I’ve been looking through the Google Docs API docs but can’t find anything about getting or setting the person assigned to a comment. Does anyone know if there’s a way to do this? Maybe there’s a trick or roundabout method to figure out who’s assigned to a comment or their email address? I’d really appreciate any help or ideas on this. It seems like a basic feature but I’m stumped on how to access this info programmatically. Has anyone else run into this issue or found a workaround? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
I’ve actually encountered this issue before while working on a project that involved automating some Google Docs processes. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there’s no direct way to retrieve or set comment assignee information through the Google Docs API. It’s a limitation that can be quite frustrating.
One workaround I found was to use the Google Drive API in conjunction with the Docs API. You can fetch the comment thread using the Drive API, which sometimes includes more metadata about comments, including assignees. It’s not perfect, but it might give you some of the information you’re looking for.
Another option, though more manual, is to parse the comment content itself. If your team follows a specific format for assigning comments (like ‘@username’), you could potentially extract that information programmatically. It’s not ideal, but it might be a temporary solution until Google adds this functionality to their API.
I’ve wrestled with this exact problem in a recent project. While the Google Docs API is great for many things, it’s surprisingly limited when it comes to comment assignees. Here’s what I found worked as a decent workaround:
Use the Google Drive API to fetch the full comment thread. It often contains more metadata than what’s available through the Docs API alone. You’ll need to use the files.comments.list method, which returns more detailed comment information.
If that doesn’t give you what you need, consider implementing a custom tagging system within your comments. We used a format like [ASSIGNED:[email protected]] at the start of each comment. Then we could parse this information programmatically.
It’s not ideal, but it got us through until we could find a better solution. Keep an eye on the Google Workspace developer updates – they might add this functionality in the future.
i looked into this too and its a pain. google needs to step up their game! one thing u could try is using the drive api like JollyMusic3 said. its not perfect but might work. or maybe check if theres any new beta features? sometimes they sneak in new stuff without announcing it. good luck!