canvas-notify

Never miss turning in an assignment on Canvas again. Get notified by email when a due date is approaching.

Usage

1. Clone repository

2. cd into the project's directory, and create a virtural environment

   python3 -m venv env
   source env/bin/activate
   

3. Install dependencies

   pip3 install -r requirements.txt

4. Create a .env file

   export CANVAS_API_USER_TOKEN=""
   export SEND_FROM_EMAIL=""
   export SEND_FROM_PASS=""
   export SEND_TO_EMAIL=""
   

5. Generate an access token through Canvas.

   You are able to generate a token in Canvas under your settings: {canvas-domain}/profile/settings

   In .env, set CANVAS_API_USER_TOKEN to your token.

6. In config.py, add relevant course ids to COURSES_IDS

   To find the course ids of your courses, make a request:

   curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
   https://<canvas>/api/v1/courses?per_page=999
   

   The course id key is id

7. If you are not sending with gmail, modify SMTP_SERVER_NAME and SMTP_PORT in config.py with the respective name and port.

8. In .env, set SEND_FROM_EMAIL and SEND_FROM_PASS to the credentials of the emails of which you are sending from.

   If using Gmail, allow less secure apps. For security, it is recommended you use do not do this on your primary email.

9. In .env, set SEND_TO_EMAIL to the email to which you want to receive emails from.

10. Optional: In config.py, modify NOTIFY_DAY to the amount of days between a due date and current date.

11. Optional: To disable logging, set LOG_ERRORS in config.py to False. But, error logging may be useful should something break or change. An example of a log:

    2022-03-01 03:46:51.495281: (535, b'5.7.8 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at\n5.7.8  https://support.google.com/mail/?p=BadCredentials y28-20020a4aea3c000000b0031c0cddfbf9sm5766114ood.20 - gsmtp')
    

Hosting

You can run this script many ways.

1. Manually. It defeats the purpose of automation, but python3 run.py is foolproof I suppose.
2. Schedule a cron job, if you have a Linux or Unix machine. Modifications to the script may be necessary.
3. Or, use a cloud service. PythonAnywhere allows you to schedule daily tasks for free