Ed-Fi Credential Application User Guide

Ed-Fi Credential Application: Overview

NEW! For the 2025-26 school year and onward, there will be new URLs for every new school year. Additionally, LEAs will need to create or resubscribe to vendor subscriptions annually for all vendors. Detailed instructions with screenshots for this new process are provided in the Manage Vendor Subscriptions section.

NOTE: Credentials can only be updated during the school year for which the credentials are intended. For example, you cannot enter the next year credentials and verify data flow until your vendor is able to “open” the new school year. Contact your vendor to learn when the 2025-26 school year is available.

The main goal of the Ed-Fi Credential application is to manage security for your vended applications’ access to the WISEdata Ed-Fi application programming interface (API). This API acts as a bridge between the technology you use for state reporting, like your student information system (SIS), and the WISE systems. In order for data to "cross the bridge" your Ed-Fi Credentials must be shared correctly.

Features and Functions Overview

For designated users with permissions to the Ed-Fi Credential application, this powerful tool helps you manage your vendor subscriptions, look up Ed-Fi URLs, and find your LEA ID and School ID (vendors need this information for their applications).

There are three main sections to the Ed-Fi Credential landing screen:

1. The instructions. It is helpful to read these.
2. Manage Vendor Subscriptions by Year: Most of this user guide will focus on this section. Data flow for state reporting begins with you granting permissions to the vendors you use. Your vendor subscriptions control what can be sent through the WISEdata Ed-Fi API on your behalf. Subscriptions are organized by year. If you don’t have any subscriptions, you can add them individually or resubscribe to existing vendors from the previous year. Using the buttons on the far right, you can add new subscriptions or unsubscribe from an existing one.
3. LEA ID and Active Schools: This section shows you the schools associated with your district/school organization. Here you will find your LEA ID and School IDs.

NOTE: Because DPI does not have access to vendor tools, LEAs should always know how to contact their vendor representatives; contact information should be available on the WISEdata Portal Resources screen. The DPI Customer Services Team will not be able to answer questions about vendor tools.

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Getting Ready

To ensure your data flows smoothly from your school district or school building to the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), please follow these four steps annually

1. Plan Ahead.

   1. This includes reading our SIS Conversion Guidance webpage to learn the best time of year (and the worst times of year) to switch vendors.
2. Manage Vendor Subscriptions by School Year. This includes the following:
   1. Resubscribe to Existing Vendors.
   2. Add a New Vendor subscription.
3. Share Credentials and URLs from the Ed-Fi Credential application with all vended applications.
4. Confirm that your data is flowing into the WISEdata Portal.

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Plan Ahead

In general, it is best practice to ensure that your vendor applications are on the DPI Certified Vendor List because not all vended applications are DPI certified. If you purchase a non-certified vendor subscription, your data will never flow to DPI and WISEdata Portal unless the vendor works with us to obtain certification. If your LEA data does not flow to DPI, there could potentially be negative impacts to funding.

• Is your LEA new to WISEdata?
• Has there been a change in vendors for this year?
• Are you an existing WISEdata user sticking with the same trusted vendors?

If you would like to use a vendor that is not yet certified, please share this link with them so that can learn how to become a DPI certified vendor.

Switching vendors is a time consuming process that requires conversations between the LEA, the DPI Customer Services Team, and your vendor representatives. Please read the SIS Conversion Guidance webpage to learn the best time of year (and the worst times of year) to switch vendors.

If you have multiple vendor subscriptions or have changed vendors, planning your vendor subscriptions is crucial. Here is a sample WISEdata/Vendor Subscription Plan template for you to modify (will open in a new tab). A very critical part of your planning is resource access to avoid overlapping access. For example, you wouldn’t want your Student Information System (SIS) and Special Education (SPED) vendor both reporting special education data.

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Planning for Resource Access

Resource Access determines what data will get pushed to WISEdata Portal from which vendor.

Resource access plans will vary depending on how many vended subscriptions you have.

