Tips for transitioning SIS Import to Diffing Mode

glparker
Community Champion

Is anyone else making use of the recently introduced SIS Import Diffing Mode?    It sounds great, very much like I was used to using back in my Blackboard days of 'snapshot' mode.  

Some initial question

1)

I tend to send .zip files of CSV's to Canvas logically groups by function,

users.csv

courses.csv

terms.csv

accounts.csv

memberships.csv

It looks like diffing works by flagging a single file with a diff_id.   If that's the case, can I no longer bundle files?  

2)   My Memberships file contains only recently changed records (14 days in my case) for students and teachers.   It also combines them from multiple terms.   That is, all future terms, the current term, and two previous terms, are all included in a single membership.csv.   To take advantage of diffing mode, I expect I'd need to at least

- Break the file up into separate terms (membership-fall-2015.csv, membership-spring-2016.csv, etc...)

- Include ALL memberships for that term in the file.

3)  With Diffing mode, if a member of the diffing group is missing from the CSV, they are flagged as deleted in Canvas, correct?   Does this delete follow the regular rules of deletion?   That is, if I subsequently put them back in the course, will all their content remain as it was when they were deleted?

Please share your experiences migrating to diffing mode.