PowerSchool Auto Sync

This article contains the following:
1. Overview
2. Setup 
3. Customizations
4. Syncing student emails
5. School Year Rollover
6. Troubleshooting
        - Missing Data
        - Sync Errors
7. Default Field Mappings

Please Note: If your district uses the North Carolina state-based PowerSchool setup, your sync method is SFTP and the sync is managed by your district. If you are interested, Clever is integrated with NCEdCloud for teacher and student logins! Click here to learn more.

Overview

✓ Runs every four hours, by exporting via Direct Database Export (DDE)
✓ Syncs all students with an active enrollment status ("enroll_status" = 0)
✓ Syncs Teachers that are assigned to an active School and have an active staff status ("Status" = 1)
X Student email addresses are not synced by default. Information on syncing student emails from PowerSchool can be found here. 
X Cannot sync the Central Office (school_id = 0), or any teachers assigned to this site
X Cannot sync co-teachers. As an alternative, districts can manually add co-teachers to sections directly within Clever. More info can be found here. 
X Cannot sync Staff to Clever. Staff can be manually added to Clever using these directions.

Setup

  Download: Setting up your PowerSchool Auto Sync

Clever requires specific permissions in order to facilitate an automatic sync with your SIS. Clever is a read-only service, and requires the following permissions to integrate with PowerSchool. Please see the attached document for best practices.

In addition to these permissions, we recommend the following best practices:

1. Create an individual SIS account only for Clever -- no one else should log in with the same credentials; and
2. Limit Clever's SIS account to read-only access.

Note: Clever also offers an alternative method of sharing PowerSchool rosters with Clever (via SFTP) – please contact us if you’d like to explore this option for your district.

Customizations

• PowerSchool syncs can be customized to sync nightly, instead of every two hours.
• Clever can filter exports from PowerSchool to limit the schools, teachers, or students included in the sync. Reach out to Clever Support if you would like to filter exports.
• To request customizations or filtering for your PowerSchool sync, request assistance from Clever Support.
  
  

Syncing Student Emails

Student email addresses are not synced by default, but they can be synced using one of the following methods. 

1. If student emails are stored in a field exportable via the DDE... 
If your student emails are stored in a field that is exportable by DDE, contact Clever Support with the exact field name as it appears in the DDE. Our team can assist with updating your sync to pull student emails from this location.

2. If student emails are stored on the Email Configuration page for students...
If student emails are stored on the Email configuration page in PowerSchool, Clever can pull this data with additional PowerSchool permissions:

In order to sync your student email addresses, we'll need you to enable page level-permissions for Quick Export. Here's how you can do this:

3. If student emails are not exportable from DDE or from the Email Configuration screen...
Clever will not be able to pull student emails as part of the auto sync, however, you do have the ability to manually sideload emails. Please see the following Help Center article: How do I upload emails that are not in my SIS?

School Year Rollover

On August 1st, Clever will begin syncing all enrollments with an end date after August 1st, 2020 (“DateLeft” > 8/1/2020). If you would like to begin syncing enrollments for the 2020-21 School Year before August, please request assistance from Clever Support.

Troubleshooting

If a record (student, teacher, section) is in Clever but data is missing or incorrect for the record (i.e. incorrect email, missing username), navigate to the Sync > Settings page in your Clever dashboard. Under Sync Controls, click on View field mappings 

Here you can view which fields Clever is pulling for each record and field. In the below example: 

1. If a teacher's email address was incorrect, confirm the email is correct in the "Email_addr" field in PowerSchool
2. If a teacher is missing State_teacher_id, you will see that Clever is not currently pulling this data. Please contact Clever Support to see what options may be available to pull this data. 

If an entire record is missing, we recommend checking the following:

Missing students
Clever will only sync students that meet the following conditions: 

• Record is active
• enroll_status = 0

Missing teachers
Clever will only sync teachers that meet the following conditions: 

• Record is active ("Active" box is checked)
• Assigned to a school, not the district office
• status = 1

Missing sections
Clever will only sync sections that meet the following conditions:

• Minimum of 1 active student enrolled
• No_of_students > 0
• TermID >= 3000 (please refer to TermID for current academic year)

Missing staff
Clever does not sync records from PowerSchool to the Staff role in Clever.

There may be users such as administrators, secretaries, and para-professionals who might not use PowerSchool directly but need access to applications through Clever. If those users are missing from your Clever data, there are two options to sync them to Clever.

Option A) Sync as teacher
To sync the user as a teacher, confirm they meet the record requirements as outlined above. 

Option B) Manually add to Clever using Custom Data
If the user requires access to teacher features or will need to be connected to a section, add the user as a Custom Teacher. 

If the user does not require teacher features and only will be using Clever for Single Sign-On (SSO), add the user as Custom Staff. 

Sync Errors

Below you can find solutions to common sync errors that may display in your Clever Dashboard. 

Default Field Mappings

Below are the default field mappings for PowerSchool Auto Syncs that are managed by Clever.

• Your district may have custom field mappings applied. To view the specific mappings for your account, navigate to the Sync > Settings page in your Clever dashboard. Under Sync Controls, click on View field mappings 
• If a field is blank, the field is either not pulled by default, or not accessible to Clever
• If you want to change a field mapping, please contact Clever Support to learn what options are available. 
• If a field is not coming through with the correct value, Clever Support may need to complete a value mapping. This is common for: Grade, FRL_Status, ELL_Status, and IEP_Status.

Schools

Students

Teachers

Sections