Schoolzilla offers two connection options for providing your data to the KIPP Foundation.
ODBC
An ODBC connection allows Schoolzilla to connect nightly to the back end database of your SIS and ingest and process your enrollment data automatically. *Please note this option is not available for all SISes.
What’s required: A VPN username and password and an ODBC username and password. If your SIS is hosted by a vendor (ex: Powerschool, Illuminate), you can obtain this information from the vendor.
Pros: Schoolzilla can connect to and refresh your data nightly. After supporting the initial setup, data are refreshed nightly without any step on your part. In the event that your connection username or password changes or expires, we will reach out to request that you submit new connection information to My Data.
Cons: Some regions may have concerns about allowing Schoolzilla to connect to their student information system. Please know that we take student data privacy and security very seriously. As part of the Foundation project, we draw the minimum amount of data needed to track student demographics and enrollments. Additionally, we do not ingest any fields that contain particularly sensitive information, like social security number. Lastly, our queries are read-only and non-blocking and do not disrupt any functions of your SIS. Additionally, we may not be able to connect to some student information systems directly depending on how they are hosted (for example, by a local district), or if we do not have a connector type already created. If you have questions about whether your SIS is supported, please reach out to Schoolzilla Support.
Enrollment Template
The enrollment template is a file upload alternative to a direct ODBC connection. In this option you need to populate two template files with student demographic information and another with student enrollment information. These files are year specific. Please see the Enrollment Template article and recording of our enrollment template upload webinar.
What’s required: You will need to download and populate the template files with data exported from your SIS. To submit the data to Schoolzilla, you have two options:
- You upload the populated templates to the Enrollment Template form on My Data manually.
- We can support data ingestion from an FTP site, to which you could set up an automated file export. Please reach out to Schoolzilla support for more information.
Pros: You can bring in data from outside your SIS as needed to complete the template.
Cons: The enrollment template must be completed and uploaded by hand or via an automated export set up from your SIS. Schoolzilla has provided instructions and a webinar, and can assist in data verification, but sometimes resolving data issues can require lots of back and forth to resolve errors.