Securely Provide Access to Your Student Information System - Ed-Fi File-Based

Overview

We have a file-based connection to Ed-Fi inspired files in which we work with the educational data agencies to set up a nightly drop for a district's files to a secure FTP (SFTP) site.

Schoolzilla creates an FTP site and provides the data agency with the secure credentials. Once the data files are added to the FTP (more information below), then a nightly job will be set up so that the SIS data are refreshed on a nightly basis.

Creating your EDFI Files

1. Review and create files meetings specifications contained within:
   • Batch 1: Enrollment
   • Batch 2: Attendance
   • Batch 3: Behavior
   • Batch 4: Grades
2. File names should match the tab name in the batch file above (e.g. "Staff.csv)
3. Ensure all files are comma separated .csv files with proper escaping for special characters and carriage returns.

Setting up exports for current year data

1. Use a tool like Cyberduck (for Macs) or FileZilla (For PCs) to connect to an SFTP site set up for you by Schoolzilla using credentials provided. If you have not been provided credentials to your SFTP site, please contact support.
2. Create a folder within the import folder for your current year's data. We recommend "Current" as the folder name so you do not need to update the location files drop every year.
3. Schedule all files to be dropped nightly to the newly created folder. The list of expected files is shown below.

Setting up exports for historical data

1. Use a tool like Cyberduck (for Macs) or FileZilla (For PCs) to connect to an SFTP site set up for you by Schoolzilla using credentials provided. If you have not been provided credentials to your SFTP site, please contact support.
2. Create a folder within the import folder for your historic data. We recommend "Historic" as the folder name.
3. Generate historic files with up to 5 years of historical data and drop into "Historic" folder. Note: File names should be the same as the current year. Historical files are only differentiated by their file location.

Frequently Asked Questions
 

Our student race values do not match the Ed-Fi defined values. What can we do?

If this is the case, we recommend your team provide the optional StudentRace.csv file from Batch 1, the following logic will then be automatically be used:

• If a student has a HispanicLatinoEthnicity value in the Student.csv file of 1, the student will be considered “Hispanic”.
• If a student has multiple records in the StudentRace.csv file, the student will be considered “Multi”.
• Otherwise the value from the RaceTypeID field will be used. (Note: while we will translate the standard code values of 1, 2, 3 etc. from the OldEthnicityType tab, any string value you put in that field will be used if it is not a recognized code)

Our student characteristic values do not match the Ed-Fi defined values (e.g. EL Status). What can we do?

If this is the case, we recommend your team provide the StudentProgramAssociation.csv file (see Batch 1 files above). We can use the active (today’s date is between the begindate and enddate) to specify a student’s current characteristic value (e.g. language fluency, gifted & talented status etc.)

Please use a consistent ProgramTypeID for your student characteristic (e.g. Language Fluency = “ELLSTATUS”) and then use the Program Name to indicate the relevant status (e.g. “Reclassified”, “ELL”). Our support team will then just need to know which ProgramTypeID to use for which student characteristic to make the required updates on our end.

What is the level of granularity of the StudentProgramAssocation file?

This file should contain one row per student per program per enrollment period. For example, if Jane is in the homeless program and has a 504 plan that ended on 12/1/2021, then she would have one record showing her homeless program status with a start date of 9/1/2021 and no end date and a second row showing her 504 plan status with a start date of 9/1/2021 and an end date of 12/1/2021.

What is the difference between LocalEducationalAgencyID, EducationOrganizationID, StateOrganizationID, and SchoolID?

• LocalEducationAgencyID is the district's state ID
• EducationOrganizationID and SchoolID are the same and represent the school's ID within the SIS
• StateOrganizationID is the school's state ID

What does IdentificationCode in the StudentIdentificationCode file represent?

We use this field to populate the student's state ID if the StudentIdentificationSystemTypeID has a value of 10 (marked as state ID type).