Enrollments deleted at end of term - Banner

[abunag]

I've run into an exciting new problem - when Banner determined that a term had ended, it no longer kept those enrollments on the export.  Canvas decided this meant it should delete the enrollments from the courses from that term, and I'm not really sure why.  We were able to kludge a fix by adding previous terms back onto the Banner exports, but that's a band-aid solution.  Does anyone know why Canvas would delete those enrollments, and how we can fix this issue?  My biggest problem here is that I'm not a programmer, and the person who set all of our Banner-Canvas import stuff up is no longer available, so I'm not really sure what settings I should even be looking for.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[bgibson]

The simple answer is check with your CSM.  They are very good at focusing in on the problem and the solution.  Canvas would delete those enrollments probably because it was acting as it had been told to.

[abunag]

We presented the issue to our CSM right before the holidays, but didn't get a clear answer yet.  I was hoping that others may have ideas or have run across this issue so we can get this resolved as soon as possible.

But, I will go ahead and contact them again about it.

[powellj]

It sounds like your data was pushed into Canvas as a full refresh, rather than an update. When run as a full refresh, any data included will be updated (if necessary), and anything not included will be treated as a delete. It's a good thing to run every so often to help tidy up your Canvas data, but this is a good example why it's not always best to run it that way all the time.

[abunag]

Any idea how I would check this?  Reading through the documentation, this seemed like it was "Batch Mode", but the SIS Import logs indicate that Batch Mode isn't enabled for the automated imports.

[mcowen]

Anthony,

Jacci has a good point.  You can find the 'batch_mode' in the log files of the SIS Imports page.

To pinpoint the cause, you will need to find the exact import that caused the students to be dropped.  Here's a little help on viewing log files

• To view the log of the latest import, go Admin>SIS Imports or https://_____.instructure.com/accounts/self/sis_import
• To view the last 10 imports, add an 's' on the end of the previous URL https://_____.instructure.com/accounts/self/sis_imports
• To go back further in the import logs add a ?page=2 (or ?page=3 etc.) at the end of the previous URL https://_____.instructure.com/accounts/self/sis_imports?page=2
• You can also use ?per_page=30  or 40 or 50  etc. at then end of the URL ( up to ?per_page=100 ).
• Note: you will want to have some sort of JSON parser to make the page more readable. I use JSON Formatter in Chrome.

When you find the upload that caused the drop, look for a field that says "batch_mode". If it's anything other than "batch_mode": null, that could be the culprit. 

The cause could also come from a status change in the enrollments.csv file.

Take a look at the file that was uploaded (if you still have it on your server). Specifically in the enrollments.csv file. You will probably find something other than 'active' in the status field.

I expect there is something in the query that created the file that changed the enrollment status at the end of the term.  To prevent it from happening again, you will want to pay attention to the query that created the file before the end of the next term.

I hope this helps!

[Robbie_Grant]

 @abunag y,

We are giving the Canvas Admins area a little bit of love (especially questions that are really, really old) and just want to check in with you.  This will also bring this question new attention. 

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.

Robbie