How do I fill student attributes with student info?

Filling in your newly-created student attribute with useful student info can be done a few ways:

1. Individually from student pages, by clicking the "edit" link next to their name
2. In bulk with a spreadsheet managed via the Export page
3. By having Schoolrunner sync in PowerSchool information (note that this is only an option if Schoolrunner is directly connected to your PS database; this is not an option if you use PS but send Schoolrunner data via Clever)

Enter Student Attribute Info Manually

To enter or edit attribute info for individual students, click the "edit" link on their student page (you'll need the "Edit Students" permission to do this).

Upload Student Attribute Info in Bulk

To upload student attribute info in bulk, navigate to your Export page (under the "Setup" menu) and click the "Export Student Attributes" link. Choose the attribute(s) you want to update from the dropdown list and click "Download".

You'll get a .csv spreadsheet that lists students next to a field for your attribute(s). Enter info for each student next to his/her name in the attribute column. You don't need to enter in data for every student if the attribute doesn't apply to them.

After saving your attributes file, drop it into the "Import" tab (on the same Export Student Attributes page you got the export from).

When you drop in the file, Schoolrunner will process it and give you a summary of the number of expected changes. Hit the "Save" button, wait for the confirmation message, and then check a student page to make sure the info is display as you expect.

Sync from PowerSchool

If Schoolrunner is directly connected to your PowerSchool database, and you already have student attribute information stored in PS, you can likely configure an attribute to be synced into Schoolrunner along with other school data.

This option is not possible if Clever sends Schoolrunner your data from PS.

When you're setting up an attribute whose data should be synced in from PowerSchool, most configuration options will be the same as how they're described in this article.

The main difference will be that you should see a "Schoolrunner Managed" toggle. Set this to "No" to let Schoolrunner know that information for this attribute should be coming from the sync, not from manual updates in the Schoolrunner website or from a spreadsheet upload.

Crucially, you'll also need to make sure that whatever you put in the "Attribute Key" field will identify exactly the corresponding field in PowerSchool. 

You'll always need to provide Schoolrunner with at least the field from which we should sync data. Sometimes, you'll also have to provide the table name as well, and notate this information in a table.field format (i.e. Students.Email).

To get specific, we can pull custom data from PS in three different ways:

1. Via the ps_customfields.getcf stored procedure in PowerSchool’s database (no table prefix needed).
2. From any column in the U_DEF_EXT_STUDENTS table which joins on STUDENTS.dcid = U_DEF_EXT_STUDENTS.studentsdcid (no table prefix needed).
3. Or from any other column in any other table that we can join using STUDENTS.dcid = ANY_OTHER_TABLE.studentsdcid (table prefix needed).

If student data is stored according not to the PS dcid for that student but to id or student_number or something else, we will likely not be able to retrieve it.

When the attribute is set up with the correct PS attribute key, the normal Schoolrunner sync with your PS will pull student info for this attribute. Contact [e-mail] if you're having trouble getting this to work.