Classic - When Will Clever Data Auto Synchronize?

 

Many people have been asking, when will we be automatically syncing data with Clever?

 

The Issues

We have to look at Clever as "the source of truth".  That means that data changed in Enriching Students will be lost when a Clever update is run.  That is, data that comes from Clever will be reset back to to what Clever tells us the data should be.  

 

At this point, we've heard from many schools telling us they've made significant changes to their staff data and don't want to lose it to a Clever update!

 

This was not anticipated and we're having to make adjustments to support this.

 

What we're working on now is a feature that will allows schools to update Student and Roster data ONLY from within ES in a manual manner.  Simply put, there will be a button that can be clicked, that will cause a sync between Clever and ES.  

 

This is NOT a long term solution.  We're starting off with a manual process because we want:

1. Schools to run the process
2. Check their data
3. Ensure that things are happening as expected

If we start off with an automated process, many schools could be surprised about how their data  changed.  With a manual process, schools will know they've run the process and will know to review their data and ensure there aren't any surprises.

Once we've heard back from schools and are comfortable that the sync process is working as expected, we'll make any needed changes to the automated nightly process and activate it.  The manual approach will always be in place; if an update is required from Clever before the nightly process runs, the manual approach will be available.

 

We're currently testing our manual approach; it will be rolled out on Wednesday, September 5th 2018.

 

What About Staff Data

Staff data will be different.  At this point, no schools have expressed any concern about modifying Student data in ES and having those changes overwritten by Clever.  We have heard from MANY schools about changes they've made to Staff data and the impact that an update from Clever would have.

 

With that in mind, we are not going to support a nightly update of staff data from Clever at this point.  New staffers will have to be added to ES via the Settings, Manage Staff.  There are just too many variables in place and too many unknowns.

 

We believe this to be the proper balance, at least for now.  The movement of students is what schools are most concerned about.  If we take that off everyone's plate, we're hoping that having to deal with staff data won't be too troublesome.