The key to your resource access settings is to avoid data flow overlap; you do not want multiple vendors with access to send the same data to WISEdata Portal.

This will inevitably lead to data validation errors and warnings. DPI recommends documenting your plan for vendor subscription resource access like the one below:

This user guide references your plan later on, in the Manage Vendor Subscription section. We suggest you complete your plan, which should include a list of all vendor subscriptions you will use for the school year and the type of resource access each subscription requires to avoid overlapping subscriptions before moving forward in this user guide.

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Resource Access Scenarios and Use Cases

The following scenarios describe the resource access settings LEAs should use to avoid data submission overlaps from different vendor subscriptions.

I Only Have One SIS Vendor Subscription

In this scenario, set your Resource Access to:

• Write on all data.
• This will ensure that your SIS vendor will send all student data for enrollments, roster, special education, discipline, etc.

I Have a Vendor Subscription for a SIS and a Discipline Vendor

To prevent overlapping subscriptions:

1. Set your SIS resource access to: 
   • Write on all data except discipline data. 
   • This will make sure that your primary SIS subscription is not sending discipline data.
2. Set your discipline resource access to:
   • Write only on student discipline program data.
   • This will ensure that your discipline subscription is sending only discipline data.

I Have a Vendor Subscription for a SIS and a Special Education Vendor

To prevent overlapping subscriptions:

1. Set your SIS resource access to:
   • Write on all data except special education data.
   • This will make sure that your primary SIS subscription is not sending special education data.
2. Set your special education resource access to:
   • Write only on student special education program data.
   • This will ensure that your special education subscription is sending only special education data.
   • NOTE for LEAs that use a special education subscription: Find specific reporting details about which data gets submitted from which vendor tool on the Indicator 11 data element landing page, Note for LEAs with a SIS and a SpEd Vendor.

I Have Vendor Subscriptions for a SIS, Discipline, and Special Education

To prevent overlapping subscriptions:

1. Set your SIS resource access to:
   • Write on all data except special education and discipline data.
   • This will make sure that your primary SIS subscription is sending neither discipline data nor special education data.
2. Set your discipline resource access to:
   • Write only on student discipline program data.
   • This will ensure that your discipline subscription is sending only discipline data
3. Set your special education resource access to:
   • Write only on student special education program data.
   • This will ensure that your special education subscription is sending only special education data.

I Have a HR-Finance or Finance Subscription

If you are subscribed to a finance vendor, then select your Resource Access to:

• Write on local account, budget and actuals.
• This will ensure that your finance tool is sending finance data.

I Use Xello

Xello is a read-only vendor tool with Resource Access that does not apply to any other vendor. For use of Xello’s Career and Academic Planning tool, set your resource access to:

• Read only enrollment composite (Xello).

There are no resource access setting required for Xello, and Xello will not be affected by any other data vendor subscriptions you have.

The "Super Awesome School District" Example

You may have noticed from the screenshot in the Overview section, our example school district called Super Awesome School District (also referred to throughout this guide as either Super Awesome or SASD for short). SASD also uses imaginary vendors to help the example seem realistic.

This section serves a summary of what the user guide has explained so far and also previews some information that we'll explain in the sections that follow. For example, the Credentials column contains information this tutorial hasn't covered yet. You can read the Credentials section for more information.

As part of their Plan for the 2025-26 school year, Super Awesome School District first reviews the vendor subscriptions from last year (2024-25):

Reviewing Vendor Subscriptions from the 2024-25 School Year:

Super Awesome School District's 2024-25 (Previous Year) Subscriptions

Vendor Type	Vendor name	Resource Access	Credentials
SIS	Learn Big	Write on all student data except special education.	Key and Secret will be displayed here.
SpEd	SpEd IDEAS	Write on all special education/program data.	Key and Secret will be displayed here.
Finance	Monio	Write on all local account, budget, and actuals.	Key and Secret will be displayed here.

