Create and manage guardians

A Guardian resource represents a user, such as a parent, who receives information about a student's courses and coursework. The guardian, who typically isn't a member of the student's Classroom domain, must be invited using their email address.

Invitations are represented by the GuardianInvitation resource. The invited user receives an email prompting them to accept the invitation. If the email address is not associated with a Google Account, the user is prompted to create one before accepting the invitation.

When the user is invited and before they accept the invitation, the GuardianInvitation has a state of PENDING. Once the user accepts the invitation, the GuardianInvitation is marked as COMPLETED and a Guardian resource is created.

A GuardianInvitation state might also be changed to COMPLETED if it expires or if an authorized user cancels the invitation (for example, using the PatchGuardianInvitation method). A guardian relationship may also be broken by a guardian, a Classroom teacher, or an administrator, using either the Classroom web application or the DeleteGuardian method.

Who can manage guardians

The following table describes the actions that can be performed with respect to guardians, according to the type of user that is authenticated:

Table of guardian-related ACLs by user type

Scopes

There are three scopes that allow you to manage guardians:

  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.guardianlinks.me.readonly: view a user's own guardians.
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.guardianlinks.students.readonly: view guardians and guardian invitations for students that the user teaches or administers.
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.guardianlinks.students: view and manage guardians and guardian invitations for students that the user teaches or administers.

Common actions

This section describes some of the common guardian actions that you may want to perform using the Google Classroom API.

Create a guardian invitation

The following example shows how you can create a guardian invitation using the userProfiles.guardianInvitations.create() method:

Java

classroom/snippets/src/main/java/CreateGuardianInvitation.java
GuardianInvitation guardianInvitation = null;

/* Create a GuardianInvitation object with state set to PENDING. See
https://developers.google.com/classroom/reference/rest/v1/userProfiles.guardianInvitations#guardianinvitationstate
for other possible states of guardian invitations. */
GuardianInvitation content =
    new GuardianInvitation()
        .setStudentId(studentId)
        .setInvitedEmailAddress(guardianEmail)
        .setState("PENDING");
try {
  guardianInvitation =
      service.userProfiles().guardianInvitations().create(studentId, content).execute();

  System.out.printf("Invitation created: %s\n", guardianInvitation.getInvitationId());
} catch (GoogleJsonResponseException e) {
  // TODO (developer) - handle error appropriately
  GoogleJsonError error = e.getDetails();
  if (error.getCode() == 404) {
    System.out.printf("There is no record of studentId: %s", studentId);
  } else {
    throw e;
  }
} catch (Exception e) {
  throw e;
}
return guardianInvitation;

Python

guardianInvitation = {
  'invitedEmailAddress': 'guardian@gmail.com',
}
guardianInvitation = service.userProfiles().guardianInvitations().create(
                      studentId='student@mydomain.edu',
                          body=guardianInvitation).execute()
print("Invitation created with id: {0}".format(guardianInvitation.get('invitationId')))

The response includes a server-assigned identifier that can be used to refer to the GuardianInvitation.

Cancel a guardian invitation

To cancel an invitation, modify the state of the invitation from PENDING to COMPLETE by calling the userProfiles.guardianInvitations.patch() method. This is the only way to remove an invitation.

Java

classroom/snippets/src/main/java/CancelGuardianInvitation.java
GuardianInvitation guardianInvitation = null;

try {
  /* Change the state of the GuardianInvitation from PENDING to COMPLETE. See
  https://developers.google.com/classroom/reference/rest/v1/userProfiles.guardianInvitations#guardianinvitationstate
  for other possible states of guardian invitations. */
  GuardianInvitation content =
      service.userProfiles().guardianInvitations().get(studentId, invitationId).execute();
  content.setState("COMPLETE");

  guardianInvitation =
      service
          .userProfiles()
          .guardianInvitations()
          .patch(studentId, invitationId, content)
          .set("updateMask", "state")
          .execute();

  System.out.printf(
      "Invitation (%s) state set to %s\n.",
      guardianInvitation.getInvitationId(), guardianInvitation.getState());
} catch (GoogleJsonResponseException e) {
  // TODO (developer) - handle error appropriately
  GoogleJsonError error = e.getDetails();
  if (error.getCode() == 404) {
    System.out.printf(
        "There is no record of studentId (%s) or invitationId (%s).", studentId, invitationId);
  } else {
    throw e;
  }
} catch (Exception e) {
  throw e;
}
return guardianInvitation;

Python

guardian_invite = {
     'state': 'COMPLETE'
}
guardianInvitation = service.userProfiles().guardianInvitations().patch(
  studentId='student@mydomain.edu',
  invitationId=1234, # Replace with the invitation ID of the invitation you want to cancel
  updateMask='state',
  body=guardianInvitation).execute()

List invitations for a specific student

You can get a list of all invitations that have been sent for a specific student using the userProfiles.guardianInvitations.list() method. By default, only PENDING invitations will be returned. A domain administrator can also retrieve invitations in the COMPLETED state by providing a states parameter.

