Classic - Exporting Attendance from Enriching Students

This article will help explain some of the confusion related to exporting attendance. Learn about:

• The Process
• The Key Role of the Student Identifier (ID)
• Potential for Confusion
• Choosing the Correct Student Identifier (ID)

SECTION 1

The Process

Enriching Students supports the exporting of attendance data.

• This process includes the creation of an export in spreadsheet format, at a predefined time, once per day.
• The export is sent to a folder that is shared with the school, by means of sftp.
• The school has approximately 24 hours to retrieve the export from the sftp folder before it is overwritten by the next scheduled export.

Based on the format of the export, the school may be able to import it directly into their student management system, either manually or in an automated fashion. This is determined by the functionality of the system and the school’s ability to craft an automation process.

SECTION 2

The Key Role of the Student Identifier

Perhaps the single most important element of the attendance export coming from Enriching Students is the student Identifier, or ID.

The student Identifier is the link between the data that is in Enriching Students and the school’s student management system.

While this seems rather straight forward in concept, when the data in Enriching Students comes through Clever, or a OneRoster export there is a potential issue: the student Identifier in the Enriching Students export may not match the student Identifier in the student management system.

This makes it impossible to apply or import the attendance results into the student management system. Let’s see how this can happen.

SECTION 3

Potential for Confusion

In the following diagram, a school is exporting student data from an SMS (e.g. PowerSchool, Aspen, etc.) to Clever. 

Within the SMS there are three fields that contain student identifiers: Field #1, Field #2, and Field #3. These student IDs could come from the state, from the school district, or even originate within the SMS. The point is, each of these could be used to identify the student.

• Our focus turns first to Field #1. This value makes its way, not only to Clever where it is mapped to the SIS_ID field, but it even passes on the Enriching Students where it is stored as the External_Id. Clever states that the SIS_Id is a reliable student identifier, so Enriching Students uses it as the primary means to identify students as they relate to the school.

It is clear from the diagram that the other two fields are also imported to Enriching Students.

• If the school relies on Field #2 to identify students, a corresponding decision needs to be made when creating the export within Enriching Students. A student record within Enriching Students will contain multiple values that can be used to identify the student. If the export from Enriching Students includes a “student identifier” that differs from what the school is expecting, the data from Enriching Student will not “match up” to student data in the school’s SMS. For example, the export from Enriching Students could contain the SIS_ID while the school is expecting to receive the Student_Number.

SECTION 4

Choosing the Correct Student Identifier

The key to a successful export from Enriching Students, one that will match student data in the SMS, is proper selection of the student identifier column.  Since Enriching Students has all three columns in this case, one could start at the school side and verify which column is being used to identify students in the SMS. Then, when the export is defined in Enriching Students, we can be sure to include the proper matching value or field.

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