Campus Cloud Student SIS Integration: Attendance

Overview

CourseKey supports an automated and bidirectional integration with the Campus Cloud Student SIS to enable real-time attendance tracking in any learning environment.  The integration handles data syncs between the two systems, for course setup, rostering, and attendance posting.  The integration is managed by CourseKey, and available for customers that use Campus Cloud Student SIS’ processes and data structures for scheduling courses, managing student course enrollments, and tracking student attendance.

As part of a new customer enablement, your Customer Success Manager and Integrations Manager at CourseKey will assist and walk you through the integration process, which includes functional and technical discovery, configuration, installation, user acceptance testing, training, and go-live. 

This article covers general information about the integration, and additional documentation is available upon request.  Contact your Customer Success Manager or submit a support request if you would like to learn more.

 

Integration Requirements

The following are minimum requirements for enabling the integration between CourseKey and the Campus Cloud Student SIS for students’ attendance tracking:

• The institution exposes the Campus Cloud endpoints for external systems to conduct requests.
  • If the SIS is hosted by the institution, the institution whitelists CourseKey’s IP addresses (to be provided during enablement) for access to the Campus Cloud Test and Production instances.
• The institution creates a designated service account for CourseKey in Campus Cloud and shares credentials for the CourseKey integration to use.
• The institution grants the designated CourseKey’s service account with access to:
  • Execute GET and/or POST requests to the API and
  • Access the Campus Cloud Student Web Portal (Test instance) for user acceptance testing and ongoing testing/data validation.
    

Campus Cloud Student SIS’ API Endpoints

The following Campus Cloud endpoints are leveraged by CourseKey’s integration for students’ attendance tracking:

GET	POST
GetCampus	PostAttendance
GetTerm
GetSessions
GetTermSchedule
GetScheduledCourse
GetCourse
GetUsers
GetUser
GetInstructors
GetStudents
GetStudentByID
GetEnrollment
GetSchedule

 

CourseKey Setup

When enabling the integration between CourseKey and the Campus Cloud Student SIS for students’ attendance tracking, our Integration Manager coordinates with an Enablement Engineer to complete setup and configuration tasks as follow (both in the CourseKey’s Staging environment, for user acceptance testing; and the Production environment):

• CourseKey will create School IDs for each of the institution’s campuses/locations and corresponding API authentication keys.
• CourseKey will create a School Configuration file for each School ID. The School Configuration file includes the mapping of modalities/delivery methods in the SIS to attendance names in CourseKey, attendance tracking settings, and default settings for online/asynchronous attendance tracking. (These settings can be reviewed with the assistance of our Integration Manager.)
• CourseKey will create Mapping Course Delivery Methods in the Campus Cloud Student SIS with the corresponding Attendance Name in CourseKey (see details below). Note that all course sections in the SIS must be associated with a Delivery Method that is mapped to a CourseKey’s Attendance Method/Name to indicate the specific configuration (settings) to use for tracking students’ attendance.
• CourseKey will generate Authorization Key(s) to allow the customer's system to authenticate and make requests to the CourseKey API.
• CourseKey will create Admin user accounts for instructors, staff, and/or school admins that need access to CourseKey and courses as an administrator.
• CourseKey will create a schedule and enable data integration jobs.
  

Campus Cloud Student SIS’ Course Delivery Methods

For the enablement of CourseKey's integration with the Campus Cloud Student SIS for students’ attendance tracking, it is required to map Course Delivery Methods in the SIS with a corresponding Attendance Method/Name in CourseKey. Our Integration Manager assists customers in determining the proper course configurations for the various use cases and setting the mapping in the CourseKey’s School Configuration file during a new enablement. These mappings are defined during functional/technical discovery calls, and can be updated any time with the assistance from our Integration Manager.

Course configurations (Attendance Method/Name) in CourseKey are determined by the Delivery Method assigned to a course in the Campus Cloud Student SIS. An Attendance Method/Name configuration determines how the CourseKey manages attendance tracking in a course, including the way in which course sessions are scheduled, the technology (sound, GPS, QR code, or face/print scan) that will be used to validate a student’s location during check-ins and check-outs, students’ check-in and check-out windows, instructors’ attendance edit window, and the like. Our Integration Manager can assist with questions regarding existing Attendance Method/Names and their configurations.

Course Delivery Methods are maintained by the institution in the Campus Cloud Student SIS, and can be configured accessing the “Academics - Setup - Delivery Method.”

 

Course Setup in the Campus Cloud Student SIS

Accurate course configuration, including delivery methods, course hours, and/or mapping IDs between the SIS, the LMS and CourseKey, is a crucial part of the setup for the integration for students’ attendance tracking between the Campus Cloud Student SIS and CourseKey.

The following are general checklists to guide required course configurations in the Campus Cloud Student SIS. (Note that this naming convention is not a requirement; however, the standard names for CourseKey’s Attendance Names/Methods (course delivery modalities) do not change.)

In-Person, Synchronous, On Ground Courses

• The course must have set start and end dates.
• The delivery method must be set to a “Synchronous” Delivery Method (name can vary)
• There must be course meetings scheduled for each in-person/ground/synchronous session.
  • The integration pulls data from the course meeting calendar in the Campus Cloud Student SIS.
  • Currently based on the limitation of weekly scheduling in Campus Cloud, updates to the schedule are not supported through the integration.
• Set Minutes per day are correct.
  

