Styjun

The Chromeosdevices API relies on the deviceID parameter to find devices on the back end. That has caused a bunch of confusion and frustration on my end. Initially, I thought the deviceID was the serial # of the device. We typically do all searches for device on Google's Admin console using the serial #'s, so it just made sense. I realize now that the deviceID is not the serial #.

Is there a way, then, to translate serial # to deviceId? I'm thinking I may need to export out the entire directory in some table, and then do look ups using the serial # as the reference key. But, it would be nice to figure out a programmatic way to do it. I tried searching stack overflow to no avail.

Thanks,

Figured this out. What a headache. First, if you're developing an Apps Script, there is no need to access the Admin Directory API via UrlFetchApp and trying to get it to work with Oauth2 libraries. All you need is the direct API, which I wish was illustrated in Google's API document and API explorer. Instead, use Admin SDK directly. You can create a script file with a bunch of helper functions to call from your main script:

function getDeviceId(serialnum)

var optionalArgs =
projection: 'BASIC',
query: serialnum,;

var chromebook = (AdminDirectory.Chromeosdevices.list("my_customer", optionalArgs)) ;

var chromebookDevID = chromebook.chromeosdevices[0].deviceId;

return chromebookDevID ;

For example, you call this function, pass in the serial number, and it will return the chromebook's deviceId as such

var deviceId = getDeviceId('5CD81072C4');

From this, you can also have helper functions to enable / disable chromebooks:

function disableChromeBook(deviceId)

AdminDirectory.Chromeosdevices.action("action": "disable", "my_customer", deviceId) ;

function enableChromeBook(deviceId)

AdminDirectory.Chromeosdevices.action("action": "reenable", "my_customer", deviceId)

I found the Google API document to be really obtuse. I hope this helps someone else out. Took me awhile.