Does anyone have a Windows SFTP script for automating SIS data uploads?

[jbock]

Hi all,

For those of you using a script to upload courses, sections, etc. files to Canvas's SFTP servers: Would anyone be willing to share a script they've set up (obviously w/ the creds redacted)? Our previous LMS set this up for us but their implementation isn't easily converted to work with Canvas's requirements. My plan was to have a script run with Windows Task Scheduler, but if anyone knows of a good SFTP app for Windows that allows for automated tasks (w/o scripting) that would also be great.

Thanks,

Jason

Brimmer and May School

[schachernp]

Hello @jbock !  I just posted a question about Powershell scripts myself!  Mine quit working and I'm not quite sure how to fix it to get it to upload my course/teacher/student data for the new school year!!  Maybe I can get some insight from information you get!  My script was working flawlessly for about 2 yrs and recently quite for some reason!  Hopefully, we both can get some answers!  Thanks for the posting!  

Pam

[Robbie_Grant]

 @jbock ,

Were you able to find an answer to your question? I am going to go ahead and mark this question as answered because there hasn't been any more activity in a while, so I assume that you have the information that you need. If you still have a question about this or if you have information that you would like to share with the community, by all means, please do come back and leave a comment.  Also, if this question has been answered by one of the previous replies, please feel free to mark that answer as correct.

How we keep your questions flowing!‌

Robbie

[jbock]

Nope - this is not in any way resolved. Unlike our previous LMS provider, Canvas did not offer support with SIS integration in terms of FTP scripts, so it remains unresolved. It's a summer to-do item I'll have to solve on my own.

[James]

 @jbock  

It sounds like you just answered your own question. "Canvas did not offer support with SIS integration in terms of FTP scripts." Furthermore, the browsers are stopping support for FTP as it is insecure, so Canvas is very unlikely to ever support it. There's also SFTP, which is FTP over SSH -- that avoids the security issues, but they would have to grant everyone logins and passwords and manage that system separately, when user management and permissions are already built-into Canvas. What you need to do is send the file using HTTPS rather than SFTP. This is explained in the SIS Imports API documentation. You want to look at the Import SIS data endpoint. There are examples there of how to send the SIS import for curl. I use PERL to do mine, but it basically mimics the curl code.

I do not use PowerShell myself, but I found this PowerShell script on the web from kagigga/canvas-contrib: powershell-sis-import.ps1

[jbock]

Thanks for that info. When I was on boarded I was told SFTP was the method used by Canvas and that no documentation existed to script the upload. Perhaps that has changed. (Well obviously it has as you kindly sent documentation.) Thanks!

[James]

I'm sorry someone told you incorrectly. Maybe the person used the incorrect terminology -- you do send a file to Canvas to process, which is similar to SFTP. Some other systems have you upload a file into a folder and then the system scans the folder periodically looking for changes and that can be done through SFTP. That is not how Canvas works; you have to tell it that you're uploading a file through the appropriate API call.