Online/Asynchronous Courses

• The course must have set start and end dates.
• The delivery method must be set to an “Asynchronous” Delivery Method (name can vary)
• Course Hours are Required
  • Asynchronous hours: Scheduled on Sunday and the minutes are calculated based on the total course weeks.
  • Synchronous hours: 0 scheduled days and minutes should be scheduled.
• A mapping ID = LMS Code
  

Blended Courses

• The course must have set start and end dates.
• The delivery method must be set to a “Blended” Delivery Method (name can vary)
• There must be course scheduled days for each in-person/ground/synchronous session.
• Course Hours are Required
  • Asynchronous hours: Scheduled on Sunday and the minutes are calculated based on the total course weeks.
  • Synchronous hours: Days and minutes for the week must be scheduled.
• A mapping ID = LMS Code
  

Data Syncs for Course Setup and Rostering in CourseKey

The institution’s SIS is the source of truth for all course and roster related data, and our integration ensures that scheduled courses, users, scheduled course meetings, and student course enrollments in the SIS are in parity with CourseKey.

The integration with the Campus Cloud Student SIS handles data syncs on a scheduled basis, with data refreshed once every 1 hour. Permissioned Admin users can review their institution’s schedule for data syncs in the Integrations Insight Dashboard.

The integration process works as follows.

Sync Courses (Scheduled Course Sections)	The process syncs any scheduled course in the SIS 14 days before its start date and through 21 days after its end date. Any course in the SIS with a matching delivery method that has not been created in CourseKey is added. Any course already in CourseKey that has been updated in the SIS is updated - exception Delivery Method changes If a course is active in the SIS, it is set to active in CourseKey.  If the course is not active or has been removed from the SIS, it is set to archived in CourseKey.
Sync Users	User accounts for primary instructors, additional instructors, and students enrolled in a new or updated course in the SIS are added or updated in CourseKey. If an instructor or student user record has been updated in the SIS (based on the record’s lastModifiedDateTime), the corresponding user record is updated in CourseKey.  If an instructor/student user is active in the SIS, it is set to active in CourseKey.  If the instructor/student user is not active or has been removed from the SIS, it is set to not active in CourseKey.
Sync Scheduled Course Meetings	Any course meeting in the SIS is added. A course meeting is created as an scheduled attendance session in CourseKey, that students can check-in to and check-out from, using the student mobile application. Updates to the schedule are not supported at this time.
Sync Student Course Enrollments	Course rosters in the SIS are synced to CourseKey. If an instructor or student is added or dropped from a course in the SIS, CourseKey reflects the change. An optional setting, per the CourseKey’s School Configuration file, can be used to filter students to enroll in a course in CourseKey, based on their school enrollment status in the SIS. By enrolling students in a course in CourseKey, they get access to that course using the student mobile application. Students enrolled in a course in CourseKey will have attendance posted back to the SIS. The assigned primary and additional instructors for a course section is the SIS along with school admins (per the CourseKey’s School Configuration), are enrolled in the course in CourseKey automatically.

Data Syncs for Posting Attendance to the Campus Cloud Student SIS

Being the source of truth for course and student data for an institution, the SIS maintains records of students’ attended and absent time and LDA in their courses. The integration with the Campus Cloud Student SIS handles attendance data synchronization on a scheduled basis, with data refreshed once every 1 hour. Permissioned Admin users can review their institution’s schedule for data syncs in the Integrations Insight Dashboard.

The integration process works as follows:

Post Attendance

The process syncs the last 7-days (including the current date) of students’ attendance data from CourseKey to the SIS.  Example: If the current date is 06/22/2023, the data sync range is from 06/16/2023 to 06/22/2023 for the date the attendance is posted/recorded. Students’ attendance records (including in-person/ground/synchronous, attendance, and adjustments to students’ in-person/ground/synchronous attendance records) are added, updated, or deleted in their corresponding students’ course records in the SIS. Attendance posting logs are recorded in CourseKey for students’ attendance records added, updated, or deleted in the SIS.  These logs can be viewed in the Integrations Insight Dashboard in the CourseKey, so that school admins and support personnel can see success and error responses related to attendance posting from CourseKey to the SIS.

 

Integration Monitoring and Support

For customers enabled with the integration between the Campus Cloud Student SIS and CourseKey for students’ attendance tracking, the process is fully-managed by CourseKey. CourseKey monitors data syncs to ensure data updates and process continuity.

Permissioned Admin users may use the Integrations Insight Dashboard to view a snapshot of recent data syncs for their institutions, including a status report on:

• SIS data-in processes: A snapshot of existing data in CourseKey and details of recent data syncs from the SIS to CourseKey, including attempted syncs, existing records and updated CourseKey data. Data is presented by record type, including courses, users, course members (enrollments) and course attendance sessions.
• SIS data-out processes: A snapshot of recent data syncs from CourseKey to the SIS, including the latest attendance data sent to the SIS.

If you have questions or need to report an incident with your institution’s SIS data syncs, submit a support request.

 

Admin FAQs

What do I do if I need to change the Delivery Method after the Course is in CourseKey?
Please reach out to the CourseKey Technical Team and ensure the Course is correct in the SIS.

What do I do if a Student’s email address needs to be changed?
Please update the Student’s email in the SIS and the CourseKey account will be updated with the next Integration Sync.

What do I do if the Student’s and/or Faculty are not able to access their Courses in CourseKey?
Please validate that the course is in CourseKey with the correct settings AND all students and Faculty as added to the Course in the SIS.

Please also Validate that all user accounts have an email associated with their SIS Account.

What do I do if a scheduled day and time need to be updated?
This will need to be updated manually in CourseKey.

 

How do I track Makeup time in CourseKey and in Campus Cloud?
Makeup Attendance will need to be manually added into CourseKey & Campus Cloud by an Administrator.