Settings (Archive)

The Settings section houses functionality used for changing settings and performing common administrative tasks.

This documentation is divided into settings common for all editions of the Admin App and edition-specific settings.

Details follow.

Admin App Global (All Editions)

The Home Page contains two sections: Global and Settings.

Global Section Layout

The Global section is for administrating vendors and claim sets, which are common across all ODS instances. 

Contents

Global Detail

The following table is a list of the main functions under the Admin App Global.

Function or Setting

Location

Availability

Description

Create, edit, and remove vendorsGlobal > VendorsAll

Vendor registrations apply across all ODS / API environments. To register a new vendor, use the Add Vendor button to bring up a form used to add a vendor. To edit or remove a vendor, use the buttons beside the existing vendor record.

Create, edit, copy, import, and export claim setsGlobal > Claim SetsAll

Claim set editor is for administrating the claim sets. User can add, edit, import, export, copy, and delete the claim sets.

The default claim sets can be copied but cannot be edited or deleted.

For more details, see the Claim Set Editor section.

Admin App Settings (All Editions)

This section outlines features common to every version of the Admin App. 

Settings Section Layout

The Settings section is laid out with tabs that show which ODS instances are present in the solution. These tabs show the environments to which the settings apply, and correspondingly what will be affected if settings are modified.

The screen capture below shows an instance with one environment (named "ODS Instance") being managed by the Admin App. Under the ODS Instance tab are a list of sub-tabs that provide access to specific settings and functionality:

Setting Detail

The following table is a list of the main functions under the Admin App Settings, and where to find each function in the tab hierarchy. These features are common to every version of the Admin App.

Function or Setting

Location

Availability

Description

Create, edit, and remove vendor applications

ODS Instance > Applications

All

Applications are specific to each ODS / API environment. This allows you, for example, to set up a vendor application so it initially can only access the Staging, then later register that application so it can access production resources.

Adding a new application can be accomplished by clicking the Add Application button on the Applications sub-tab, and filling out the form.

Existing applications can be removed or edited by clicking on the edit (pencil) or delete (trash) icons.

When adding an application, you will be asked to select a few options as to the scope of data in the ODS that the application can access. These are important settings for security reasons, as they determine what data the application can access.

  • Education Organization Type. This value is not stored, but is only used to bring up a list of Local Education Agencies or Schools.
  • Education Organization ID. This value is saved in the ODS Admin database and used to determine the organizational scope for the data accessible via the API.
  • Claim Set Name. The Claim Set defines the operations (view, edit/delete) available to a client system and also the relationships that are traversed off the education organizations selected. For example, you can establish whether the claim set allows an application to view Sections associated with the education organization, or to view Parents associated with Students associated with the education organization, or other similar data access permissions. The ODS ships with a set of default claim sets that have been field tested, but claim sets are also configurable (not supported by the Admin App directly).

Reviewing the ODS / API Platform Dev. Guide - Security is strongly recommended.


After clicking Add Application, the screen will show the application Key and Secret that are used by the API client to get an authorization token to exchange data. Copy these values into a secure location, as they need to be provided to the application provider. If you lose these values, you will need to regenerate them. Consult the instructions that follow regarding that feature.

For convenience, the API URI is also shown on the page with the key and secret. This URI can be looked up in the Admin App as well (consult the Admin App User Guide instructions).

Regenerate application key and secret

ODS Instance > Applications > Regenerate

All

Under the application registration, use the Regenerate button. Note that current applications using an existing key and secret will no longer be able to access the application.


Lookup the API URI

ODS Instance > Applications

All

The API URI is specific to each ODS environment, and is displayed on the Applications page for that environment. Note that the Staging Applications page shows the Swagger URI as well, so be careful to choose the correct URI.

This value is required by vendor systems that use the API, as it tells them the endpoint for the ODS APIs their systems connect to.

Lookup system enumeration values (descriptors)

ODS Instance > Descriptors

All

The Ed-Fi data model (also called the Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model or UDM) contains a set of standard values for all enumerations in the UDM. Those values can be looked up in the Admin App under the Descriptors sub-tab. Vendors frequently need to know what these values are to send data to the Ed-Fi APIs.

In some data exchange scenarios, an organization may wish to customize these values. The Admin App does not support this customization directly, but changing values (most commonly by adding new values) can be done via the ODS APIs in the descriptor section. However, it is not recommended that this is done unless an organization is fully aware of the responsibilities behind publishing its own values.

Create, edit, or delete schools or districts

ODS Instance > Education Organizations

All

In some cases, the ODS records for schools and school districts may be provided by a system connected to the ODS (usually by a Student Information System). If this is not the case, this data can be added manually using the Education Organization sub-tab.

The system accommodates multiple school districts as well, for use cases in which the ODS is a collaboration between school districts.

Upload a bulk data file in Ed-Fi XML formatODS Instance > Bulk LoadAll

The Admin App supports bulk uploads. This feature is only recommended for smaller bulk uploads, so the default file size is constrained to 20MB.

Introduced support for saving the separate key and secret for bulk upload process. This will facilitate the key and secret with access to the required resources. 

After saving credentials, bulk upload page will be presented.

To perform upload, please select appropriate file type and input file and click upload. After clicking the upload button, the popup will display the upload progress.

Bulk upload is completed successfully.

Note that the process may take a few minutes and does not display process precisely.

Users needing to upload larger files or desiring an interactive experience should consider using the Bulk Load Client utility. Consult the Bulk Load Client utility documentation (or the Client-Side Bulk Load Utility documentation for versions of the ODS / API prior to v3.4).

Synchronizing learning standards to your ODS instanceODS Instance > Learning StandardsAll

We'll populate learning standards in the ODS / API by using the Admin App to synchronize with the AB Connect API.

To synchronize learning standards in on local environment, select the Learning Standards tab. You'll be presented with the screen below:

The screen contains instructions on how to get an API ID and Key from Certica Solutions. Following the instructions on screen to obtain an ID and Key.

Please enter AB connect ID and Key obtained from Certica and click Enable Learning Standards. Syncing will begin. A progress bar will show you the current status, and you'll see a "completed successfully" message once done.

Clicking Reload will take you to the following screen, where you can reset the AB connect credentials or update the learning standards.

Once the process is complete, use the Swagger console or SQL Server Management Studio to verify learning standards are present under the "uri://academicbenchmarks.com" for Ed-Fi ODS / API 3.x and "http://academicbenchmarks.com" for Ed-Fi ODS / API 2.x. The API endpoint to check is "/ed-fi/learningStandards" API resource endpoint or the "edfi.LearningStandards" table in SQL directly.

System activity reportsODS Instance > ReportsAll

These reports allow for basic data quality inspection and system activity monitoring, but they are not intended to support day-to-day business analytics needs. As such (and for security and privacy reasons), these reports only display aggregate data. For more detailed analytics needs, we recommend other analytics and business intelligence (BI) tools and toolkits.

From the home page of the reports section, select the district whose data you want to inspect using the Select District drop-down:

Choosing district will provide district specific reports.

By clicking on the individual report link will take you to the detailed report page.

Azure-Only Settings

The following table is a list of functions available only on Azure.

Function or Setting

Location

Availability

Description

Change timeout for API authorization tokensGlobal > Advanced SettingsAzure

This setting determines how long a API token will last before expiring (requiring the API client to re-authenticate and get a new token). The timeout can be changed by updating the value under Bearer Token Timeout In Minutes and clicking Save Changes.

Change the log levelODS Instance > LoggingAzure

       

Azure ODS Instance setup detailsODS Instance > SetupAzure