Roster - What if it does not run or gives an error?

Let's talk about the “backbone” of Aware, the roster import. The roster import will bring in the courses and students into the system, assigning them to the appropriate teachers. What are some of the more common issues that districts run into? Let’s take a look!

Roster not running?

• Let’s say you are in the Management application and looking at SIS Users (or teacher entries) in the Roster tab when you notice that the last import date was ...June of 2012? What would cause the roster to not have run yet? Unless you are looking at a demo account like I am, then here are some possible reasons! 
  • The import has a scheduled task (called Prepare Hosted Roster Files for Eduphoria) that tells the server to run the roster import at a given time. This is likely stopped or paused. A local server administrator can start the task and it will then run automatically.
  • There are extra characters added to the username in the Eduphoria Roster Import tool that causes the import to fail. This will usually be something like DELETE. Remove the extra characters and click Save.
• Often times, this will happen because the import has been purposefully stopped over the summer until PEIMS is ready for it to resume. The import simply needs to be re-activated. There are two ways that districts use to stop the import:
• Another common cause is that the username or password that is being used for the roster importer has changed. This can be tested by going to the Eduphoria Roster Importer and clicking Test Connection. If it fails, simply update the credentials (the tool is looking for an account that has the System Administrator role in Eduphoria) and save.
• If you find any of these to be the problem, after restarting the scheduled task or updating the username and password you can then click Run Now. That will immediately import the roster files.

Sanity Checks

• Sanity Checks are a type of check that computer systems use to make sure a process is ok to run because it could potentially cause a problem. The system will give some information and the user can then determine if there would be a problem if the process proceeds. These “are you sure?” checks are very common in computer software.
• When the roster files are imported, Eduphoria looks for a percent of changes in student accounts, teacher accounts, course IDs, and courses for the term. If there is a greater than 50% change, then the system will send a sanity check message to make sure the change is expected. What would cause these changes?
• Since the system is looking at local ID numbers, if your STAFF or STUDENTS  ID numbers have been changed since last year’s import they will look like new people to Eduphoria. So the “old” users would be deactivated and the “new” users would be created. This will cause duplicate entries which is especially concerning for Students as the test data they had previously would still be associated with the old account. 
• Not to worry! If you want to change the local ID numbers for students or staff, we will need what is called a crosswalk file. This is a simple .TXT or .CSV file with two columns containing the OldID,NewID. We will run this file and change the IDs to match what is in the file to prevent duplicates.
• Changes in COURSES is similar in that more than 50% of the course ID numbers are being deactivated. This indicates that they have new ID numbers.
• Changes in TERM is seeing that more than 50% of student rosters are changing. This often happens when finalizing the rosters for the year. The initial import comes in, but is changed significantly in a following import. 
• What do you do if you get one of these messages? When in doubt, please contact Eduphoria and we will be happy to help! Generally speaking, for STAFF and STUDENT changes we will need a crosswalk file. For COURSES and TERM, we just need to know if this is expected and ok.
• What happens if you get one of these messages and it is not expected at all? We will need to take a look at the files that are being imported and see where the problem is. We will usually send a secure link where the files can be uploaded to us and one of our server techs will then find the problem and let you know.

Getting a different message?

• There are a few other common things that will cause the import to fail. Here are some common troubleshooting steps that might help find the problem.
• On the first tab of the roster importer, click on Test Connection. If it fails, the username and password do not match. 
• Make sure all 4 roster files have data. Sometimes, there is a 0kb file that will prevent the import.
• If none of the above helps you find the problem, then we will need to take a look at the roster files to see where the disconnect is. Please contact us and we will be happy to help! We will need access to the roster files and importer to further troubleshoot.