Google Drive backup

Greatbook can keep a copy of your gradebook in your own Google Drive, so you can pick it up on another computer. It is switched off until you switch it on, and it is the only part of the app that uses the internet at all.

This is planned as the paid addition to an otherwise free app. It is not switched on for teachers yet, so if you do not see it in Settings, that is why.

What it actually does

You sign in with Google, in Google's own window, and the app receives permission to use Google Drive. From then on your gradebook is copied into your Drive whenever it changes, alongside the copy on your computer. Sign in on a second computer and your gradebook is there.

The copy goes to your Google Drive and nowhere else. There is no server of ours in the middle, because there is no server of ours. Your students' names and scores are never sent to us, and we could not read them if we wanted to.

What Greatbook is allowed to see

The permission asked for is the narrowest one Google offers, called drive.file. It means the app can only see files it created itself, plus any file you specifically hand it with Google's own file picker.

It cannot list your Drive. It cannot open your other documents, your photos, or anything a colleague shared with you. Those files are not hidden from it by politeness; Google does not give them to it.

That is also why signing in is ordinary and quick. Broader Drive permissions would put your whole Drive in reach, and Google would rightly make the sign-in screen say so.

Turning it off

Two ways, and both work.

In the app, Settings, under Sync, has a switch for Google Drive. Turning it off stops the copying. The file already in your Drive is yours and is left where it is; delete it from Drive if you want it gone.

You can also withdraw the permission from Google's side, at myaccount.google.com/permissions, which cuts off the app's access whatever the app thinks.

If your school blocks it

Many districts turn off third-party apps for school Google accounts. If yours has, Greatbook notices and simply does not offer Drive, rather than offering it and then failing when you take it up.

Everything else in the app works exactly the same. Drive is an addition to Greatbook, not something it depends on.

What we collect

Nothing. The full statement is on the privacy policy page, and it is short, because there is very little to describe.