Product: Roster Server
Audience: ClassLink Administrator
Now your server is ready to go and you can provide access to your roster data with vendors that accept the OneRoster format.
Overview
- Adding Applications
- Setting Up Permissions
- Granting App Permissions
- Course Permission Options
- Bulk Select Values
- Dependencies
- Application Actions
- CSV or REST?
Adding Applications
1. To add an application in the Roster Server, go to Apps -> Add Apps to search for an application or browse the list to find applications.
2. By switching on the Show Development Apps toggle, it will show the applications that are flagged as development in the developer console (under the application name, you'll see a DEV label).
3. Then, click the blue Add button to include the application for rostering.
Setting Up Permissions
1. After choosing to add the application for the roster, there will be a choice presented between three permission types from General: Custom, Select by Class, and Full. Custom is the most common permission setting with options to select Unenrolled Users and/or Demographics. By default, the Roster Server will only send users that are enrolled in a class (teachers and students). If you wish to send administrators or other users who are not enrolled in a class, turn on the Unenrolled Users toggle. You can also switch off Demographics for vendors that don’t require it. The Custom setting also allows for the selection of all or some schools and courses.
2. The Select by Class setting allows you to set different permissions for different classes. It automatically opens up the advanced permission settings which you can find help for here.
3. The Full setting will automatically select all orgs and courses, along with unenrolled users and demographics. The Roster Server will automatically filter the data based upon the selections made here. Permissions are not permanent and can be later edited.
4. There is also the option to Copy Permissions From a Different App. This option can be used if you need to use the same permission set for multiple vendors.
5. To use this feature, click on the Copy Permissions From a Different App button, then click the Copy button and then Confirm which will copy and save the permissions of the corresponding app.
Note: Please keep in mind that this will automatically Copy and Save the permissions, which will overwrite any existing permission settings.
6. To select certain orgs (buildings), on the left frame, click Orgs to select from a list of building options. Click the checkbox in the upper left corner to automatically select all orgs.
Granting App Permissions
Click on the Apps tab to see a list of applications you have currently provisioned access to. All added apps will be presented here and will show any recent REST and SFTP access by the app. Org or Course access gives a quick overview of how much access that app has for Orgs and Courses. The levels are Full and Basic.
Toggling on Show Extra Columns will give an expanded view of all the users the application's permissions encompass.
Course Permission Options
When selecting courses, there are special options that can be accessed by clicking the Actions button on the right side of the menu.
Clicking Actions displays this dropdown menu:
The actions available are Paste IDs (explained in the next section), Copy entries to clipboard, Select Courses by Courses: Org ID and Select courses by Classes: School ID.
Copy entries to clipboard - copies the sourcedIds for all current courses you have selected which can be used with Paste IDs for another application.
Selecting courses by Courses: Org ID - selects all the courses that are assigned to the orgs that are currently selected.
Select courses by Classes: School ID - selects the classes assigned to the orgs currently selected and adds courses based on those classes' School IDs. In other words, it will select all the courses assigned to the classes that your selected orgs have.
Bulk Select Values
Another option is the ability to mass-select courses/orgs using a comma-separated list of sourcedIds. Click Actions -> Paste IDs -> paste the values -> Validate.
The error report card will show the number of invalid sourcedIds:
Once you are finished selecting Orgs and Courses, click Add App to complete your application setup.
Dependencies
When you select a course, you select every class contained in that course and all student/teacher enrollments associated with those classes. Each time you select a course, the system will check to see if the proper org dependency is selected. If you select a course that references an org which is not in your selected permissions, then the system will select that org as well. This is to conform to the OneRoster standard, which demands that all courses have valid dependencies.
Therefore, in order for Roster Server to remain compliant to the OneRoster standard, every course in a given data set MUST refer back to an existing org. In the past, Roster Server allowed users to select individual orgs and courses without regard for "completeness" of data. This would potentially produce CSV exports that were not standard OneRoster files. The Roster Server ensures that all CSV exports can be safely re-imported into Roster Server without any loss of data.
Application Actions
From the list of added applications, under the Actions column, there are options of Edit Permissions, Run Sanity Check, or More Actions.
- Edit Permissions - Edit Orgs and Courses permissions that were previously set.
- Run Sanity Check - Runs a Sanity Check to see if the data has the correct connections.
Under the More Actions menu, additional options include:
- Preview Permissions - Preview Orgs and Courses permissions that were previously set.
- Export Settings - Set up data export and file transfer.
- Filter Fields - Add or remove metadata fields to the application's permissions.
- Explore in API - Redirects to the ClassLink Roster Server API
- API Key and Secret - Displays the API key and secret of the app.
- Open SFTP Log - Displays app's SFTP Export Log/data
- Open REST Log - Displays app's REST log/data
- Email Developer - Email is sent to the developer who created the application. If there are multiple developers on the account, then it will only email the developer who signed up the app.
- Privacy Office - Displays the workflows needed for Privacy Officer
- Remove App - Deletes the application.
CSV or REST?
What does this mean? Your OneRoster server can provide data to vendors using either CSV files or the REST API.
What's the difference?
CSV files are sent to the vendor using the OneRoster format. This requires an additional step to set up the SFTP details and timing of when to send the files, which is explained in the Exporting Data page.
With REST API, the vendors fetch the data directly from your server.
Updated: Apr 2020