Java

classroom/snippets/src/main/java/ListGuardianInvitationsByStudent.java
List<GuardianInvitation> guardianInvitations = new ArrayList<>();
String pageToken = null;

try {
  do {
    ListGuardianInvitationsResponse response =
        service
            .userProfiles()
            .guardianInvitations()
            .list(studentId)
            .setPageToken(pageToken)
            .execute();

    /* Ensure that the response is not null before retrieving data from it to avoid errors. */
    if (response.getGuardianInvitations() != null) {
      guardianInvitations.addAll(response.getGuardianInvitations());
      pageToken = response.getNextPageToken();
    }
  } while (pageToken != null);

  if (guardianInvitations.isEmpty()) {
    System.out.println("No guardian invitations found.");
  } else {
    for (GuardianInvitation invitation : guardianInvitations) {
      System.out.printf("Guardian invitation id: %s\n", invitation.getInvitationId());
    }
  }
} catch (GoogleJsonResponseException e) {
  GoogleJsonError error = e.getDetails();
  if (error.getCode() == 404) {
    System.out.printf("There is no record of studentId (%s).", studentId);
  } else {
    throw e;
  }
} catch (Exception e) {
  throw e;
}
return guardianInvitations;

Python

guardian_invites = []
page_token = None

while True:
    response = service.userProfiles().guardianInvitations().list(
                                      studentId='student@mydomain.edu').execute()
    guardian_invites.extend(response.get('guardian_invites', []))
    page_token = response.get('nextPageToken', None)
    if not page_token:
        break

if not courses:
    print('No guardians invited for this {0}.'.format(response.get('studentId')))
else:
    print('Guardian Invite:')
    for guardian in guardian_invites:
        print('An invite was sent to '.format(guardian.get('id'),
                                              guardian.get('guardianId')))

List active guardians

To determine which users are active guardians for a specific student, use the userProfiles.guardians.list() method. Active guardians are guardians who have accepted the invitation.

Java

classroom/snippets/src/main/java/ListGuardians.java
List<Guardian> guardians = new ArrayList<>();
String pageToken = null;

try {
  do {
    ListGuardiansResponse response =
        service.userProfiles().guardians().list(studentId).setPageToken(pageToken).execute();

    /* Ensure that the response is not null before retrieving data from it to avoid errors. */
    if (response.getGuardians() != null) {
      guardians.addAll(response.getGuardians());
      pageToken = response.getNextPageToken();
    }
  } while (pageToken != null);

  if (guardians.isEmpty()) {
    System.out.println("No guardians found.");
  } else {
    for (Guardian guardian : guardians) {
      System.out.printf(
          "Guardian name: %s, guardian id: %s, guardian email: %s\n",
          guardian.getGuardianProfile().getName().getFullName(),
          guardian.getGuardianId(),
          guardian.getInvitedEmailAddress());
    }
  }

} catch (GoogleJsonResponseException e) {
  GoogleJsonError error = e.getDetails();
  if (error.getCode() == 404) {
    System.out.printf("There is no record of studentId (%s).", studentId);
  } else {
    throw e;
  }
} catch (Exception e) {
  throw e;
}
return guardians;

Python

guardian_invites = []
page_token = None

while True:
    response = service.userProfiles().guardians().list(studentId='student@mydomain.edu').execute()
    guardian_invites.extend(response.get('guardian_invites', []))
    page_token = response.get('nextPageToken', None)
    if not page_token:
        break

if not courses:
    print('No guardians invited for this {0}.'.format(response.get('studentId')))
else:
    print('Guardian Invite:')
    for guardian in guardian_invites:
        print('An invite was sent to '.format(guardian.get('id'),
                                              guardian.get('guardianId')))

Remove guardians

You can also remove a guardian from a student, using the userProfiles.guardians.delete() method:

Java

classroom/snippets/src/main/java/DeleteGuardian.java
try {
  service.userProfiles().guardians().delete(studentId, guardianId).execute();
  System.out.printf("The guardian with id %s was deleted.\n", guardianId);
} catch (GoogleJsonResponseException e) {
  GoogleJsonError error = e.getDetails();
  if (error.getCode() == 404) {
    System.out.printf("There is no record of guardianId (%s).", guardianId);
  }
}

Python

service.userProfiles().guardians().delete(studentId='student@mydomain.edu',
                                        guardianId='guardian@gmail.com').execute()
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