Understanding PeopleSoft Enterprise SAIP

This chapter discusses:

Click to jump to parent topicThe Integration Pack

PeopleSoft Student Administration Integration Pack (SAIP) is a separately licensed product that provides a web-service based interface for passing academic data (person, course, and enrollment) from PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions to consuming applications such as your learning management system (LMS). The web services process creates and maintains corresponding data and structures in the target external system. For example, as a course is created in PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, the web service passes the data to an LMS, which creates a corresponding course site or virtual learning space. Then, as students successfully enroll in the course in the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions system, their enrollment information is passed to the LMS so that they are listed as valid members of that course site with all appropriate privileges.

SAIP provides two types of integration: snapshot and event-driven.

The snapshot model enables you to move volumes of data between systems, for example, when initializing an integration between Campus Solutions and a learning management application, or creating course sites at the beginning of a term.

The event-driven model permits near real-time updates, for example, adding enrolled students immediately to course sites as they enroll in courses, or the creation of course sites as the courses are created. The event-driven model is supplemented by snapshots in cases in which an institution or term is pivotal and large quantities of data must be moved between PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and the external system.

SAIP also provides Grade Import. When enabled, Grade Import allows your faculty members to import final grades on a per-course basis from your LMS into the PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Records online grade roster.

The SAIP interface is based on the IMS Learning Information Services standard specification. This specification provides standard information models and protocols representing person, courses, enrollments, and outcomes. Specifically, IMS Learning Information Services provides the following services:

The IMS Learning Information Services specification includes a data model for entities relevant to each of the services it provides. SAIP maps to PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration data and transforms it into the schema defined by IMS.

Note. As an active participant in the standards committee for IMS Learning Information Services, Oracle is aware of changes in the IMS specifications as they occur. Oracle incorporates relevant IMS specification changes and communicates them to SAIP customers through product updates and maintenance.

The PeopleSoft Enterprise to IMS data transformation includes:

Click to jump to parent topicSnapshot Integration

A snapshot enables you to move the full set of relevant academic data from your PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions system to the target external system when needed. Snapshots are tolerant of lost messages or missed data objects. Any subsequent snapshot transmittal sets the target system back in synchronization with the source system.

Snapshots are requested by external systems according to the IMS Learner Information Services specification. SAIP returns a response defined in the same specification.

With the snapshot method you decide when you want a group of data to be transmitted to the external system.

A full synchronization snapshot captures and transfers all of the data in your system that is defined as in scope for SAIP.

An incremental snapshot captures and transfers only data that has been newly created or changed since the time that you define, such as since the last snapshot was run. Consider setting incremental snapshot integration to run frequently, perhaps nightly, to keep your external system updated.

An incremental snapshot:

  1. Captures any changes to groups (representing institutions, organizations, terms), persons, courses, and enrollment information that are in scope for SAIP.

  2. Captures any future effective-dated changes as they become current.

    Note. Currently, future effective-dated changes do not engage event-based triggers.

  3. Confirms and rectifies results of event-based triggers.

A full synchronization snapshot is one that overwrites all previous data.

Warning! When a full synchronization snapshot runs, all existing data is overwritten. Run a full synchronization snapshot integration infrequently and only to initialize or reinitialize the systems.

A full synchronization snapshot uses processes to move data in a specific order to maintain data integrity. The order is:

  1. Groups: institutions, organizations, terms (ReadGroups service operation).

  2. Persons (ReadPersons service operation).

  3. Course templates (ReadCourseTemplates service operation).

  4. Course offerings (ReadCourseOfferings service operation).

  5. Course sections (ReadCourseSections service operation).

  6. Section association (ReadSectionAssociations service operation).

  7. Memberships (ReadMemberships service operation).

SAIP sends the snapshot outputs (XML files) to your external system as the result of a request from that system. You must set which snapshot to use as a request-level parameter in your external system.

When you include or exclude items in scope, you set them to be included or ignored in snapshot data transfers. You can override the inclusion or exclusion at cascading levels down from the highest level of institution to the most granular element of class section.

Incremental snapshot integration uses the following service operations:

When an incremental snapshot is requested, SAIP generates an XML document using the naming convention that concatenates the service operation name with the date (YYYY-MM-DD) and time (HH.MM.SS.mmmmmm, where m is milliseconds) of the snapshot creation, for example READCOURSEOFFERINGS2008-01-11-14.55.23.000000.xml

The IMS Learning Information Services service operation model allows automatic transfer of XML incremental snapshot documents between systems. You must point each system to the desired destination directory or server. For SAIP, you specify the destination on the SAIP Installation page.

See File Directory Settings.

SAIP posts the XML snapshot documents to the specified destination, making it available for the external system to retrieve, and provides the URL for that location in the response that it returns to the requesting system. SAIP requires no user intervention to transfer the XML snapshot documents after they are posted, however you can manually access and edit the files if necessary.

