Syncing Google Classroom to Notion with Google Apps Script

The Problem

IIT Jodhpur uses Google Classroom for assignments and announcements across all courses. The issue: you're enrolled in 7+ courses, each with its own stream of assignments, deadlines, and announcements. There's no unified dashboard. You end up checking each course individually, and things slip through.

I wanted a single Notion database that:

• Shows all assignments due in the next 2 weeks across all courses
• Tracks submission status (Not Submitted, Submitted, Graded, Late, Missing)
• Fetches descriptions, max points, grades, and direct links
• Shows recent announcements from all course streams
• Lets me select which courses to track each semester
• Skips assignments with no due date (professor posted a resource, not an actual task)
• Auto-syncs every hour

Architecture

Three Notion databases connected to Google Classroom via a Google Apps Script that runs on an hourly trigger.

Google Classroom API
        │
        ▼
Google Apps Script (hourly trigger)
        │
        ├──► Notion: Course Selector (all enrolled courses, Active checkbox)
        ├──► Notion: Assignments (due within 14 days, with status/grade/priority)
        └──► Notion: Announcements (last 7 days per active course)

Why Google Apps Script over Python/n8n:

• Free, runs on Google's infra — no server needed
• Native access to Classroom API (no OAuth token management)
• Built-in time-based triggers
• Editable from any browser at script.google.com

Setup

Step 1: Create a Notion Integration

Go to https://www.notion.so/profile/integrations and create a new internal integration. Name it something like Classroom Sync. Enable Read, Update, and Insert content capabilities. Save the API key (starts with ntn_).

Step 2: Create the Notion Databases

Assignments Database:

Important: Status must be a Select property, not Notion's built-in "Status" type (the one with To-do/In Progress/Done). The API treats them differently and will throw a validation error.

Announcements Database:

Course Selector Database:

Share all three databases with your integration via the ••• menu → Connections.

Grab each database's ID from its URL: notion.so/workspace/DATABASE_ID?v=... — the 32-character string before the ?.

Step 3: Create the Apps Script Project

1. Go to script.google.com → New Project
2. Click Services (+ in the sidebar) → add Google Classroom API
3. Click the ⚙ gear icon → check "Show appsscript.json manifest file in editor"
4. Replace appsscript.json with:

{
  "timeZone": "Asia/Kolkata",
  "dependencies": {
    "enabledAdvancedServices": [
      {
        "userSymbol": "Classroom",
        "version": "v1",
        "serviceId": "classroom"
      }
    ]
  },
  "oauthScopes": [
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.courses.readonly",
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.coursework.me.readonly",
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.courseworkmaterials.readonly",
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.announcements.readonly",
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.student-submissions.me.readonly",
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.rosters.readonly",
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/classroom.profile.emails",
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/script.external_request"
  ],
  "exceptionLogging": "STACKDRIVER",
  "runtimeVersion": "V8"
}

This is critical. Without explicit scopes, Apps Script defaults to teacher-level Classroom permissions. Students need classroom.coursework.me.readonly and classroom.student-submissions.me.readonly — these are student-specific scopes that let you read your own coursework and submissions.

Step 4: The Sync Script

Paste this into Code.gs. Replace the config values with your own:

const CONFIG = {
  NOTION_API_KEY: "your_ntn_key_here",
  ASSIGNMENTS_DB: "your_assignments_db_id",
  ANNOUNCEMENTS_DB: "your_announcements_db_id",
  COURSE_SELECTOR_DB: "your_course_selector_db_id",
  DUE_WITHIN_DAYS: 14,
  SHOW_OVERDUE_DAYS: 7,
  ANNOUNCEMENT_DAYS: 7,
  NOTION_API_URL: "https://api.notion.com/v1",
  NOTION_VERSION: "2022-06-28"
};

The script has four main functions:

• firstRun() — Fetches all your enrolled Classroom courses and creates entries in the Course Selector database.
• syncAll() — Reads which courses are marked Active, then syncs assignments and announcements for those courses.
• setupHourlyTrigger() — Creates an hourly Apps Script trigger for syncAll and a daily trigger to clean up old announcements.
• cleanupOldAnnouncements() — Archives announcements older than 7 days.

