Groups API

Groups serve as the data for a few different ideas in Canvas. The first is that they can be a community in the canvas network. The second is that they can be organized by students in a course, for study or communication (but not grading). The third is that they can be organized by teachers or account administrators for the purpose of projects, assignments, and grading. This last kind of group is always part of a group category, which adds the restriction that a user may only be a member of one group per category.

All of these types of groups function similarly, and can be the parent context for many other types of functionality and interaction, such as collections, discussions, wikis, and shared files.

Group memberships are the objects that tie users and groups together.

A Group object looks like:

{
  // The ID of the group.
  id: 17,

  // The display name of the group.
  name: "Math Group 1",

  // A description of the group. This is plain text.
  description: null,

  // Whether or not the group is public.  Currently only community groups
  // can be made public.  Also, once a group has been set to public, it
  // cannot be changed back to private.
  is_public: false,

  // Whether or not the current user is following this group.
  followed_by_user: false,

  // How people are allowed to join the group.  For all groups except for
  // community groups, the user must share the group's parent course or
  // account.  For student organized or community groups, where a user
  // can be a member of as many or few as they want, the applicable
  // levels are "parent_context_auto_join", "parent_context_request", and
  // "invitation_only".  For class groups, where students are divided up
  // and should only be part of one group of the category, this value
  // will always be "invitation_only", and is not relevant.
  //
  // * If "parent_context_auto_join", anyone can join and will be
  //   automatically accepted.
  // * If "parent_context_request", anyone  can request to join, which
  //   must be approved by a group moderator.
  // * If "invitation_only", only those how have received an
  //   invitation my join the group, by accepting that invitation.
  join_level: "invitation_only",

  // The number of members currently in the group
  members_count: 0,

  // The url of the group's avatar
  avatar_url: "https://<canvas>/files/avatar_image.png",

  // The course or account that the group belongs to. The pattern here is
  // that whatever the context_type is, there will be an _id field named
  // after that type. So if instead context_type was "account", the
  // course_id field would be replaced by an account_id field.
  context_type: "Course",
  course_id: 3,

  // Certain types of groups have special role designations. Currently,
  // these include: "communities", "student_organized", and "imported".
  // Regular course/account groups have a role of null.
  role: null,

  // The ID of the group's category.
  group_category_id: 4,

  // the storage quota for the group, in megabytes
  storage_quota_mb: 50
}

A Group Membership object looks like:

{
  // The id of the membership object
  id: 92

  // The id of the group object to which the membership belongs
  group_id: 17

  // The id of the user object to which the membership belongs
  user_id: 3

  // The current state of the membership. Current possible values are
  // "accepted", "invited", and "requested"
  workflow_state: "accepted"

  // Whether or not the user is a moderator of the group (the must also
  // be an active member of the group to moderate)
  moderator: true
}

List your groups GroupsController#index

GET /api/v1/users/self/groups

Returns a list of active groups for the current user.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/users/self/groups \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a list of Groups

List the groups available in a context. GroupsController#context_index

GET /api/v1/accounts/:account_id/groups

GET /api/v1/courses/:course_id/groups

Returns the list of active groups in the given context that are visible to user.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/courses/1/groups \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a list of Groups

Get a single group GroupsController#show

GET /api/v1/groups/:group_id

Returns the data for a single group, or a 401 if the caller doesn't have the rights to see it.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id> \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a Group

Create a group GroupsController#create

POST /api/v1/groups

POST /api/v1/group_categories/:group_category_id/groups

Creates a new group. Groups created using the "/api/v1/groups/" endpoint will be community groups.

Request Parameters:

  • name

    the name of the group

  • description

    a description of the group

  • is_public

    whether the group is public (applies only to community groups)

  • join_level

    parent_context_auto_join, parent_context_request, or invitation_only

  • storage_quota_mb

    The allowed file storage for the group, in megabytes. This parameter is ignored if the caller does not have the manage_storage_quotas permission.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups \ 
     -F 'name=Math Teachers' \ 
     -F 'description=A place to gather resources for our classes.' \ 
     -F 'is_public=true' \ 
     -F 'join_level=parent_context_auto_join' \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a Group

Edit a group GroupsController#update

PUT /api/v1/groups/:group_id

Modifies an existing group. Note that to set an avatar image for the group, you must first upload the image file to the group, and the use the id in the response as the argument to this function. See the File Upload Documentation for details on the file upload workflow.

