SIS Export Report - Am I understanding it correctly?

[gladysie]

We export SIS information from PeopleSoft into Canvas on a nightly basis.  At some point, the SIS system was failing to update enrollments as expected.  This left us with students enrolled in Canvas, but not officially through the SIS system.  I had thought I could determine which enrollments needed to be removed by using the SIS Export Report and comparing it against our SIS enrollments.  The SIS Export description reads - "SIS Export report: This report will export all the needed files for Users, Accounts, Terms, Courses, Sections, Enrollments, Groups, Group Memberships, and Cross Listings for an SIS import in their respective categories. This will only return items created or modified through SIS."  

I assumed this meant it would return records if SIS created a record and in the case of enrollments, not include enrollments added through +People.  In practice, this doesn't seem to be the case.  It seems if SIS Import created a user, it will include them in the report, even if added to a course through +People.  If a course was created through the Canvas web interface, but enrollments were handled through SIS Import, neither the course or the enrollments will appear in the report.  

So I guess the clarification I'm seeking is what does Canvas consider "created or modified" through SIS in the context of this report?  Enrollments don't seem to be "created".  I believe Users, Courses, Sections, Terms are considered "created".  It also seems there is a hierarchy to object creation, so if  a Course wasn't "created", then its enrollments won't appear even if all users were "created".   Are these the correct assumptions?

Stickiness doesn't apply to enrollments.  If it did, that would be an easy way to reconcile SIS vs Canvas.

Thanks in advance for any insights that can be provided!

[pklove · Accepted solution]

I haven't looked into it, but have you tried a Provisioning enrolments report?  It has a "created_by_sis" column.  This might just have the same problem, or it might not.  It could be worth a quick look.

[gladysie]

Thanks Peter.

  I did some further testing today and the Provisioning Report's "created_by_sis" column provided me the information I needed.  I used +People to add someone to my course and then ran the SIS Report and Provisioning.  The student appeared in both reports.  Provisioning had them marked correctly as False under "created_by_sis".

[ColinMurtaugh]

Hi Ryan -- 

When you say "a course was created through the Canvas web interface, but enrollments were handled through SIS Import", was the section also created by SIS import? When you look at the Canvas course settings and the section settings under that course, do either of those have SIS IDs populated?

--Colin

[gladysie]

Colin,

  During testing, I created a new course through the web interface and then went into course details and provided it with a SIS ID (even though it doesn't exist in our SIS, we may want to use it in other systems/scripts that require a SIS ID).  The section does not have a SIS ID.  I added myself to the course using the +People button.

  This course appeared in the Provisioning and SIS Export enrollment reports.  Provisioning correctly listed the course as False under the created_by_sis column.  

  I think the "This will only return items created or modified through SIS." part of SIS Export help text is misleading or the report is failing to take the "created_by_sis" flag into consideration.

- Ryan