How Can You Delete Sub-Accounts Programmatically via Canvas API?

[rsfoley_canvas]

I can create a Sub-Account using the Canvas API using:

POST /api/v1/accounts/:account_id/sub_accounts

However, there doesn't seem to be a public API to use to delete that which was just created via the Canvas API. I would think it should just be:

DELETE /api/v1/accounts/:account_id/sub_accounts/:sub_account_id

I did see that there is a private POST endpoint that is used to delete a Sub-Account using the parameter "_method" with the value of "delete". However, you cannot call this with the API key, and I tried a lot of different ways to get this to work and I can't as its access token seems to change for each call.

Is there a public way to do this?

If not can Canvas developers please add it preferable in a RESTful way like the above suggested DELETE.  I do have an open issue on GitHub regarding this and the fact that DELETEs that you do have don't seem to really delete things just hide or deactivate them, which is really just an update (aka PUT or PATCH).

Cannot Delete Sub-accounts & Users via Canvas API using API Key · Issue #1128 · instructure/canvas-l... 

[James]

You are correct that there is no public-facing API to make that work. Even calling the API with a POST and then setting the _method : DELETE like you mentioned doesn't work.

I disagree with the assertion that delete should actually remove the information instead of masking it. If you delete it, it is gone. There is no way to track it or recover it. An instructor could accidentally (or shudder -- maliciously) delete work from students and claim they never got it. Marking it as deleted removes it from the system but still allows it to be recovered. As a rule, that is the better approach, but I agree that there are some cases where a permanent removal of the information may be better for privacy.

If you need to play around with things that you don't want to be in the system long term, then play around in your beta instance of Canvas. That replaced every week and there is no permanent long term storage.

If you are wanting to delete things from the production instance so that you can reuse the IDs, this is generally a bad idea and you should pick better ways of identifying things so that the identifier is always unique. However, in the case of SIS IDs, should you need to reuse them, there are usually solutions available to work around that situation.

In the meantime, if you need to delete a subaccount, you can write some JavaScript that will do it and then log into your account using a browser and paste the code into the browser developer tools console. If you need it to happen programmatically without any intervention from a human, one solution is to write some code that acts on a headless browser. However, if you're deleting that many sub-accounts on a regular basis, it may be that there is a more efficient way to manage things.

[rsfoley_canvas]

I think you are not getting the point of DELETE, delete means well delete.

I am all for the ability to hide and archive students, teachers, courses, and accounts. However, you have to someday remove them from the data source when you no longer need them. You cannot keep years and decades of data because you may someday want to recover it. That doesn't scale, and in some cases, there are legal requirements and obligations that require the data to be really gone after a period of time.

So this has nothing to do with "playing around" as yeah that is always done in test environments. I am talking about really needing to delete something from canvas and wanting it and requiring that it really be gone. That this isn't something a teacher would do, so I am not talking about this from a TEACHER POV. I am okay if this is only via the Canvas API and a special area for the site admin to only.

This is a real requirement that Canvas should support. That the current "delete" should just be called Archive, Remove, or something similar. That deletes are not something that a teacher should be able to do in many cases but this requirement is about the teachers it's about the IT departments, administrators, legal departments, and so forth.