Getting Started
Documentation for working with the Ready Education Data Integration Node
The academic institution software landscape is cluttered with specialized software systems, each handling a specific set of user functions -- enrolment, payments, class work and careers. Providing a seamless experience to students is often a challenge since so much of the data resides in different databases.
Through integration, the Ready Education platform can provide a seamless experience for students to access important information, while leaving specialized functionality to the software that has already implemented it.
The Ready Education implementation team is focused on making it easy and painless to share data that can be shown to students on the mobile app. Our top priority is student data privacy and security. We work with our partners to outline how data will be used, how it will be consumed and how it will be disposed of.
The Ready Education Data Integration Node is a flexible software stack built and supported in-house. It is comprised mainly of APIs (consuming and providing) and flat file transfer processes. No two institutions are the same, so our node is built with flexibility at the core.
This document will guide you through the required steps to get the node set up for your institution.
Your Integration Contact is ready to help you.
As a customer of Ready Education, you have been assigned an Implementation Manager. This person has been tasked with making sure your institutional data is able to be imported successfully and securely. If you have any questions about any of the information contained in this document, please do not hesitate to reach out to your Implementation Manager.
General Information
Information regarding file structure, contents and format.
The name for the CSV file used in Integrations will be:
<school code>_<file type>.csv
The fields are as follows:
- <school code> is an arbitrary code to quickly denote the institution - typically an abbreviation of the institution name, you can choose your own as long as it is unique (will be verified with your Implementation Manager)
- <file type> is “course-info” for the course data and “student-info” for the student data.
Note that the fields in the file name are separated by underscores ("_").
An example of a file name is:
McGill_student-info.csv
The CSV file containing your student information is transferred to Ready Education using SSH File Transfer Protocol Server (SFTP).
To access the server and transfer data, your integration contact will provide you with:
- the URL or address of the SFTP server
- a username and password to gain access.
The node regularly updates stored data throughout the day, therefore files can be transferred at any frequency. The required minimum is one update per 24-hour period, to keep the data minimally up to date for students.
You can use the following Boolean values when transferring data throughout the Ready Education integration system:
- 1 / 0
- True / False
- Yes / No
- Oui / Non
The data file used in an integration with the node should follow a specific format but can be modified to make integrations easier. Speak with your integration contact to request support for format differences.
1) Text fields must be separated by a pipe character ("|").
2) The contents of any text field should be enclosed within double quotes.
3) Double quotes should be escaped using a backspace (\")
4) ODIN will handle return carriages ie. line breaks, do not escape them using '\n'
Here is an example of three fields together on one row of a sample data file:
"Robert's Apples"|"Oranges and Lemons"|"Grapefruit"
"Bananas, a string with \"double quotes\" in it"|"More Fruit!"|"Field with a
line break in it"|"More Fruit"
Each file should contain (student and course data) should contain all the data (not a delta from the previous file). The data should span across the current semester, previous semester and next semester. The node will automatically ensure the data in the Ready Education DB is consistent with what is in the latest file.
If you are omitting certain data, include the column but use an empty string as the value ("").
You should include file headers and use the data field's label as the header name (eg. "student_unique_id"|"course_unique_id"|"name"|"gender")
Return carriages should be escaped as to not affect the parsing of the file. You can replace the return carriage with '\n'
Student Data Integration
This page describes the data file format used to exchange student information between your institution and the Ready Education Data Integration Node. The following fields are suggestions only, you are welcome to add your own custom fields.
Associating One Student with Multiple Courses
To associate a student with multiple courses (e.g., a student taking two courses), add multiple lines to the Student Data Integration CSV tile.
Each row will have identical content, except for the “course unique identifier” field.
The Ready Education integrations platform also supports a number of extra data fields, which can be customized according to your institution's needs and the data you gather on your students. A list of Academic and Non-Academic fields are found below. Certain platform features have dependencies on the data provided, ask your integration contact for more information.
Student Data (Cont'd) -- Non-academic
A Single File for All Student Data
You should include all data fields in a single file. If you are sharing 15 different data fields for each students, then the "Student Data" file should have 15 columns.
Course Data Integration
For Courses having Multiple Sections:
Add multiple lines to the CSV tile, one line per section per course.
For example, a course called "Intro to Accounting" (ACCT 101), with two sections (sections A and B) offered at the same time (Mondays and Wednesdays at 10:00am and on Fridays at 2:00pm) and a third section (section C) offered at night once per week (Thursdays at 6:00pm).
This calls for:
- one record for section A for the Monday / Wednesday class with "MW" as day of the week (can be put together since they have the same start and end time)
one record for section B for the Monday / Wednesday class with "MW" as day of the week (can be put together since they have the same start and end time)
one record for section A for Friday class with "F" as day of the week.
one record for section B for Friday class with "F" as day of the week.
one record for section C for Fridays class with "F" as day of the week.
That is, ACCT 101 calls for a total of five (5) records in this example.
An example structure with some fields omitted.
ACCT101-A
Intro to Accounting
ACCT101
A
36000
41400
MW
ACCT101-B
Intro to Accounting
ACCT101
B
36000
41400
MW
ACCT101-A
Intro to Accounting
ACCT101
A
50400
55800
F
ACCT101-B
Intro to Accounting
ACCT101
B
50400
55800
F
ACCT101-C
Intro to Accounting
ACCT101
C
64800
79200
H