One way I use the APIs - People Lists

Brian Gray

Many of the programs I wrote that use the Blackbaud School API also use APIs for other services. That allows me to extract information from the SIS and use it to update other systems or files.

One of the most useful projects is the People Lists spreadsheet.  We’re a Google school so we have many files shared to employees.  One of the requests that I used to get a lot was for lists of various subsets of students: “Can I get a list of all of the 7th grade students with their advisor’s name?” “I need a list of all of the Middle School Boarding students.” Etc. Etc. Etc.

I wrote a program that uses the Blackbaud School API to read information about all of our students, and then wrote that information into a shared Google Sheets file using the Google APIs.  There are sheets for All Students, US Students, MS Students, Residential Students, Day Students, and one for each grade level.  It includes information that employees have access to through the LMS, but in a form that makes it easy to access.

The spreadsheet also includes a list of all employees, and lists of MS and US advisors.

The program runs as a scheduled task once a day, so the information is always up to date.

Most employees remember that the file is available to them. I sometimes get a request for a list, and I just reply with information about where to find the file.  It has saved me a lot of work because I don’t have to generate the lists every time someone asks for it.