Planning Vendor Subscriptions for the 2025-26 School Year:

Having reviewed last year's subscriptions, SASD decided to add a discipline vendor this year. They add this to their plan, making sure to review the resource access for each vendor to avoid overlapping data submission/subscriptions.

Super Awesome School District's 2025-26 (Current Year) Subscriptions

Vendor Type	Vendor Name	Resource Access	Action	Credentials
SIS	Learn Big	Write on all student data except discipline and special education.	Add subscription	Key and Secret will be displayed here.
Discipline	EduRegimen (NEW!)	Write only on student discipline data.	Add Subscription	Key and Secret will be displayed here.
SpEd	SpEd IDEAS	Write only on all special education/program data.	Resubscribe	Key and Secret will be displayed here.
Finance	Mon-io	Write on all local account, budget, and actuals.	Resubscribe	Key and Secret will be displayed here.

To see how Super Awesome School District manages their vendor subscriptions for the 2025-26 school year, jump to the Manage Vendor Subscriptions for the Current Year section of this user guide.

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Manage Vendor Subscriptions by School Year

The Vendor Subscriptions by School Year section of the Ed-Fi Credential application is where LEAs will spend most of their time, as this section has the most changes for the 2025-26 school year. The guidance given for this section of the user guide assumes that you have a plan created and will be referring to it to ensure that you are assigning accurate resource access to each subscription.

Resubscribing to, or adding, a vendor subscription gives permission for the vendor to submit data to the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) on your behalf for reporting purposes. This is detailed in the disclaimer agreements when subscriptions are renewed or added.

Starting in the 2025-26 school year, there will be new URLs for every new school year. Additionally, LEAs will need to add or resubscribe to vendor subscriptions annually for all vendors. This is done in the Vendor Subscription section of Ed-Fi Credential.

This section, section 2, displays expandable section headers, one for the current school year (i.e., 2025-26), and another for the previous school years (i.e., 2024-25 & 2023-24).

Nested underneath each school year header there are two further expandable/collapsible sections:

• Ed-Fi URLs: Find URL details in the Share Credentials section of this user guide.
• Subscriptions: The subscriptions section (previous year and current year) has two main sections: The Summary Table and the Detailed Table.

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Previous Years' Subscriptions

This portion of the user guide will instruct you how to adjust resource access to your vendor subscriptions for the previous two school years. Previous year data are still important to maintain, especially for the December Student Snapshot.

If you didn't have any overlapping subscriptions and your data was successfully pushed to WISEdata Portal, you would not/should not need to change these vendors or adjust these subscriptions. 

If you made any changes to your vendor subscriptions at any time within a school year, please submit a WISE Help Ticket, selecting Ed-Fi Credential as the application, and type, "Potential data flow issues from prior school year vendor subscriptions" in the description box.

Because changes you make to these subscriptions could disrupt your data flow to WISEdata, again we urge you to not make changes to previous year subscriptions by yourself. A DPI Customer Services Team staff member will assist you to make sure your year conditions are properly set and that data from the correct vendor will flow to WISEdata Portal. 

Vendor changes during a school year can be tricky because if things aren't set up correctly, your former SIS vendor may not have any data to send to WISEdata and your new vendor may not be connected to send your data to WISEdata Portal. Remember that Ed-Fi acts as a bridge between your LEA technology and the WISE systems. In order for data to "cross" that bridge, your Ed-Fi Credentials must be shared correctly. 

When you click the 'carat' icon at the far left of the subscriptions expander, you should see two sections:

• The Summary Table: displays any overlapping subscriptions with a warning icon.
• The Detailed Table: allows you to add, unsubscribe, or reset a subscription from the previous school year/s.

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The Summary Table (Previous Year Subscriptions)

This is a simple two-row table that provides a summary of all subscriptions by type and vendor/product name.

Warnings for Overlapping Subscriptions

The purpose of this table is to indicate overlapping subscriptions with a warning icon. Overlapping subscriptions means you have more than one vendor subscription in place for a type of data.

