Connect Google Classroom to NudgeLearn Grader

Updated 19 September 2026

Connecting Google Classroom takes one button and one Google consent screen. Sign in, open your Account page, find the section headed Connected apps and press Connect on Google Classroom. Google asks you to approve six permissions, and approving returns you to the same page with the connection listed. From then on the import wizard at /grader/import walks a course, an assignment, the students who turned work in, the grading itself, and finally sending the scores back to the Classroom gradebook. Sync comes with every paid plan and is on as soon as the plan is. Two things catch teachers out on the first run, and both are further down this page: the assignment type starts on Homework, and Google refuses grades on coursework it did not see created.

Connecting, then the first import

1
Open Account and find Connected apps
Sign in, open your Account page and scroll to the section headed Connected apps. If you are on a paid plan the Connect buttons are there. If you are on the free plan the section tells you sync is on paid plans instead.
2
Approve the six permissions Google asks for
Connecting hands you to Google’s own consent screen. It lists six permissions, and the list below says what each one is for. Approving brings you back to the Account page, which confirms the connection.
3
Open the import wizard and pick Google Classroom
Go to /grader/import. If Classroom is your only connected app the wizard skips this step and loads your courses straight away.
4
Pick the course
Choose the course. The list holds the active courses you teach, so an archived course, or one you are in as a student, will not appear. Picking it is also what brings the roster across.
5
Pick the assignment, and set its type first
Choose the assignment, and set the type before you continue. It starts on Homework, so an essay left alone is created as homework. There is also a Create in Google Classroom option here, which makes a new assignment and posts it to the class stream. That matters more than it looks: see the limits below.
6
Choose which turned-in files to grade
The wizard lists who turned something in and the file each one attached. Pick the ones to grade. The roster imports first, then each picked submission is graded and filed under that student.
7
Send the grades back
The last step sends each student’s latest grade for that assignment back to Classroom. Every student is reported separately, so one refusal never hides the rows that did land.

What each Google permission is for

Six are requested, and this is the whole list. Four are Classroom’s own, one is Drive, one is your address.

See your Classroom courses: So the wizard can list the courses you teach and you can pick one.
See the rosters of those courses: So each student comes across once, with an id that later lets a grade find its way back to the right person.
See student submissions: So the wizard knows who turned work in and what they attached.
Manage coursework and grades: The only permission that writes. It is what puts a score on a submission when you press send, and what creates an assignment if you ask for one.
See the Drive files students turned in: Read-only. A Classroom submission is a Drive file, and Classroom will hand over its name but not its contents, so reading the actual page needs this.
See your email address: To label the connection on your Account page so you can tell two Google accounts apart.

What comes across with a course

The course becomes a class, using the course section as its grade label. Its students become the class roster. A student already on that roster by name is adopted and given their Classroom id rather than added twice, and an email address is filled in only where one was missing.

That is why the import is safe to re-run: the same course always lands on the same class, and a second pass adds the students who joined since without disturbing the ones already there.

What this will not do

Grades only go back onto assignments created through the wizard. This is Google’s rule, not ours. Pushing a grade onto coursework a teacher made by hand in Classroom returns a 403 and the wizard shows you what it said: Google only allows grades on assignments created by NudgeLearn. Use the CSV export for this one. Two ways round it, both fine: create the assignment from the wizard’s Create in Google Classroom option at the start, or grade as normal and take the CSV export into the gradebook.

Only papers tagged to a student are sent. An untagged paper has nowhere to go, and the push reports it rather than guessing. If a student was added to the roster after the import, re-import the roster so they carry a Classroom id.

An essay assignment has to have its prompt and rubric saved first. Essay grading refuses without both, so importing essays onto a brand new assignment fails until you open the assignment and save the writing prompt and the rubric. Do that first, then run the import.

Only files are importable. Drive attachments come across. A link, a YouTube video or a Google Form does not, and neither does a typed submission with nothing attached.

Google Classroom and Canvas are the only two. There is no third integration. Every other gradebook goes through the CSV export, which needs no setup at all.

Common questions

Do I need a paid plan to connect Google Classroom?

Yes. Classroom and Canvas sync comes with every paid plan, and it is on as soon as the plan is, from Connected apps on your Account page. It is derived from your plan at the moment you look, so nothing has to be switched on by hand and nothing is left behind if the plan later changes. A free account we have granted early access to can also connect.

Why does it ask for access to Google Drive?

Because a Classroom submission is a Drive file. Classroom hands over the name and id of what a student turned in, but not its contents, so reading the actual page needs Drive. The permission is read-only and it is used to fetch the files on the assignment you picked in the wizard.

What does it change inside my Classroom?

It reads courses, rosters and student submissions. It writes in exactly two places, both on your instruction: the grade on a student submission when you press send at the end of the wizard, and a new assignment if you choose Create in Google Classroom instead of picking an existing one. It never deletes anything and never posts to the class stream on its own.

Can it grade a link or a typed answer a student submitted?

No. Only files come across. A Drive file attached to a submission is imported; a bare link is listed but has nothing to grade, and YouTube videos and Google Forms are dropped entirely. A student who typed straight into the submission box has nothing attached for us to read.

Will running the import again duplicate my class or my students?

No. A class is matched on the provider and the course id, so the same course always lands on the same class. A student is matched on their Classroom id first, and then on their name, so a student you had already typed onto the roster by hand is adopted rather than duplicated. Re-running an import is safe.

Do I have to reconnect every so often?

Normally no. The stored token is refreshed automatically when it is within two minutes of expiring. If you revoke access from your Google account, the refresh fails and the app treats you as not connected, which sends you back to the Connect button on the Account page.

How do I disconnect it?

Account, Connected apps, Disconnect. That deletes the tokens we hold, so nothing here can reach your Classroom again until you reconnect. It does not remove the permission from your Google account itself, which you do at myaccount.google.com if you want it gone from both ends. Grades already in your Classroom gradebook stay where they are, and so do the classes and rosters that were imported.