Request Parameters:

  • name
  • description
  • is_public

    Currently you cannot set a group back to private once it has been made public.

  • join_level
  • avatar_id

    The id of the attachment previously uploaded to the group that you would like to use as the avatar image for this group.

  • storage_quota_mb

    The allowed file storage for the group, in megabytes. This parameter is ignored if the caller does not have the manage_storage_quotas permission.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id> \ 
     -X PUT \ 
     -F 'name=Algebra Teachers' \ 
     -F 'join_level=parent_context_request' \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a Group

Delete a group GroupsController#destroy

DELETE /api/v1/groups/:group_id

Deletes a group and removes all members.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id> \ 
     -X DELETE \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a Group

Follow a group GroupsController#follow

BETA: This API endpoint is not finalized, and there could be breaking changes before its final release.

PUT /api/v1/groups/:group_id/followers/self

Follow this group. If the current user is already following the group, nothing happens. The user must have permissions to view the group in order to follow it.

Responds with a 401 if the user doesn't have permission to follow the group.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id>/followers/self \ 
     -X PUT \ 
     -H 'Content-Length: 0' \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'

Example Response:

{
  following_user_id: 5,
  followed_group_id: 6,
  created_at: <timestamp>
}

Un-follow a group GroupsController#unfollow

BETA: This API endpoint is not finalized, and there could be breaking changes before its final release.

DELETE /api/v1/groups/:group_id/followers/self

Stop following this group. If the current user is not already following the group, nothing happens.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id>/followers/self \ 
     -X DELETE \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'

Invite others to a group GroupsController#invite

POST /api/v1/groups/:group_id/invite

Sends an invitation to all supplied email addresses which will allow the receivers to join the group.

Request Parameters:

  • invitees

    An array of email addresses to be sent invitations

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id>/invite \ 
     -F 'invitees[]=leonard@example.com&invitees[]=sheldon@example.com' \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'

List group's users GroupsController#users

GET /api/v1/groups/:group_id/users

Returns a list of users in the group.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/1/users \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a list of Users

Upload a file GroupsController#create_file

POST /api/v1/groups/:group_id/files

Upload a file to the group.

This API endpoint is the first step in uploading a file to a group. See the File Upload Documentation for details on the file upload workflow.

Only those with the "Manage Files" permission on a group can upload files to the group. By default, this is anybody participating in the group, or any admin over the group.

Group activity stream GroupsController#activity_stream

GET /api/v1/groups/:group_id/activity_stream

Returns the current user's group-specific activity stream, paginated.

For full documentation, see the API documentation for the user activity stream, in the user api.

List group memberships GroupMembershipsController#index

GET /api/v1/groups/:group_id/memberships

List the members of a group.

Request Parameters:

  • filter_states[]
    Optional

    Only list memberships with the given

    workflow_states. Allowed values are "accepted", "invited", and "requested". By default it will return all memberships.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id>/memberships \ 
     -F 'filter_states[]=invited&filter_states[]=requested' \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a list of Group Memberships

Create a membership GroupMembershipsController#create

POST /api/v1/groups/:group_id/memberships

Join, or request to join, a group, depending on the join_level of the group. If the membership or join request already exists, then it is simply returned

Request Parameters:

  • user_id

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id>/memberships \ 
     -F 'user_id=self'
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a Group Membership

Update a membership GroupMembershipsController#update

PUT /api/v1/groups/:group_id/memberships/:membership_id

Accept a membership request, or add/remove moderator rights.

Request Parameters:

  • workflow_state

    Currently, the only allowed value is "accepted"

  • moderator

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id>/memberships/<membership_id> \ 
     -F 'moderator=true'
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
Returns a Group Membership

Leave a group GroupMembershipsController#destroy

DELETE /api/v1/groups/:group_id/memberships/:membership_id

Leave a group if you are allowed to leave (some groups, such as sets of course groups created by teachers, cannot be left). You may also use 'self' in place of a membership_id.

Example Request:

curl https://<canvas>/api/v1/groups/<group_id>/memberships/<membership_id> \ 
     -X DELETE \ 
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'