Configuration Options: Provisioning and Synchronizing Registration Data

Configuration Options: Provisioning and Synchronizing Registration Data

Synopsis

Users must be registered to courses in specified roles in order to be provisioned with the appropriate access (group permissions) to interact with course files, the user list, and the syllabus. Registering users to the correct syllabus in the correct role supports the integrity of your system data and results in a more consistent experience for end users. Users who view a course without being registered to it are considered Guests (users are logged into a Concourse account) or Public (users are not logged into a Concourse account) and have more limited viewing access. Users’ roles within courses (e.g., instructor or student) are typically stored in your SIS and LMS; this information must be shared with Concourse to give users the correct permissions for their role. This information can be transferred to Concourse in a variety of ways. Your institution can choose to Auto-create registrations, create registrations with a Registration Feed, or create registrations manually (for exceptional cases). Continue reading for more information to help you choose the right option for your institution.

Key Terms

  1. Feed: a data file that is used to migrate information from external systems to Concourse; feeds can be automated or processed manually.
  2. Integration: the way in which Concourse is connected to your institution’s LMS or SSO.
  3. Auto-create: an optional component included in LMS integration that creates Concourse user accounts, registrations, and courses automatically with data from the LMS.
  4. Middleware: a tool that translates data in your institution’s systems to a format that Concourse can consume. Concourse’s middleware partner is Apidapter.
  5. Registration: the act of adding a user to a course and providing them with the appropriate group permissions based on their role in the course.
  6. Group Permissions: a setting that determines how each of seven user groups engages with each syllabus item; group permissions function at the syllabus level but can be set in a number of ways.
  7. End users: typically students, instructors, and other syllabus managers. End users typically engage with syllabi individually and do not need large-scale access to system data for management or reporting purposes.

Important to this Decision

Before making decisions about how your institution uses Concourse, you should consider how stakeholders, systems, timelines, and other factors are impacted. Review the important elements below to be better prepared to make changes to your Concourse configuration or implementation.
Key Players
Prior to making this decision, you should consult your institution’s SIS and LMS admins, as well as IT staff involved with data management.
Consideration
Registering users to courses in the appropriate roles requires data transmission from your other systems (LMS or SIS) to tell Concourse: who the user is, what the course is, and what group the user should be registered to in that course. For this configuration setting, you decide the most accurate, consistent, and efficient way to get this data from your other systems into Concourse.
Timing
This decision is typically made during the implementation phase, but the creation and synchronization of registrations can be changed afterward if your institution’s needs change.
Connected Systems & Locations
  1. If your institution Auto-creates Registrations:
    1. A component is added to your middleware adapter to trigger the automatic creation and updation (optional) of registrations.
    2. Your LMS sends user data (email address and user ID) and LMS course role data to Apidapter, where it is prepared for transmission to Concourse.
  2. If your institution processes Registration Feeds:
    1. Data is queried from the SIS to generate Registration Feeds. Many system admins use SQL to collect the data and generate feed files.
    2. Feeds can be processed manually by uploading a correctly-formatted .txt file to Concourse; feeds can also be automated with the use of tools like PowerShell.
  3. If your institution creates registrations manually, the System Admin determines how and when those limited registrations are processed.
Method
  1. To Auto-Create Registrations, submit a request to support@campusconcourse.com to add the Auto-register component to your middleware adapter. 
  2. Registration Feeds can be automated or processed manually. To learn more about automated feeds, see our knowledge base article on Automated Feed Processing. Registration feeds can be generated manually using the data guidelines in Construct and Process System Data Feeds. To manually process a Registration Feed: 
    1. Admin > Tools 
    2. Feed Processing 
    3. Select Registration in the Type dropdown menu 
    4. Select File > Select the feed file from your device
    5. Process
  3. To manually create registrations:
    1. Locate the course where users should be registered.
    2. Select Users in the syllabus navigation menu.
    3. In the Course Users table, select Add Users.
    4. Enter the email address(es) and group of the user(s) to be added.
    5. Select Add
Motivation & Impact
Choose the method that best supports your other systems, processes, and staff. Some options for registration provisioning will be more efficient than others, and some may not be feasible given your institutional contexts. For example, program chairs might be registered to LMS courses in a general admin role, but their Concourse role should be course manager so they can review and edit syllabi; in this case, using a Registration Feed may be the most efficient option to grant those users the correct group permissions.

