowning in a sea of separate processes. Plus, it keeps things centralized, which is always nice for debugging.

Curious to hear if you’ve tried anything like this? Or if you’ve stumbled upon any other clever tricks for wrangling multiple courses? Always looking to learn new Classroom API hacks!

3

I’ve worked a lot with the Google Classroom API and I can confirm that there isn’t a built-in way to monitor several courses with a single registration. The API requires a course-level setup which makes it challenging to avoid multiple registrations. In my experience, you can simplify management by using one Pub/Sub topic and routing all messages through a unified Cloud Function. The function then determines the course based on the incoming message, allowing you to update your Firestore accordingly. This approach means you maintain a single processing point even though you register each course separately.

4

hey man, i feel ur pain with the classroom api. it’s a real headache sometimes! :sweat_smile: i’ve been there too. what i ended up doing was using a cloud function as a kinda ‘traffic cop’ for all the course updates. you still gotta do the separate registrations (ugh, i know), but at least u can funnel everything into one place. it’s not perfect, but it beats juggling a bunch of different processes. good luck with ur project!