Invest in a Strong UX

In some implementations, data exchange is considered a "back-end" concern and is accordingly developed in a "back-end" fashion, using less-friendly command-line tools and separate developer-like utilities. This is often a very serious mistake.

In data exchange, particularly regular and automated exchange, your users or customers are taking a greater dependence on your system's data, and as such are relying on that data more, not less.  If users are not provided a good user experience (UX), they can waste valuable time trying to understand how to manage the exchanges and their inefficiency will become yours as they open support tickets or otherwise try to contact you.

A thoughtful and unified user experience prevents many issues from escalating. Don't force users to go to separate applications or utilities to get a single job done. Generally, a unified set of webpages that covers the necessary functions and is targeted at existing product users will help a great deal.

Other items that should be considered when building the frontend to your Ed-Fi integration:

• Including downloadable error logs 
• The capability to see API JSON payloads for failed requests 
• The capability to trigger results of specific API resources more broadly and for specific records 
• and providing meaningful error messages with clear actions to remediate them

Many people working in educational data are educators first… and technologists second. The time they waste trying to learn how to manage your Ed-Fi integration will become a burden to you as they open support tickets or otherwise try to contact you.