Minnesota Ed-Fi Checklist for Starting 2020-2021 School Year

The Minnesota Department of Education has indicated that Minnesota School Districts designated as on-boarding to Ed-Fi for the 2020-2021 school year need to submit student data in both the MARSS and Ed-Fi systems. District funding will remain tied to MARSS submissions until districts are able to successfully submit data to both Ed-Fi and MARSS without any unexplainable discrepancies. Once that has been established, a formal agreement between MDE and the district may take place to indicate that funding should be based on Ed-Fi data, not MARSS data. For details on this process please contact MDE, or refer to information posted on MDEs website here.

This article describes the steps you should take in order to properly move Ed-Fi to the 2020-2021 school year.

Step 1. Update to the most recent version of Campus

In order to have the schema and logic in place, it is critical you update to the most recent version of Campus. Failure to do this will result in an inability to properly report data for the 2020-2021 school year.

Users need to be on Campus.2028 or later to be able to use the whole list of Ed-Fi resources.

Step 2. Enable Ed-Fi functionality

Enable Ed-Fi functionality via the Enable Ed-Fi system preference in System Administration > Preferences > System Preferences > Enable Ed-Fi.

Yes = Ed-Fi functionality is enabled and Ed-Fi data will sync from Campus to the Ed-Fi system (if properly enabled via Ed-Fi Configuration tools).
Tools Only = You are able to fill out Ed-Fi fields (such as Ed-Fi ID) within Campus but this data will not sync to the Ed-Fi system until this field is set to Yes. This is especially useful when setting up Ed-Fi IDs for students within a school or district so that data properly syncs between Campus and Ed-Fi prior to enabling it.
No = Ed-Fi functionality is not enabled for the district and users cannot access Ed-Fi tools within Campus.

Step 3. Create a New Ed-Fi Configuration for 2020-2021

You will need to create a new Ed-Fi configuration for the 2020-2021 school year.

To do this:

Navigate to the Ed-Fi Connection Configuration tool (System Administration > Ed-Fi > Ed-Fi Configuration > Connection).
Select New.
Select the Connection Type, options are Core or State.
Enter a Connection Name.
Select a School Year of 2020-2021.

Enter the following values:

Field	Value
O-Auth URL	Staging Environment	https://edfi.education.mn.gov/edfi.ods.webapi/
O-Auth URL	Production Environment	https://stage.edfi.education.mn.gov/edfi.ods.webapi/
API URL	Staging Environment	https://stage.edfi.education.mn.gov/edfi.ods.webapi/
API URL	Production Environment	https://edfi.education.mn.gov/edfi.ods.webapi/
Post-Amble	data/v3/2021
ID Post Amble	identity/v2
Timeout in Seconds	This field defaults to a value of 60 seconds and determines (in seconds) the amount of time allowed to pass before the connection between Campus and Ed-Fi is considered timed out and Ed-Fi events are not processed. These Ed-Fi events are then re-processed the next time a quartz job runs.
Client Key	The Client Key will be provided by the Minnesota Department of Education.
Client Secret	The Client Secret will be provided by the Minnesota Department of Education.

If desired, a certificate can be imported for the Ed-Fi configuration. For more information, please see the 'Import Certificates' section of the Ed-Fi Configuration article.
Click the Save button.

Step 4. Set Ed-Fi Tool Rights

Set the Ed-Fi Tool Rights via System Administration > User Security > Users/User Groups > Tool Rights.

Review the Ed-Fi Tool Rights article for more information.

Step 5. Update the Active Year to 2020-2021

Next, you need to make 2020-2021 the active school year within the School Years tool. If you have already set 2020-2021 as the active school year, skip to the next step.

To do this:

Go the School Years tool (System Administration > Calendar > School Year).
Select the 2020-2021 school year in the School Years Editor window.
If the 2020-2021 school year is not available for selection, you will need to create it by selecting the New button and entering Label, Start Year and End Year values. See the School Years article for information on this process.
Mark the Active checkbox.
Click the Save icon.

Step 6. Set Resource Preferences

Set all Resources to 'Off' and map the Ed-Fi Codes to Campus Codes via the Resource Preferences in System Administration > Ed-Fi > Ed-Fi Configuration > Resource Preferences. Refer to the Minnesota Ed-Fi v3.1 - Set Resource Preferences article for more information.

Step 7. Assign Ed-Fi IDs

Assign Student Ed-Fi IDs via Census > People > Demographics > Person Identifiers

Ed-Fi ID values are the MARSS IDs that you assign to each student, often saved in the Student State ID field.

Assign District and School Ed-Fi IDs via

System Administration > Resources > District Information > Ed-Fi District Number.
System Administration > Resources > School > Ed-Fi School ID.

Note: Both of these are optional Override fields. Ed-Fi resources will automatically report out a concatenated number based on the following: District Type + State District Number + State School Number. Only fill in either of these fields if your records need to include different values than the values already saved in these three locations.

Step 8. Toggle Resource Preferences to On (Begin Manual Resync process for MARSS-B Comparison)

Toggle Resources to 'On' in Resource Preferences once all data setup is complete. Refer to the Minnesota Ed-Fi v3.1 - Set Resource Preferences article for more information.

Step 9. Do an Ed-Fi Resync for the 2020-2021 Scope Year

Now that the 2020-2021 Ed-Fi configuration is in place and data has been properly reviewed, an ordered resync should be completed as the first resync of the year. This is completed using the Resync tool.

For detailed information about this process, please see the Resync (Ed-Fi) article.

Resyncing will generate a large volume of items in your event queue, so it may be helpful to plan your resync for an off-peak time period and resync in groups of calendars rather than all calendars.

To do this:

Go the Resync tool (System Administration > Ed-Fi > Ed-Fi Tools > Resync).
Select the appropriate Configuration.
Select All of the Student Information resources, and scope the resync to the schools you wish to send to MDE via Ed-Fi.
The options marked in the Minnesota Ed-Fi Resource Preferences determine which options are available for selection here.
Once data sets have been marked and you are ready to resync, select the Start Resync button.

Step 10. Review the Event Queue.

Navigate to the Event Queue (System Administration > Ed-Fi > Ed-Fi Tools > Event Queue). Wait until all records have processed in the Event Queue (when it reads “0 records total” as seen below). Once there are no events in the Event Queue, turn off all Resource Preferences.

Step 11. Review the Error Log

Navigate to the Error Log (System Administration > Ed-Fi > Ed-Fi Tools > Error Log). Review the Error Log and note any errors that exist. When you feel like you’ve addressed all of the underlying causes for the errors, click “Archive All Entries” on the Error Log tab (which will remove them from the list) and return to Step 9, retrying the resync of data.

Step 12. Compare the Ed-Fi information with the data from the MARSS file.

Submit your MARSS-B file, and review the comparison report. Since Ed-Fi is continuously reporting and MARSS is a snapshot of data at a certain time, if you want to compare the MARRS file and Ed-Fi data, users can briefly turn off the Ed-Fi Resource Preferences to allow the MARRS file data to 'catch-up'. Districts should contact MDE directly for detailed information on the comparison report or refer to information posted on MDEs website here.