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Your Focus Student Information System includes a built-in Application Programming Interface (API) Grade Passback (the syncing of assignments and grades) that seamlessly integrates with Google Classroom.
1. Navigate to https://console.developers.google.com/.
2. If your district uses G Suite, log in with your G Suite administrator credentials. Otherwise, log in with the Google Account you wish to use to manage the API credentials.
3. If this is the first time you have logged in to the Google Cloud Platform, you may need to agree to Google’s Terms of Service.
4. If you have not previously created a project in the Google Cloud Platform, click Create Project. Fill in the Project name and, optionally, Organization.
5. Click Enable APIs and Services, and enable the Google Classroom API.
6. Return to the main Google APIs dashboard by clicking the navigation menu -> APIs & Services -> Dashboard.
7. Repeat steps 5-6 for the Google Calendar API and the Admin SDK.
8. Ensure that you now see the Google Classroom API, Google Calendar API, and Admin SDK on the main Google APIs dashboard at the bottom of the screen.
9. From the navigation menu, select OAuth consent screen.
10. If your district uses G Suite, select Internal. Otherwise, after reading the limitations for unverified apps, select External.
11. Enter Focus SIS as the Application name and optionally upload a logo to be displayed on the Google login screen. Verify that the Support email is correct.
12. Click Add Scope, click the checkbox on the top right of the table to select all scopes for the enabled APIs, and then click Add.
13. Add the district’s domain name under Authorized domains. If the district’s production site is https://example.com/focus, the domain name is example.com.
14. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save. You now should see the following screen.
15. From the navigation menu, select Credentials.
16. Click the Create Credentials button at the top of the screen, then select OAuth client ID.
17. For Application type, select Web application. Fill in Focus SIS as the Name. Under Authorized redirect URIs, enter the URL of the district’s production site, followed by ‘/redirect.php’. If the district’s production site is https://example.com/focus, the redirect URI is https://example.com/focus/redirect.php. At the bottom of the screen, click Create.
18. Make note of the Client ID and the Client Secret. You can also return to Credentials and select Focus SIS under OAuth 2.0 Client IDs to pull up the Client ID and Client Secret in the future.
19. Log in to the Focus site that you want to connect to the Google API. From here, you can use your Client ID and Client Secret to follow the Setting Up Google Classroom API Integration procedure and complete the setup.
You must be on Version 10.0 or the latest Version 9.1 to utilize the Focus API integration with Google Classroom.
Permissions to view and edit specific screens can be assigned to users by profile. Permissions for one or multiple profiles can be viewed and edited at one time.
1. In the Users menu, select Profiles.
2. In the Permissions tab of the Profiles screen, select the Menu option from the Permission Type pull-down.
3. Select the Admin option from the Role pull-down.
4. Select the desired Profiles. One or multiple profiles can be selected.
5. Click Submit.
6. Navigate to the Setup menu, System Setup sub-menu. Select the View checkbox next to Third Party Systems to give the profile users read-only access. Select the Edit checkbox next to Third Party Systems to give the profile users edit rights.
7. Click the Save button to complete the process.
In best practice, access to View or Edit Third Party Systems should be restricted to Super User System Admin profiles.
Focus’ easy to use Third Party Systems allows end-users to configure their integrations through the interface.
1. In the Setup menu, select Third Party Systems.
2. Any existing third party systems set up for the district or school are displayed in the table. To add a new third party system, enter the information in the blank row at the top of the table.
The information should be entered as such:
Title: Google Classroom
Version: 1.0
Dialect: Google Classroom
3. Once the Title, Version, and Dialect have been selected, press Enter to add the third party system to the table. Additions and changes to third-party systems auto-save.
4. Next, the following columns should be populated:
Read Access: The Read Access pull-down lists all the resources (data-types) available. For the Google Classroom integration, you do not need to populate any resources.
Write Access: The Write Access pull-down lists all the resources (data-types) available. For the Google Classroom integration, you must populate Assignment and Grade.
Schools: The Schools pull-down lists all schools set up in Focus. If nothing is selected, the third party system will be configured to send for all schools. If the third party system should be configured for only select schools, select the desired schools from the pull-down. Multiple selections are supported.
5. When a new third party system is entered, Focus will auto-generate the Focus API URL (the base URL used to construct API endpoints), Focus Client ID (acts as a “username” to identify the vendor), and Focus Client Secret (acts as a “password” to verify the vendor’s identity).
Do not share the Client ID or Client Secret with anyone other than the vendor it is intended for.
6. For the External API URL, enter https://classroom.googleapis.com/v1.
For the External User Auth URL, enter https://oauth2.googleapis.com.
Enter the External Client ID and External Client Secret as issued to you by Google during the process Setting Up the Google API in Google Developers.
7. Optionally, when setting up a grade passback third party system, the Icon option can be used to add a custom icon to the teacher Gradebook. To add a custom icon, click the Upload button located under the Icon column. In the pop-up, select the desired icon from your computer.
When successfully loaded, the icon will display in the Icon column.
Teachers must be granted access to Google Classroom under profile permissions.
1. In the Users menu, select Profiles.
2. In the Permissions tab of the Profiles screen, select the Menu option from the Permission Type pull-down.
3. Select the Teacher option from the Role pull-down.
4. Select the desired Profiles. One or multiple profiles can be selected.
5. Click Submit.
6. Navigate to the Grades menu and select the View checkbox next to Show Google Classroom.
7. Click the Save button to complete the process.
Your teachers must have an email address saved in Focus in order to utilize Google Classroom. It must be the same email address used to set up their Google Classroom account. This email address can be entered into the system user field Google Classroom Email Address if it is not the same email stored in the standard email user field (users.custom_100000001). If no value is stored in Google Classroom Email Address, the system will default to the email address entered into users.custom_100000001.
Please download the Focus University training document "Google Classroom for Teachers" for information on how teachers can integrate Google Classroom and Focus.
This video is intended for teachers as a resource for setting up the Google Classroom integration in Focus, creating assignments in Focus, viewing and grading student work in Google Classroom and then syncing assignment grades back into Focus.