Checking if an Assignment has an "Assign To" for "Everyone Else"

[JamesSekcienski]

I'm building a custom report that helps to check if due dates have been set for all assignments. 

• In my first version, I had built it to look at the due date of the assignment.
• In my second version, I also had it look to see if there was an Assignment Override node for "Mastery Paths" and if it had a due date set.  This was because the assignment itself would have a null due date, but this "Mastery Paths" override would have the due date for those it was assigned to.

Now I'm looking to make a further improvement to handle Assignment Overrides in general to make sure they all have a due date set.  I was able to determine how to check each Assignment Override for a due date.  However, the Assignment Overrides don't include "Everyone Else" as an assignment override.  Instead, the "Everyone Else" date settings are applied directly to the assignment.

So now I'm trying to determine an efficient way to know if an assignment with overrides has an "Everyone Else" setting or not.  This is so I handle check that if the due date is null and there are Assignment Overrides, I need to know if it is null since it isn't assigned to "Everyone Else" or if it is null since a due date wasn't set for "Everyone Else". 

I'm trying just to use the Assignments and Assignment Overrides endpoints, but I'm starting to think I may need to utilize submissions or check other students who aren't in the Assignment Overrides to know if they are assigned it. 

If anyone has any suggestions on an efficient way to determine this, please let me know.

[melodyc_lam · Accepted solution]

@JamesSekcienski 

Yeah, this problem is interesting! I wish that "Everyone Else" was listed in the assignment overrides, but as you've stated, it's not, which makes a solution less straightforward 😉

I think I found a solution --

You can list all the assignments in the course, and check the "all_dates" node. 

Edit: you need to add "all_dates" as part of your includes[] parameter.

This node will contain any Assignment Overrides and also an extra item in the array for "Everyone"/"Everyone Else" where the attribute "base" is equal to true.

Documentation

Hope this helps!

[JamesSekcienski]

@melodyc_lam 

Thank you for discovering and sharing this idea.  I'm going to do some testing with it and hopefully this fully resolves the issue.