Data Imports - End of Year Tasks

Updating Data Import Configuration for New School Year

Overview


Before the beginning of the new school year, District Admins or Staff Members handling Sloopy and SIS need to update Sloopy configuration or custom scripts (created by the district) to retrieve data from the SIS for the new school year.


Prerequisites

Solution

  1. Open the folder where Sloopy is installed.
  2. From the Sloopy folder, open the folder for the SIS that you are using. 
    If the SIS you are using is not on the list, you should be using the Generic folder.

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    • Aeries:
      1. Open the sloopy.bat file in a text editor.

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      2. Change the value for the /SchoolYear: variable to match the new school year for each school (there will be a separate line for each school).

        In this example, the value is set for the 2020-2021 school year:

        mceclip1.png

        Note: If you are still using the old Aeries setup for Sloopy (prior to 2010), refer to the article Legacy Scripts in Sloopy Yearly Update.
      3. Save the updated file.
    • PowerSchool:
      1. Open the sloopy.bat file in a text editor.

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      2. Update the following variables to match the new year values according to data (term and year IDs) in your SIS:
        • starting TermID
        • ending TermID
        • YearID

          For example, if values for the 2016-2017 year were 2600, 2602, and 26, then the correct values for the 2017-2018 school year would be:
          starting TermID=2700
          ending TermID=2702
          set YearID=27

          mceclip2.png

      3. Save the updated file.
    • SchoolMax:
      1. Open the sloopy.bat file in a text editor.

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      2. Update the curSchoolYear variable to match the new school year:

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      3. Save the updated file.
    • Silk:
      1. Open the config.txt file in a text editor.

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      2. Find the data.school_year variable and update its value to match the new school year for each school. 
        For example, data.school_year=2020 for the 2020-2021 school year.
      3. Save the updated file.
    • Infinite Campus - You do not need to update any Sloopy files; instead, you need to update the Active School Year to the new school year in the Infinite Campus application (data is extracted based on this parameter).
      1. Log in to Infinite Campus and go to System Administration.
      2. In the Calendars folder, click School Year.
      3. Select the new year that you want to activate, check the Active box, then click Save.
        Note: If you need assistance in updating Active  School Year, contact Infinite Campus Support.
    • All Other SISs - if you are using another SIS (Generic folder in sloopy), it means that you are using scripts created by your District to extract data from SIS. Make sure to modify the scripts that you or your District created to retrieve data for the new school year.
      No settings need to be updated in the Sloopy configuration (unless you need to add a new school - in this case, refer to the article Installing and configuring Sloopy from step 6).


Confirmation

  • If you are using scripts provided by School Loop to retrieve data from SIS (one of the SISs mentioned above), block imports (to avoid wrong data import in case of a mistake) and run the sloopy.bat file from the folder you opened in step 2.
    Next, open the data folder and review the students and sections files - confirm that the data matches the information from your SIS for the current year.

    Note: Don't forget to unblock imports by following the same steps once you confirmed that the data is correct. 

  • If you are using your own custom scripts to retrieve data from SIS, run them and check that the created files in the data folder (students and sections) match the information in SIS.

    Note: You may refer to the article describing the format of data files for Sloopy.

Once verified, you can proceed to automate data import via Sloopy as part of the New School Year Tasks.

 

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