✅ We want to hear: What LTI/OneRoster integrations are you using?

Ben Leddy · January 2021

Hi all! Ben here from the LMS team. Midway through the school year, I wanted to check in around your current and future integration needs, and I wanted to open up discussion for the following:

What LTI/OneRoster integrations have you successfully been using with Blackbaud?
What integrations would you like to use, but have not been successful?
What integrations are you considering using moving forward?

Thanks so much!

Brian Hoyt · January 2021

I would really like to use OneRoster integration with Microsoft SDS and Teams. It is unavailable though. Only one my school cares about right now.

John Rorke · January 2021

Hi Ben Leddy‍ , thanks for checking in with us! The #1 top thing for us is Teams/OneNote integration via the OneRoster API and Assignment/Grade Sync. Frustrations are high with our teachers that there is so much they could be doing - if only Blackbaud would support it. There's a lot of duplicate effort and double entry taking place that should be unnecessary. I remain hopeful that we'll see this someday very soon!

The only integrations we're using currently are Typeitin and some of our textbook vendors (those where the BB LTI works).

Geoffrey Goodfellow · January 2021

We currently use LTI/OneRoster integration to McGraw Hill text books which has been working relatively well. We still have some issue where the OneRoster export includes all students, even those that have left our school which seems to cause some problems for McGraw-Hill.
I would love to integrate our LMS with Clever. Clever populates so many other of our school services (BrainPop, LanSchool, myPLTW, Naviance, NWEA MAP, Pearson Testing, and see saw). If I can get Clever updated with our information, then all of these other system draw the correct information out of Clever.

Ben Leddy · February 2021

Thanks all for your input!

Brian Pugh · February 2021

I've done extensive testing with Google Assignments which does paste grades into gradebook.

Wish we could integrate with Google Classroom!

Daniel Lomba · March 2021

Microsoft Teams. OneNote. Onedrive integration

Kristofer Thurston · July 2021

Trying to get oneroster to work with incidentIQ for ticketing, etc. The problem is that the export doesn't follow the implementation standards for OneRoster. The student's grade is not in the grades field as defined by the standard, but in the comments field with a “grade:" tag. This causes the grade to not populate correctly in our implementation and makes further effort

Brian Hoyt · July 2021

Kristofer Thurston:
Trying to get oneroster to work with incidentIQ for ticketing, etc. The problem is that the export doesn't follow the implementation standards for OneRoster. The student's grade is not in the grades field as defined by the standard, but in the comments field with a “grade:" tag. This causes the grade to not populate correctly in our implementation and makes further effort

You will likely need to manually correct it. Also be aware most OneRoster implementations want 01,02 not 1,2 so if editing in Excel you need to ‘01 or ’02 to make it text instead of number to have leading zero. This shows the ID / Name - Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) but some systems don't support all grades.

Kristofer Thurston · July 2021

I can do that… but it would be nice if they followed the actual data standard as claimed. No one here has time to massage data in excel on a daily/weekly basis. That's the reason they invent standards in the first place.

Kristofer Thurston · September 2021

I get that all systems may not accept the same formating on grade, but the grade should at least be in the correct field. Any good tool should be able to adjust as long as the data is in the right place, or at least that minor of a change can be easily scripted.

It would be vastly easier on everyone's part if Blackbaud adhered to the standard instead of putting the grade levels in the comments field instead of where it goes.

Last I checked, it was called OneRoster. This feels more like zeropointeightroster because it isn't quite complete.

Also, I know having parent/guardian relation data is optional in the standard, but it would be nice to have that as an option available in On. I have a few systems that would appreciate that data, like Naviance, School Messenger, and IncidentIQ.

Jackie Gerry · September 2022

@Kristofer Thurston - We just switched to IncidentIQ, how are you pulling in the parent/guardian relationship with OneRoster?

Stephen Boyle · September 2022

@Jackie Gerry
Good news/Bad news. Parent/guardians are not currently included with one OneRoster data. However, this enhancement is planned for Q4. So, you should see it soon.

Kristofer Thurston · September 2022

@Jackie Gerry we're not. Blackbaud doesn't use that part of the standard in their oneroster export. I have kids mapped to classes and teachers, but not to parents in IIQ. I'd love to have it so parents can see their student tickets, etc. But I'm stuck waiting on a better implementation.

I do know that BB is working on Clever integration, but I have no idea how long it will take. I'm hoping that will carry parent relations over along with rostering. I need Clever to work so we can use Raptor's SRP compliant Reunification product. It'll help with a ton of other platforms as well, including IIQ.

Kristofer Thurston · September 2022

@Stephen Boyle

That's such good news. Are they also putting the grade level in the grades field like it's supposed to be? That's the only other thing that's missing.

Thanks!

Stephen Boyle · September 2022

@Kristofer Thurston
Good news there, too.
Adding grade level to students is on the same time frame.

Jackie Gerry · October 2022

@Kristofer Thurston Thank you for your response

Jackie Gerry · October 2022

@Ben Leddy We just switched to IncidentIQ, when we will be able to pull in the parent/guardian relationship with OneRoster? Is it still planned for Q4?

Stephen Boyle · October 2022

@Jackie Gerry
Adding Parents in OneRoster API endpoint results is still planned for Q4. And I will make sure to post here as the exact release that will contain that change is known.

Jackie Gerry · October 2022

@Stephen Boyle Thank you!

Allison Van Liew · December 2022

@Stephen Boyle
Will there be updates regarding the grade level data or only an announcement when it is ready? I'm just wondering where is the best place to look for updates because that change is essential to our next project and will determine our workflow.

Stephen Boyle · December 2022

@Allison Van Liew

We aren't completely done, but this is a fine time for an update.

OneRoster output for students now includes the .grades collection. It returns a comma-delimited string of 2-digit grade level codes defined by CEDS grade level codes that represent all the grade levels that the student is enrolled in the school.

In order for data to be included in this new field, you must set up a mapping between those CEDS codes and your school's defined grade levels - which is another new feature. Your Integration Manager users can find the new mapping area in Core > Settings > Integration mappings.

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Additionally, we now include parents in OneRoster output. Students will now return the .agents collection. This collection will return a sourceId reference each of the student's parents. Any relationship marked as Parental Access or List as Parent will be included in the .agents collection. These relationships will be included as users in OneRoster's users lists, with a role type of parent.

Coming very soon is the User demographics endpoints, getDemographics and getAllDemographics. These endpoints return DOB, race and sex for users.

I hope that supports the needs of your upcoming project, Allison. Let me know if anything else for it.

Stephen

✅ We want to hear: What LTI/OneRoster integrations are you using?

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