Click to jump to parent topicEvent-Based Trigger Integration

Event-driven integration enables near real-time synchronization between your PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions systems and the external system. For example, if a student successfully enrolls in a course in PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration, and a corresponding course site exists in your external system, that student is added in near real time as a valid participant in the course site.

Event-based triggers are embedded within PeopleSoft Campus Solutions where key enterprise data (groups, persons, courses, and enrollments) can be created, updated, or deleted. The PeopleSoft Campus Solutions system publishes data object messages as events occur that change the relevant data. A subscription handler invokes the appropriate external system web service. The target system receives the messages and processes the event transactions.

The existence of an event-driven interface does not eliminate the usefulness of the snapshot interface. Because an event-driven interface is not tolerant of missed transactions, you will want to use the snapshot interface at regular intervals to resynchronize the data in the target system with that of your PeopleSoft Campus Solutions system.

Note. Running the event-driven model is not required. If you choose not to engage event-driven integration, you can use full and incremental snapshots to keep data synchronized. However, changes to data in the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions system will not be reflected in the external system until the next time the external system requests the incremental snapshot.

Embedded event-based triggers include, but may not be limited to, the following processes:

Warning! Changing the embedded triggers or creating new ones requires coding and may have significant negative administrative impact.

Click to jump to parent topicCourses and Event-Based Operations

The mapping of PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration course structures to IMS course structures (CreateCourseTemplate service operation) is complex. This section describes SAIP's creation or modification of the necessary course items.

IMS course structure items are:

SAIP creates a course template when a new course is created in the PeopleSoft Student Administration course catalog, provided that the course is associated with an academic institution and academic organization that are set as in scope for the integration process and that the course's status is Approved. A PeopleSoft Student Administration course always requires at least one course offering.

SAIP updates a course template when any data in the course catalog component is modified and the component is saved. In addition, if a course's status is Inactive, SAIP updates the course template with a status of Inactive.

A PeopleSoft Student Administration course cannot be deleted. However, SAIP will send a delete action to the external system for a course template if any of the following occur:

SAIP creates a course offering when a new class section is created in either PeopleSoft Student Administration's Schedule New Course or Maintain Schedule of Classes components if the class section is associated with an institution, term and academic organization that are in scope. The IMS course offering item includes an academic session attribute that maps to the PeopleSoft Student Administration term. Terms are associated with the PeopleSoft Student Administration course hierarchy only at the class section level. Therefore, course offering is a blending of PeopleSoft Student Administration's course offering and class section.

SAIP updates a course offering when information in either the PeopleSoft Student Administration's Course Catalog component or Maintain Schedule of Classes components is updated and the component is saved.

SAIP deletes a course offering when a class section is deleted in the PeopleSoft Student Administration Maintain Schedule of Classes component.

Using the same in-scope criteria as course offering, SAIP creates a course section when a new class section is created in the either PeopleSoft Student Administration's Schedule New Course or Maintain Schedule of Classes components.

SAIP updates a course section if information in the PeopleSoft Student Administration Maintain Schedule of Classes component is modified and the component saved.

SAIP deletes a course section when a class section is deleted in the Student Administration Maintain Schedule of Classes or Schedule Class Meetings component.

Click to jump to parent topicCommon Terms Used in This PeopleBook

In Scope

Refers to the items included in the data transfer. To include an item in scope is to mark it for inclusion in the next snapshot data transfer (by either full or incremental snapshot integration) and in event-based updates. When an item is included in scope, SAIP continues to capture the data from the PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions system and use it to update the same data in the target external system until the item is cleared from scope.

For an item to be included in scope, all elements in the item's hierarchy must be in scope. For example, for an academic organization to be in scope, its parent institution must be in scope; for a class section to be in scope, its parent institution, academic organization, and the term for that class section must be in scope.

Element

The more granular levels of items eligible for inclusion in scope. The highest levels are institution, academic organization, and term. The lower levels, or elements, are course offerings, class sections, and persons.

All three high levels must be in scope for the more granular elements to be available for inclusion or exclusion.

External System or Target System

The external third-party system or target system is the system intended to request data and receive the data captured and transferred from your PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions system, or in the case of grade import, it is the external third-party system from which grades are received by your PeopleSoft Campus Solutions system.

In many cases, the external system is your institution's learning management system (LMS).

Snapshot

A snapshot is a capture of data as it exists in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions system at the moment of the capture.

An incremental snapshot captures only data that was newly created or changed or newly placed in scope in the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions system as of the date and time defined in the request. SAIP makes the captured data available to the external system. When the external system requests the data, the snapshot is applied, updating the existing data and adding the newly created data in the external system.

A full synchronization snapshot captures all in-scope data from the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions system no matter when it was created or changed. SAIP makes the captured data available to the external system. When the external system requests the data, the snapshot is applied, overwriting all of the data in the target system.