In this SASD example, two vendors are sending special education data: SpEd Ideas and Learn Big. This conflict will result in disrupting data flow to WISEdata Portal. Data flow errors can cause a lot of stress during the school year, but especially when LEAs are preparing data for snapshots.

This is a reason for an LEA to adjust a previous year's subscription. The resource access needs to be adjusted for both the primary SIS (Learn Big) and for the SpEd vendor (SpEd IDEAS).

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The Detailed Table (Previous Year Subscriptions)

LEAs make changes to subscriptions using the Detailed Table which lists vendor subscriptions these header categories: Vendor Type, Resource Access, Vendor Name, Credentials, and Action Buttons.

• Vendor Type: Student information system (SIS), Special Education (SPED), Discipline, and Finance. If you do not see one of these listed, your LEA does not have an active subscription for this vendor type. If you are expecting to have a subscription for a type you do not see, you may need to resubscribe or reach out to your SIS vendor.
• Resource Access: Refer back to the Plan section for more details on Resource Access.
• Vendor Name: The name of your vendor. If you see a subscription you do not need, you can unsubscribe using this action buttons.
• Credentials: This column contains the Key and Secret for each subscription.
• Action Buttons: Add, Reset, and Unsubscribe. These are the buttons that appear in the Previous Year's subscriptions.
  • IMPORTANT: Notice that you cannot Resubscribe here. You can only Resubscribe for the current school year.
  • Add opens a pop-up window and drop-down menus. This allows you to search for and select the DPI-certified vendor of your choice. You also need to assign resource access for each vendor. You can add more than one subscription, but only one subscription can be added at a time. Click the “Save changes” button when you are ready. Be sure to confirm that the resource access you have granted does not create a conflict or duplication of data submission (i.e., look for the warning icon).
  • Unsubscribe: Allows you to remove a subscription. Review the following sections before you unsubscribe: Warnings for Overlapping Subscriptions and How to Remove a Subscription.
  • Reset will create a new secret if one would be needed. A reset may need to be done if a user resubscribes to a vendor that was already set up earlier in the year, or if data stops flowing.

SNAPSHOT NOTE: LEAs should also ensure that the resource access for previous school years is also set accurately since ‘year-end’ data is included in the December snapshot.

Contact your Vendor Representative

If you make *any* changes to your previous year's subscriptions, reach out to your vendor representative. They will be the ones best suited to confirm that any changes you made are also appearing on their end. They can also help you confirm data flow. Remember that data from the two previous school years are captured in the December Student Snapshot(will open in a new tab).

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Current Year Subscriptions: Resubscribe

This portion of the user guide will instruct you how to resubscribe to last year’s subscriptions.

This section will not have a summary or a detailed table until you either Resubscribe to existing vendors or Add vendor subscriptions.

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Resubscribe to a Vendor:

When you click the “Resubscribe to existing vendors” button, a pop-up will open with a table at the top displaying the vendor name, vendor type, and the resource access for all the subscriptions your LEA held in the previous school year.

You should resubscribe if you plan on using that same vendor with the exact same resource access as it had last year.  Do not resubscribe if you need to change resource access. Use the Add function if using the same vendor with different resource access.

To Resubscribe:

1. Click the checkbox for each vendor you need/want.
2. Read the data agreements.
3. Click Save Changes.

Why Can't I Change My Resource Access?

If you need to change Resource Access for a vendor, then resubscribing is not the option you need. Read the instructions in the Add a Subscription section.

Super Awesome School District Example: Resubscribing

Remember back to Super Awesome's Plan, which also included a review of last year's vendors.

SpEd IDEAS and Mon-io are maintaining the same Resource Access as last school year, so these two vendors will get resubscribed. 

Since SASD is adding a discipline vendor, this means the Resource Access needs to change for their primary SIS so as to avoid a subscription overlap. Because the Resource Access is changing, SASD will not resubscribe to their primary SIS (Learn Big). 

