Integration Guide Overview

The purpose of this guide is to share data format, protocols, and fields accepted by Stellic for institutional data integration.

Our goal is to clarify the connection between your data (regardless of where it is stored) and elements necessary to implement the Stellic platform. We have organized the data file section of this guide in the order in which we need the data to get your Stellic instance up and running. For more information, see the Priority of Data Elements section below.

The tables on the following pages are intended to serve as a data dictionary. You will also find information about which types of data Stellic needs in order to operate best for your particular context. While there are some data fields that are “required” there are many more that are “recommended” as they will enhance the functionality of the platform for your users. We highly encourage you to include as many of the recommended fields as possible, though some are not available within some Student Information Systems. Our team will help you determine the impact of various data elements or help you consider alternatives as you work on your data queries.

This guide is intended to support your integration efforts at the start of your journey with Stellic and also into the future. For example, we will continue to release functionality as the platform improves over time and will work with your institution to add data elements as recommended by Stellic or by future institutional needs. Alternatively, we may work initially on a minimum viable product (MVP) approach and then work on a subsequent rollout to other students or programs, which will involve bringing in additional data over time. Regardless, the Stellic team is here to partner with you throughout the initial implementation as well as in future improvements.

Data that is provided in a structure that matches the provided samples (including all column headings and file names matching the defaults and in lowercase as Stellic’s pipeline is case-sensitive) will result in development time that is significantly faster from Stellic’s side. This means it will be faster to launch your Stellic instance.

Please see the data samples linked under each section below (and our discussion of the Data Feed Format below). These are intended to serve as examples for your data formatting and give you a head start on the integration process. All feed files must be encoded as UTF-8 for the Stellic parsers to read it properly.

Because Stellic has also worked with many different partners using a variety of SIS systems, we offer starter scripts for common SIS platforms that you can use to simplify the process of writing your own queries. Each institution implements their SIS in specific ways so you may need to modify these starter scripts for your context, but these may save you significant time in the implementation process! Contact your Stellic integration team member for more information about starter scripts.

Stellic supports import of all data through standard protocols as outlined below. Most institutions that follow a data file feed model send files securely once formatted according to the data samples noted in the following pages. In most instances, we begin with manual file transfers and iterate until we develop a stable pipeline. After that point, we “go live”—meaning that institutions run a cron job to query their data systems of record and then create file exports. Once we are live with your data feed, we expect this cron job to run at least once a day. (More information is also provided in the Frequency of Data Sync section below.) Stellic then uploads these files for validation and import into the custom data pipeline that we have built for your institution during the implementation process.

An AWS S3 bucket will be provided to you by Stellic and is maintained by Stellic. You don’t need to create one or even have an S3 account to manage it. While the data is certainly “owned” by your institution, the S3 bucket is “owned” by Stellic and should only be used to push files to Stellic (sometimes, Stellic can setup a readable folder for you for large file exports we may push back but that is rare).

Data files should be transferred to a secure bucket in Amazon S3. This can be done using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) CLI (https://aws.amazon.com/cli/). You will receive an Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, and a destination folder from our team. See Appendix A for further info.

While Stellic supports SFTP for file transfers we strongly recommended against this approach. Stellic uses S3 to store and retrieve all of the data within the platform. So, for any files sent via SFTP, Stellic must setup a “helper” application to push data to the institutional S3 bucket. This is an extra step and, while possible, can create a barrier while testing or troubleshooting integration issues later in the process. In addition, it can cause challenges later if a separate testing instance is required as filenames for test versus production feeds must be differentiated within one SFTP folder.

If your institution is only able to support SFTP for sending feed, please see Appendix B for further info on setup (Stellic will need to provide a SFTP folder location to you to share the files).

Stellic provides sample queries for most common SISs that can give you a significant head start on pulling data from your system. Ask your integration team whether we have a zip file of these SQL scripts we can send you for your SIS.