ClassLink allows for additional fields outside of the OneRoster schema that are referred to as Metadata Fields. These fields can be used to pass additional information relating the student or other entity that are in the scope of the OneRoster standard.

Depending on whether your district integrates with ClassLink via CSV or API, there are a number of options that can be done to add a metadata field to ClassLink and share those fields with the SchooLinks app in Roster Server.

Adding New Student Identifiers as a Metadata Field

ClassLink has two “buckets” for student identifiers, Sourced ID and Identifier. Often, Sourced ID is generated or transformed based on an identifier received by ClassLink which will not always match character-for-character with your SIS. You can push the exact identifier value to ClassLink through the metadata field following these steps:

  1. In your SIS, update your nightly ClassLink extract to include the specific student identifier field that will send to OneRoster’s SFTP Daily Import folder. If you are using an API integration with ClassLink, you can open a support request with ClassLink to update the integration to include the identifier field.
  2. Contact a support rep at ClassLink to configure OneRoster to import this CSV daily and populate the metadata field.
  3. The CSV is imported in ClassLink under Imports -> Files -> Daily Import. The merge is then configured under Settings -> Preprocessor -> Edit Config: default -> Users -> File Merge
  4. Once the above is complete, please let your Customer Success Manager know that the metadata field is ready to be imported into SchooLinks.

Adding New School Identifiers as a Metadata Field

When we sync with ClassLink, by default the First Listed school in the student record will become the student’s assigned school in SchooLinks. We have a configurable option to instead rely on the PrimaryOrg field in SchooLinks, and you can find instructions for sharing that field with SchooLinks here:

Enabling “Primary Org” Metadata Column

If neither of these options place the students at the correct schools, then our next option is to pass the student’s school identifier (where they should be listed in SchooLinks) as a metadata field in Clever.

  1. In your SIS, update your nightly ClassLink extract to include the specific school identifier field that will send to OneRoster’s SFTP Daily Import folder. If you are using an API integration with ClassLink, you can open a support request with ClassLink to update the integration to include the identifier field.
  2. Contact a support rep at ClassLink to configure OneRoster to import this CSV daily and populate the metadata field.
  3. The CSV is imported in ClassLink under Imports -> Files -> Daily Import. The merge is then configured under Settings -> Preprocessor -> Edit Config: default -> Users -> File Merge
  4. Once the above is complete, please let your Customer Success Manager know that the metadata field is ready to be imported into SchooLinks.

If unable to correctly identify or add the value for the correct school ID to a metadata field, then we will need to receive a Student’s Overrides file that is automated to the SchooLinks SFTP server that contains the correct values.

Students Overrides Schema