2019-10-29 Update

This update is primarily about importing Staff and Students.

The Current Approach

Currently, when we import data, the records are adjusted based on:

• The SIS Id, if you're school uses CSV files.
• The Clever Id, if your school uses Clever.

There are several problems with this approach.

1. When a school syncs data via Clever, Enriching Students doesn't allow for manual entry of staff or students.  This is due to most users not having access to Clever and not being able to provide the Clever Id.
2. If a user is deleted and added back to the SIS, or if certain values are changed in Clever, the user can end up with a new SIS or Clever Id.  
   1. This causes the import process to fail, because it appears the email address, which we use to authenticate a user, is now associated with a different user.
   2. Because most people don't have access to the SIS Id or the Clever Id, there isn't any way for the average user to fix a broken import process.

The New Approach

When an import process is run, either manually or via the automated import process, the process will no longer rely on the SIS Id or the Clever Id.  Instead, the process will match the imported records to the existing records via the email address.  In analyzing the issues, we've seen the email address changes far less frequently than does the SIS Id or the Clever Id.  Furthermore, it's a value that users have control over.

What Does This Mean for You

Most importantly, if a user's email address has changed in your SIS, you must update the email address manually in Enriching Students before an import is run.  Failure to do this will cause the user record to be duplicated or will cause the process to fail entirely.

The biggest benefit is you will be able to manually add users to Enriching Students, even if you're using Clever.  If your schools uses Clever, you'll need to provide a unique Id for the Clever Id field.  When the import next runs, the import process will automatically update the Clever Id to what Clever provides, based on matching the email address.

Conclusion

In conclusion, schools will have less import failures.  When a failure does occur, it's far more likely you as a user will be able to fix the problem, by updating the email address.  And because we're validating against a value that users control, the application can allow you to add users manually, even when the school is using Clever to sync the data.