Installing and Configuring Sloopy for Data Import

Overview

District Administrators need to set up data imports when they start using School Loop for the first time or want to move the import process to another server. To run data imports, they need to install and configure Sloopy, which is a simple custom Java program that sends data (teachers, students, courses, sections information) extracted from the SIS to School Loop. The process to configure Sloopy for data imports is outlined here.

Prerequisites

• You have a District Admin account.
• You need to have Java 1.6 or newer version on the machine on which you will run Sloopy.
  Note: You can check your Java version by opening Command Prompt and running the java -version command.
   
  
  
  You can download the latest Java version here.

Solution

1. Download the Sloopy archive.
2. Unzip the file.
3. Open the sloopy folder that you have extracted.
4. Locate the folder for the SIS you are using. If your SIS is not listed, use the Generic folder.
    
   
   
   
5. Remove folders for all other SISs to avoid confusion in the future.
6. Extract the required information from SIS and format it into tab-delimited files and place them into the data folder located in the folder for the selected SIS (e.g., sloopy/Generic/data).
   Note: It is the responsibility of the District to write a script that extracts the necessary data and turns it into tab-delimited files.
7. Create a dedicated configuration file for each school:
   1. Open the folder selected in step 4 (in our example, it is Generic).
   2. There is a template config.txt file - make a copy of it.
      
      
      
      
   3. Rename the file to include a shortcode for the required school.
      
      
      
      
   4. Open the renamed file in any text editor. It contains variables that need to be updated.
      
      
      
      
   5. Log in to your District Admin account and open School Site List.
      
      
   6. Open the required school from the list:
      
      
      
      
   7. From the School Info section, copy the following data into the config file:
      
      • School Domain
      • School Code
      • Import Code
        
        
        
        
   8. Add data file names (created in step 6) to the config file.
      In this example, we are not using Attendance and Call Alerts - they are disabled by adding # sign, or the filenames can be left blank.
      
      
      
      
   9. Save the updated file.
8. From the folder selected in step 4 (in our example, it is Generic), open the sloopy.bat file in a text editor.
   
   
   
   
9. Replace the name of the default config.txt file with the name of the school config file created in step 7.
   
   
   
   If you have more than one school, add a new line with the same command for each school config file created in step 7.
   
   
   
   
10. Save the updated sloopy.bat file.
11. Run the sloopy.bat file as an administrator.
12. Once it is executed and closed, open your district portal and select School Site List from the Toolbox.
    
    
    
    
13. Last import day for all schools for which you have configured data import should match the current date. Please note that it may take a few minutes for the update data to show up on the portal.
    
    
    
    
14. Next, you need to automate data import to run on a daily basis - this will keep your data in School Loop up-to-date. 

Note: All the data is compressed and encrypted before sending via SMTP to School Loop.

Confirmation

Set the terms for each school and then you will be able to verify the imported data in School Loop.

If the terms are not configured, no users will be visible to you.

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