Jenzabar (SIS) and Canvas Grade Integration

[luke_caldwell]

I am at a small college and we currently require all grades to be recorded in Canvas, however, we are required to input our midterm and final grade into Jenzabar as that connects to all of our in-house, reports, transcripts, tracking forms...yadda yadda yadda. As of right now, our faculty have to re-enter their final grade in our Faculty Course Control element. I would like to see an integration where our professors can click a button in Canvas that pushes their class grades to Jenzabar or click on a button in Jenzabar that pulls those grades. I am at the mercy of my programmer and he has lots of reasons why this can't work.  As a result, I am reaching out to the community to find help!

So my questions to the Canvas community:

   How many schools who also use Jenzabar have an easy grade integration built?

   If so, what have been some unforeseen issues that might have occurred with this integration?

   Finally, would any of you be willing to share come code or be a sounding board for me or, more importantly, my    programmer?

[Stef_retired]

Hi,  @luke_caldwell ‌, I've shared your question with a few folks I know who are using Jenzabar. I've also shared it with the https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/sis-integrations?sr=search&searchId=2d8c2c98-b3e1-44fd-9833-0...‌ group to get other specialists' eyes on it. And because of the scope of the prompt I've flipped the format to a discussion. Good luck!

[Stef_retired]

...also,  @luke_caldwell ‌, I'm not a Jenzabar user, but I'm told that they have multiple multiple products -- SONIS, SIS, CX, JX -- and implementation may not be the same for each. To direct the conversation with a more narrowed focus, can you provide some specifics about which product you're using?

[luke_caldwell]

We are currently using CX and transitioning to JX yet our grades will remain with CX for the foreseeable future.

[develand]

We're currently using JX and would like to know how we can accomplish the same process. It just seems impossible to do a simple "import CSV" (which while not as elegant as a full on API integration) would still be loads better than having to transcribe grades. I'm aghast that in 2018 - a simple import via CSV is insurmountable - I think this was standard accepted tech in the 1990s. [rant complete]

[shanaegalloway]

Our small university is in a similar situation. We are on Jenzabar CX and transitioning to JX. Our faculty manually enter the midterm and final grades through our campus portal, but if some institution using Jenzabar has successfully been able to push/pull grades to the Registrar's Office, we would love to hear about it, too!

[dibarrondo]

I'm interested in this as well. We use Jenzabar and have similar issues.

[mrobbins1]

We're a new Canvas user on EX, and I need to write a grade import for mid-term and final letter grades from Canvas. Did any of you find solutions yet? 

[luke_caldwell]

I had a Jenzabar rep reach out to me about paying them to build one, but other than that option, no one shared any other feedback or solutions than what you see here.

[develand]

 From what I recall this is always Jenzabar's go to action. So much of what they build is extremely proprietary. I guess this is how they make bank, but at the same time this can only go on for so long. Institutions will begin looking to implement other solutions that 'play well with others'. I'll be watching this thread and others. Thanks for the inquiry!

[mrobbins1]

OK. Well, I'm testing the ability to use the API to pull grades into Jenzabar, but it doesn't look promising as I can't tell when the grades are final in Canvas. My other alternative is to use the Gradebook Passback plugin, which means creating a web service so the instructor can push a file with the grades, and then writing procedures within SQL Server to process the file. I'll keep posting progress if anyone is interested.  

[dibarrondo]

Thanks all for the updates. We continue to be interested in this topic though we don't have much to add other than we're seeking the same solution. We are an EX user.

[mrobbins1]

My first stab was to identify all of the enrollments in Jenzabar where no grade had yet been entered, and use the Canvas API to retrieve the grade and then save it to EX. As mentioned above, that didn't work because Canvas has no indicator that a grade is final, and (at least at my school) EX only wants the final (or "final" midterm) grade and not any preliminary grades.

The next stab was to use the Gradebook Passback plugin. This requires that we have a web service operational before I can even get a sample file from the Gradebook. That has not been completed yet, but I think there's going to be a complication here, too. It appears Canvas will only send all grades at once and, for the Spring term, we require instructors to submit senior grades early. We can get around that by having the senior grades entered into EX manually, and then having the instructors use the Gradebook to submit after all grades are final, so it shouldn't be a show-stopper. We also use combined ("cross-listed") sections, and I'm hoping that those won't present a problem finding the original section in EX to apply the grade. I don't think they will, as the file should have the original section_id, but I'll believe it when I see it. 

So, not much progress yet.

[kona]

 @mrobbins1 , sorry to hear that you're not making much progress, but we appreciate the update! 

[gscott]

Paul Edinger at Moravian College implements this for Final grades with REST API’s if you have access to the 2019 J A M information his session notes and contact should be available at myjenzabar.net sometime soon. He used customized Portlets to live import properly formatted grades from a preset canvas column via REST and JICS.  It’s possibly worth paying someone to do for you but if you have technical coding knowledge  this may help point you in the right direction.

[luke_caldwell]

Thanks Glenn. I am sending your info to our programmer.

[pinak_0605]

We have an app, we are doing user, course, section, enrollment and grade sync with canvas from our backend integration with jenzabar if anyone still interested.

[talway]

Pinak, I would be interested in seeing what you are doing.  We currently use PowerShell to retrieve information from Jenzabar and place it into a CSV file for Canvas for the user, course, account and enrollment information.  I would like to move away from PowerShell and into something much more integrated.

[pinak_0605]

I sent you the direct message with some details, have a look.

[develand]

Pinak, I'd love to hear what you've come up with. Our Admins are finally to the place where they see the value add of doing this for our faculty, particularly when it comes to some who do not get around to entering final or mid-term grades in on time. Feel free to PM at develand@johnsonu.edu

[mtimma]

Tom,

This is a little off topic, we do something similar but we are having issues with keeping "incompletes" in classes after they have concluded.  The script from Jenzabar is concluding the classes and treating them the same as an inactive student, the registrar doesn't want to change the end date even though it is well short of the time when "incompletes" have to turn their materials in.  Do you by any chance have some experience with this?

[apitzner]

We are also using .csv file integrations between jenzabar (EX) and Canvas and are interested in other ways to accomplish our integrations.  We would love to understand what you do. 

Thank you in advance!

[kaisho]

Pinak, we would be interested in seeing your solution as well. Thank you. 

[EricFeldhusen]

I'd be interested in seeing how you're doing that sync from Jenzabar to Canvas.
Eric Feldhusen

[homework]

You may want to include some sample problems with your solution and the steps of the development how to understand maths easily. Do not write many examples; the beauty of a sheet of notes lies in its conciseness.