The full script (~300 lines) handles pagination, deduplication via Classroom IDs, rate limiting (350ms between Notion API calls), and graceful error handling for permission issues.

Step 5: First Run

1. Select firstRun from the dropdown → Run
2. Authorize when prompted (allow Classroom access)
3. Go to Notion → Course Selector → check "Active" for your current semester courses
4. Select syncAll → Run
5. Select setupHourlyTrigger → Run

How the Student-Specific Logic Works

Submission Status Mapping

The Classroom API returns submission states like NEW, TURNED_IN, RETURNED, RECLAIMED_BY_STUDENT. These are internal states, not what a student thinks. The script maps them:

NEW / CREATED → "Not Submitted" (or "Missing" if past due)
TURNED_IN → "Submitted" (or "Late" if submission.late is true)
RETURNED + assignedGrade → "Graded"
RETURNED without grade → "Returned"
RECLAIMED_BY_STUDENT → "Not Submitted" (you took it back to edit)

Priority Auto-Tagging

Based on days remaining and submission status:

Already submitted/graded → "Done"
Past due + not submitted → "Overdue"
Due today → "Due Today"
Due tomorrow → "Due Tomorrow"
Due within 7 days → "This Week"
Due within 14 days → "Next Week"

Grade Formatting

When a grade is returned, it shows as 85/100 (85%). If only a draft grade exists (teacher hasn't finalized), it shows Draft: 85. Otherwise —.

Deduplication

Every assignment and announcement gets a Classroom ID stored in Notion. On each sync, the script queries existing entries and checks: does this ID already exist? If yes, update the existing entry (status might have changed, grade might have been added). If no, create a new one.

Gotchas I Hit Along the Way

1. Notion's "Status" vs "Select" property type

Notion has two similar-looking property types: "Status" (with kanban-style To-do/In Progress/Done) and "Select" (simple dropdown). The API format is different for each. If you create a "Status" type property and send Select-format data, you get: Status is expected to be status. Use Select.

2. Rich text vs Number for Classroom IDs

Classroom course IDs are large numbers like 824043424821. If you accidentally create the Classroom Course ID property as a Number type in Notion, the script writes rich_text format data and Notion silently ignores it — no error, just empty fields. Then the deduplication breaks (everything looks new), and syncs fail because the script can't read back the course ID. Always use Rich text for ID fields.

3. OAuth scopes for students

The default Classroom scopes Apps Script adds are teacher-level (classroom.coursework.students.readonly). Students get "The caller does not have permission" errors. You need to explicitly set classroom.coursework.me.readonly in appsscript.json. The .me. scopes are student-specific — they let you read only your own data.

4. Notion API rate limits

Notion allows 3 requests per second. Without any throttling, the script fires requests back-to-back and starts getting 429 errors after ~20 calls. A 350ms sleep between requests fixes this completely.

5. Announcements without creator profiles

Students often can't look up instructor profiles via the Classroom API (permission denied on UserProfiles.get). The script catches this gracefully and falls back to "Instructor" as the poster name.

Semester Switching

When a new semester starts:

1. New courses auto-appear in Course Selector on the next sync
2. Uncheck old courses, check new ones
3. That's it — the script only fetches data for Active courses

Old assignments and announcements stay in the database for reference. You can archive them manually or set up a view filtered by semester.

Recommended Notion Views

Create these filtered/sorted views in your Assignments database for a proper dashboard:

• Urgent — Filter: Status ≠ Done, Sort by Days Left ascending
• By Course — Group by Course, Sort by Due Date
• Missing — Filter: Status = Missing or Status = Overdue
• Completed — Filter: Status = Submitted or Status = Graded

Takeaway

Google Classroom's API is well-documented but has student-specific quirks around permissions and scopes. Google Apps Script is the path of least resistance for this kind of Google → external service sync — no server, no tokens, no cron jobs.

The total setup takes about 20 minutes. After that, you get a live Notion dashboard that updates hourly with all your assignments, statuses, grades, and announcements across every course — without opening Classroom once.