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Current Year Subscriptions: Add

If you are adding a new vendor subscription for the 2025-26 school year, you will only be able to add a vendor that has been certified as integrated with the Ed-Fi API. For a list of vendors and their certification status, refer to the DPI Certified Vendor List.

Click the Add button to either:

• Adjust the resource access for a vendor subscription you want to keep using from last year or
• Add an entirely new vendor subscription.

When you click the “Add” button from the detailed table, a pop-up will open with drop-down menus for vendor name and resource access. All vendors in the drop-down list are certified vendors.

• NOTE: Some vendors have multiple products. If you are staying with the same vendor but migrating to a different product, do not resubscribe but “Add” a subscription for the new product. (Example, Skyward SMS migration to Skyward Qmlativ.)

• NOTE: Read-Only subscriptions (e.g., Xello), will not appear in this table. Read only subscriptions need to be added manually each year.

The Add pop-up window displays two dropdowns: Select a Vendor and Select Resource Access. 

Steps for Adding a Vendor Subscription:

1. Click the Add button.
2. Click the dropdown for Select a Vendor.
3. Add the vendor of your choice.
   • Remember that if you do not see a vendor on your list, this vendor is not a certified DPI vendor. Vendors that are non DPI Certified cannot push your LEA data over to WISEdata Portal. Be sure to purchase services from vendors that appear on the DPI Certified Vendor List (will open in a new tab).
4. Select the appropriate Resource Access to avoid an overlapping subscription. Be sure to follow what is on your plan and set the resource access to avoid overlapping subscriptions. Resource Access options will vary based on the selected vendor.
5. Click Save Changes.
6. Repeat as needed until all vendors are added. 

Super Awesome School District Example: Adding

Remember back to Super Awesome's Plan, which also included a review of last year's vendors.

The discipline vendor is new, so this vendor needs to be added with the Resource Access of "Write on only discipline data."

The addition of a discipline vendor causes the Resource Access for their primary SIS to change to avoid a data overlap on discipline data.

Here's how SASD will complete this resubscribe to their primary SIS (Learn Big):

1. Click the Add button.
2. Select "Learn Big" from the vendors dropdown.
3. Set the Resource Access for Learn Big to, "Write only on all student data except discipline and special education data."
4. Click Save Changes.

Next, SASD will need to create the new subscription for the Discipline subscription they purchased (Edu-Regimen):

1. Click the Add button.
2. Select "Edu-Regimen" from the vendors dropdown.
3. Set the Resource Access for Edu-Regimen to, "Write only on all student discipline data."
4. Click Save Changes.

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Review All Subscriptions

Review all of your subscription changes (previous year and current year) to make sure your Plan and your Ed-Fi Credential subscription screen match.

Summary Table: Warnings for Overlapping Subscriptions

Once you have resubscribed to and /or added subscriptions to certified vendors for the current school year, you should see a Summary Table in the Current School Year section.

Remember, if you see a warning icon in the subscription table, this means you have overlapping subscriptions.

To adjust your subscriptions, you will need to return to your plan, figure out how to adjust resource access to your subscriptions, then adjust your resource access for your subscriptions in Ed-Fi Credential.

Steps for Adjusting Subscriptions in Ed-Fi Credential:

• Unsubscribe from the vendor tool that needs its Resource Access adjusted. More details on Unsubscribe function are in the section below. 

• Add the subscription again with the proper resource access to make the warning go away.

• NOTE: Make sure you are in the intended school year when making these changes. 

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How to Remove a Subscription

The Unsubscribe button can be used in two ways.

• It works as a way to modify your existing subscription, like if you need to change the resource access.
• It works like a ‘delete’ button.

In either scenario, it will remove the subscription from your Ed-Fi Credential application.

However, if you truly want the subscription to be terminated, you will also need to follow up with the SIS vendor to confirm the cancellation and stop any further payments.

