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Ed-Fi Integration

                                   WISEdata iconEd-Fi Alliance icon

 

Overview

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) WISEdata project aims to improve the collection of required state and federal data. The "WISEdata Ed-Fi Integration" project replaces individual legacy collection systems (ISES, CWCS, etc.) with a cohesive interoperability collection framework. DPI has chosen the Ed-Fi interoperability framework to facilitate collecting local education agency (LEA) information. This framework needs to be implemented (if it is not already) by the LEA’s student information system (SIS). The SIS software will push data to DPI via a web service defined by the Ed-Fi framework.

The Process

Working with Wisconsin DPI to begin integrating your student information system with the WI DPI Ed-Fi REST API isn't difficult. Our goal is to make this process as easy as possible to minimize development costs and to decrease time to market.

The following prerequisites should be met prior to contacting Wisconsin DPI:

  1. Review Ed-Fi technical documentation to understand the foundation of this project.
  2. Obtain an Ed-Fi license. This isn't required, but it is highly recommended.
  3. Programmers should be familiar with RESTful services and basic HTTP authentication.

Once prerequisites are met, the following steps should be taken:

  1. Contact Wisconsin DPI to onboard.
  2. Obtain a UAT 'Sandbox' WAMS ID and provide the user ID to the individual at WI DPI responsible for your onboard process. This will be used to provide access to the credential application. This application is required to obtain credentials to connect to the API UAT 'Sandbox' and use Swagger.
  3. Download and review 'Developer Resource' documentation and other files (below).
  4. Develop software and test. 
  5. Certification and integration testing (see 'Certification Resources' section)
    • Schedule a certification session with WI DPI.
  6. Once vendors are WI DPI certified, vendors will be eligible to receive production credentials after an LEA adds them as an authorized vendor.
  7. If you still have questions, contact us for further assistance via email or to set up a conference call.

Development Resources

 

WISEdata Ed-Fi Version 2.0

WISEdata Ed-Fi Version 3.0

  • WISEdata Ed-Fi V3 Programmer's Guide (May 2019)
    • Includes V3 change summary and overview, JSON mapping changes, use cases, SDK info, link to Swagger and more
  • Ed-Fi SDK 3.1
    • C# version only. Use guidance in WISEdata Ed-Fi V3 Programmer's Guide above to follow Ed-Fi's instructions for generating an SDK in other programming languages

Collections - Artifacts and Change Log

 
This document has multiple tabs to provide artifact documents (use cases, JSON mappings) and change log.
 
 

Testing Resources

In order to test, you will need a REST client that can authenticate via OAuth 2. There are many free and paid REST clients that you can use for testing. The two clients we use are listed below. Both are free.

  1. SoapUI (version 4.6.4): Besides supporting SOAP requests, it also has a REST client. //www.soapui.org/
  2. RestClient 2: This is a FireFox extension. According to the developer, they also have an extension for Safari and for Chrome. Developer website: //restclient.net/

You will likely need a web traffic tracer/debugger. There are a number of web debuggers out there. The REST clients above (SoapUI or RestClient2) will show web traffic when you make a request. The web debuggers can be handy when creating requests via the DPI-provided WISEdata Ed-Fi REST SDK or a proprietary Ed-Fi REST client.

  1. Fiddler is free and one of the more popular web debuggers //www.telerik.com/fiddler
  2. Wireshark https://www.wireshark.org/

Certification Resources

The certification process has changed as of 06.21.2017.

  1. Once you have reviewed the requirement specifications with Wisconsin DPI, completed development and internal testing:
    • Re-review Wisconsin DPI use cases (see above) for the specific collection you'll be certifying on. Make sure you have covered all these use cases in development and testing.
    • Contact Wisconsin DPI to schedule a session to work through state-specific use case testing.
  2. When testing and certification is complete, WI DPI will issue production credentials to allow the certified vendor to send data for that collection on behalf of the LEA.
  3. It is highly recommended to do a pilot with one or two LEAs in production. During the pilot, WI DPI will review the data submitted and monitor our API logs for errors.
  4. It is helpful if the LEA reviews the data using WISEdata Portal tools to verify that the data sent is what was received by WI DPI.
  5. Once WI DPI, the vendor and LEA agree that the steps in #3 and #4 didn't identify any critical issues, the vendor can open up the new collections to additional LEAs. 
 

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