Data Imports

School Loop imports data from your school's student information system (SIS) on a daily basis. The data we import includes student names, courses, sections, teachers, and ID numbers . Personal information such as student addresses and phone numbers are not included.

The daily data imports keep School Loop in sync with your school. When students add or drop classes or teacher schedules are modified, those changes are reflected automatically in School Loop. Indeed, much of the information in School Loop is dependant upon the accuracy of the data we receive from your SIS. Consequently, it is very important to monitor your school's daily imports.

Note: Student and teacher names are not updated automatically after the initial import. Teachers can change their own display names in Account Management. Student's can't change their own display names, but a Sys Admin can do it on the student's Account Management page.

We provide all Administrators and System administrators with a tool to keep track of the daily data imports. Look for the Imports button near the top right corner of any page listing registered users (except students). For example, the first link under Teachers in the main navigation menu is Registered Teachers. Click on that link and you'll find the Imports button on the top right.

Clicking the Imports button will display a history of your imports. The most important details are the dates of the imports. If there are gaps where imports are not being sent or if imports stop altogether, then the information in School Loop will not be accurate.

Check the Created Date of the top most import to see how long it's been since the last import. Ideally, the last import will never be more than one school day old. The Modified Date may not be the same as the Created Date  and can be ignored - rolling restarts and data roll backs can change the modified date. The numbers for teachers, students, courses and sections, represent the total number of records in the system. These numbers can be larger than current active counts since they can include dropped teachers and students. The numbers in parentheses represent new records since the previous import.

When the most recent import is more than three days old, an alert will appear in the upper right hand corner of your Portal Page.

Note: Imports automatically stop on the last day of school, so it is ok to ignore this message in the summer.

At each district or school, there is a person responsible for maintaining the daily imports using software we call Sloopy. If you see the import alert in your Dashboard, your first course of action is to contact the Sloopy installer in your IT department . If that person cannot resolve the problem on their own, they should contact School Loop for support.

If your school interrupts the daily imports during holidays, you may safely ignore the alert on the day classes resume. If the alert persists into the second day back from a holiday, contact your Sloopy Installer.

For optimal performance, please run your imports on a nightly basis, preferably between 12am and 6am.

After the last day of school we ask that you stop the automated task that sends Sloopy imports. It won't hurt anything if you don't because our system automatically blocks imports after the last day. However, if the automated task is allowed to continue, there is the chance that when the first day of the new year rolls around, you accidentally send us last year's schedules.

Over the Summer we ask that you take a few minutes to update your Sloopy settings for the new year. Click here for details.

To start the new school year, there are number of tasks that need to be completed. Click here for the new year task list.