SNAPSHOT NOTE: Once a subscription is removed, you will no longer have access to edit or modify the data that was reported from that vendor. Please ensure all data reported from that vendor to WISEdata is accurate before removing the subscription.

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Share with Vendors

You’ve created your subscription, but there’s one more step! The vendor needs both your subscription credentials (Key and Secret) and the Ed-Fi URLs.

Each vendor has their own, defined process that will either be:

• Direct Entry: Some vendors let you enter this information directly into their application.
• Vendor Help Ticket: Some vendors require you to create a help ticket, and they will enter the information for you.

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Share Credentials (Key and Secret) with Vendors

Your Key and Secret unlock your data and establishes access to the API. The Key is basically your LEA Name and ID (like a username). The Secret will be displayed differently depending on the state of your data flow and activated subscriptions. Key + Secret = Credentials. The sharing of credentials is what allows data to flow securely from the SIS vendor tool, through the Ed-Fi API, over to WISEdata Portal.

You should notice on your current school year subscriptions your Secrets are displayed as a series of alpha-numerics. You will see this along with the Last Used status of "Never Activated" warning in red font. These details are communicating to you that you now need to contact your vendor representative and share your credentials to secure the connection between your SIS vendor tool, the Ed-Fi API, and WISEdata Portal. Some vendors do this for the LEA. Please contact your vendor(s) to ensure connectivity and data flow (e.g., direct entry or vendor help ticket). 

When your Secret appears ***hashed*** this indicates that the Secret was shared with the vendor and data is flowing.

When your Secrets are “***hashed***” on the Ed-Fi Credential application screen, this indicates that the credentials for that school year have been shared between the vendor and the LEA. The “Last Used” status should should have a recent date and return to a black font. 

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Share URLs with Vendors

URLs are needed by your vendor tool to ensure that data is directed to the correct place in the Ed-Fi WISEdata API. Like your Key and Secret, these are entered into your vended application.

As of the 2025-26 school year, there will be new URLs each year.

There are two different URLs listed within the Ed-Fi Credential application (Base and Authentication). Using the correct URL is critical. Many vendors will automatically apply URLs behind the scenes. Usage of URLs can be very vendor specific. Please reach out to your vendor for guidance on how to set up URLs. You can also view the Vendor Resources screen in WISEdata Portal, as DPI does encourage vendors to post such information here for your convenience.

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Confirm Data Flow to WISEdata Portal

The last step in this process is to ensure that your data is flowing from your vended application(s) to DPI via WISEdata Portal.

Please make sure not to overlook this step. Confirming data flow is crucial to avoid placing a heavier burden on LEAs as they prepare data for the December Student Snapshot.

Verify data is flowing using the WISEdata Portal, and, if there are issues, reach out to your vendor after you have verified that your credentials and URLs are correctly entered into your vended application.

• Visit the WISE User and Data Flow Basics mini tutorial for introductory-level information on data flow.
• Visit the WISEdata Portal Home Screen mini tutorial for more detailed information on data flow.

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Troubleshooting

If your data isn't flowing as expected, it could be due to one of two common issues:

1. Overlapping subscriptions or
2. An incomplete vendor setup, including failure to share credentials with the vendor, resulting in a subscription that was never activated.

Look for the warning icon or red colored font as an indicator that something needs your attention. 

Never Activated Subscription

In the vendor list, the attention symbol indicates that a subscription may never have been activated. For more detail, see the Share Credentials and Ed-Fi URLs with Vendors section or contact your vendor.

When to Reset a Key

The most likely reason for resetting a Key is due to data not flowing. Often-times, a new secret can reestablish data flow.

Resetting your key and secret will make a new Key and Secret. This will also stop data flow because you 'broke' the existing link between your vendor tool and the Ed-Fi WISEdata API. This connection will remain 'broken' until you contact your vendor and share this new secret. When your vendor has your new credentials your connection will get reestablished.

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