When will OAuth 2.0 be available for OneRoster?

Stephen Boyle

@Tracy Brown
Supporting all the OneRoster endpoints required by SDS and Gradesync is a different step from being listed on the SDS page as a provider. Today's release finishes out the last of the OneRoster endpoints listed as required by SDS.

Next we will start the process to get listed as a provider. The steps include a pilot program with 2 clients, so it will take some time to organize all that. For context, we've basically been focused on items 2 and 3 below.

API Guidance for SDS integration

1. Complete the form on the SDS Partner Signup Form.
2. Implement the OneRoster API® endpoints required by School Data Sync.
3. Verify School Data Sync works with your OneRoster API endpoints.
   1. Test your APIs using Postman collection
   2. Test with SDS engineering against a sandbox environment.
   3. Configure a full sync in SDS to validate the solution E2E.
4. Pilot the solution with 2 production customers.
5. Make your connector Generally Available in SDS for all Office 365 EDU tenants.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/schooldatasync/oneroster-partner-api-guidance

Tracy Brown

@Stephen Boyle Thanks for the additional information. I assume you have two customers to help with the pilot? Our school year starts in a week and a half. Does anyone have a good resource on the CSV file method until the API integration is ready?

Brian Hoyt

@Tracy Brown I strongly recommend contacting Microsoft SDS support as they are very willing to help you through the process. Microsoft Education Support

As for documentation the best is at Overview of School Data Sync - School Data Sync | Microsoft Docs. SDS has had a few revisions of the process in last 1-2 years so be careful with old documentation.

Brian Hoyt

@Stephen Boyle Do you have contacts at Microsoft on the SDS team? If not I am happy to facilitate getting you connected. I have done so in the past between Blackbaud and Microsoft.

Tracy Brown

@Brian Hoyt I reviewed most of the Microsoft SDS documentation. Not in complete detail, but I have a good overview and understanding. What I lack is any information on the Blackbaud side. I see a lot of information about Blackbaud, Power BI, and Power Apps, but it's primarily geared toward fundraising Blackbaud products. I see little to no documents or use case examples regarding the K-12 products. I do not understand why the K-12 side of Blackbaud almost completely ignores the Microsoft platforms.

I am happy to see the work that is being done, but it is long overdue and should have been available some time ago. It's not like SDS is new.

Brian Hoyt

@Tracy Brown On the Blackbaud side there are two options. One, use the OneRoster export option. This then needs to be broken into the 4-8 files that SDS needs for ingestion. There is a script to do this. The other way is to use Advanced Lists and then manually create the SDS files. I have been doing this for 4 years as I like the control and I started before the OneRoster export existed.

For SDS they are now (I think on V2.1) of the import format. I was still working with V1 as V2 lacked some options I was using. In the next week or two I will be going back in to investigate the V2.1 format.

In case it helps here are my settings for advanced list. This is for my middle school. The one for lower school since there is only one class per student is simplified.

I limit it to one term since we have year long classes. I don't want to create a Sem 1 and Sem 2 version of same class since they are the same and redundant.

Austin Ewachiw

@Stephen Boyle
Any new news here? Thanks

Tracy Brown

@Brian Hoyt Thank you for this post. I have been able to recreate the advance lists on my end. I will, however, have to change some of the filters. Classes started yesterday, so we missed our opportunity to get this going this semester. We will use the fall to test and see if we can get things in place for the spring.

Mark Lederer

@Stephen Boyle I take it this means there is no chance of using the OneRoster API for this coming school year including a workaround like using another provider listed and putting the appropriate information for Blackbaud. I thought I saw a generic provider a few weeks ago ("other OneRoster Provider" or something like that) at the SDS site but that doesn't seem to be there anymore. I have to say I am pretty frustrated with how long this has taken to get in place.

Stephen Boyle

@Mark Lederer
BEM has started the final step of the process for SDS Provider certification. As soon as we get the green light, I will let you folks know. I think I'm as anxious for it as y'all are.

Tracy Brown

@Stephen Boyle Are we talking days, weeks, or months? Is there any noise we need to make to Microsoft Education and their SDS team to help move things along?

Stephen Boyle

@Tracy Brown
I wish I had a firm answer for that. I can tell you that the final step is a pilot where clients set up SDS live and then give their approval once they've checked things over. So, it's a bit out of my hands in terms of timing.

Brian Hoyt

@Stephen Boyle @Tracy Brown Thanks to the help of Stephen and the Microsoft SDS folks (they have been ready and not been the blockers) I just configured SDS sync via API to Blackbaud OneRoster. One step on the road but getting closer. Hopefully there is good news to be shared soon.

Tim Kramar

@Brian Hoyt Eagerly awaiting news. Did this include GradeSync or just rostering information?

Austin Ewachiw

@Brian Hoyt

What did it take to get Blackbaud to appear in the list? Thanks!

Brian Hoyt

@Austin Ewachiw I am the guinea pig (or one of them) right now. It isn't fully working yet. Just wanted to share it is getting closer.

@Tim Kramar So far only rostering. Not sure on the next step plans.

Brian Hoyt

Always fun to reply to yourself, anyway. Sometime in the last 2-3 weeks Blackbaud has been added as a choice on the menu for SDS OneRoster API Sync. I will strongly caution you that if you have already did a sync of your classes via CSV it is highly likely that the API sync will not be identical and will potentially create duplicate teams for all your classes. You have been warned.

Tim Kramar

@Brian Hoyt Reviving an old thread. How is your integration going?

Brian Hoyt

@Tim Kramar All of the new OAuth SDS stuff became available after the start of last school year. I had already created everything. Additionally, SDS 2.0 has now launched as well. This summer I will dive in to both to see how it works.

The big negative however is that even before Blackbaud could implement it Microsoft has now killed off Grade Sync between Teams and LMS. Big bummer.

Tracy Brown

Has anyone tried SDS 2.0 via the API? Any feedback or results would be helpful. Thanks.