Adding Students to a Course via API

cpesther

Goal: Given a student's name and email address, I'd like to get them added to a course using the Canvas API and Python. For my purposes, either creating a Canvas account for them or sending them an invitation email to self register would be acceptable. I am using a Canvas Free for Teacher account and am the instructor for this course with a valid and working API token. 

Problem: I have yet to find the a proper API endpoint and data structure that yield any positive results for either of the two options above. The API documentation is rather vague, and I am unable to find my account ID parameter (perhaps because I'm on a free account?) that would be needed for the request structure in the documentation. 

Attempts: I have seen several older threads all with different solutions. For all attempts, here's what my header structure looks like. 

api_token = token goes here
c_headers = {
    'Authorization': f'Bearer {api_token}'
}

Here's what I've tried so far. 

The option below yields a 400 response...

url = "https://canvas.instructure.com/api/v1/accounts/self/users"
data = {
    'user[name]':'Johnny Doe',
    'user[short_name]':'John Doe',
    'user[sortable_name]':'Doe, Johnny',
    'pseudonym[unique_id]':'johndoe@johndoe.com'
}

response = requests.post(url, headers=c_headers, data=data)

...and this one below also returns 400. 

url = "https://canvas.instructure.com/api/v1/accounts/self/users"
data = {
    'name':'Johnny Doe',
    'short_name':'John Doe',
    'sortable_name':'Doe, Johnny',
    'unique_id':'johndoe@johndoe.com'
}

response = requests.post(url, headers=c_headers, data=data)

This option below with a different data structure yields a 500 response.

url = "https://canvas.instructure.com/api/v1/accounts/self/users"
data = {
    'user': {
        'name': 'Johnny Doe',
        'short_name': 'John Doe',
        'sortable_name':'Doe, Johnny'
    },
    'pseudonym': {
        'unique_id': 'johndoe@johndoe.com'
    }
}

response = requests.post(url, headers=c_headers, data=data)

 

Ultimately, I just need a solution that I can feed a name and email so that a student will get automatically added or invited to my course once they complete an external registration form, so I am open to other suggestions or workflows that achieve this same result. 

Thanks!

Chris

Hi @cpesther,

I think you may need to add 'pseudonym[force_self_registration]':True to your data dictionary for example #1 on the free-for-teacher instance so the user will get the registration email to create their password and everything.

For example #3, the data format you're using there looks to be JSON, so on your requests call, you'd change data=data to json=data and I think that should then yield the same result as call #1 (to get it to be successful, you'd need to add 'force_self_registration':True to the 'pseudonym' dictionary there too).

Let us know if this works!

-Chris