Configuration Options

Concourse provides different options for creating registrations to support different institutional contexts. We recommend that you review these options carefully before deciding which one best meets your needs. 
  1. Option A: Auto-create Registrations
  2. Option B: Process Registration Feeds
  3. Option C: Manually Create Registrations
For the purposes of creating and synchronizing large amounts of registration data, either auto-creating registrations or creating registrations via feed is the best option for quickly and accurately creating registrations to provide users with the correct access. It is not recommended to use both Auto-Create and Registration Feeds because it results in redundant effort and can lead to extraneous registrations if a discrepancy exists in registration data across multiple sources. If the choices below don’t fit your needs, reach out to Client Services for assistance.
Option A: Auto-create Registrations
  1. Approach: Submit a request to your implementation team or support@campusconcourse.com to add auto-create registration components to the  middleware adapter for your LMS integration. A conversation will follow to confirm your institution’s use case and other related configuration settings, and then Team Concourse will meet with you to set up and test the additions to your adapter. 
  2. Better For: This option is by far the most popular among Concourse institutions. It is used by institutions where end users will access Concourse primarily via the LMS. Larger institutions also typically use this option because it eliminates the need to generate and process lengthy Registration Feeds at frequent intervals.
  3. Advantages and Disadvantages of Auto-create: The main advantage of this approach is how low maintenance it is. Setup meetings to update your middleware adapter typically take less than an hour, and once the initial setup is complete, there is no intervention required from Concourse Admins or members of your IT team. Course registrations are thereafter automatically created in Concourse using data from your LMS. A disadvantage of this approach is that users can be automatically registered for courses, but if users drop or withdraw from a course, their registration from the Concourse course isn’t automatically dropped. As a result, some users’ Concourse homepages can become crowded if they add and drop many courses in a given term. If this is a concern for your institution, your implementation can be set to hide the main navigation menu and homepage access from students or you can process Drop Registration Feeds as needed.
  4. Effort: This option is the least time consuming. LMS integration requires an initial set-up meeting with a member of Team Concourse, your institution’s Concourse Admin, and your LMS Admin; the Auto-create components are typically added to your middleware adapter at this point. If you wish to enable user auto-creation after your LMS integration is complete, you can send an email to support@campusconcourse.com to make the request; a meeting is recommended at this point to ensure you’re ready to make the switch. Once these components are added to your middleware adapter, no additional maintenance or intervention are required on your institution’s part.
Option B: Process Registration Feeds
  1. Approach: For automated feed processing, a member of your institution’s IT staff writes a generation script (SQL is often used for this purpose) to create Registration Feed files from data in your Student Information System; the Registration Feed is then transmitted to Concourse via POST over HTTPS. Once feeds are confirmed to create registrations as expected, this process can be automated with PowerShell or other job scheduling software. Feed files can be created manually, but this approach opens up the possibility of errors in data being fed into Concourse, which could result in system data errors later. If your institution generates feed files automatically, those files can be manually processed in Concourse at a cadence that fits your needs. Once users have been created in Concourse, their registrations can be created to allow them access and group permissions for the appropriate courses. Note that your institution may process Registration Feeds for all users or select groups of users in exceptional cases. If your institution uses Registration Feeds, we also recommend that you use Drop Registration Feeds to ensure that users are only registered for the appropriate courses after the drop/add period ends each term.
  2. Better For: This option is used most often by institutions that do not use an LMS, have users access Concourse via an SSO portal, or have users access Concourse directly. Some institutions opt to use Registration Feeds to provision access and group permissions for users whose role isn’t captured by the LMS and therefore can’t easily be Auto-registered for courses (e.g., program chairs, course managers).
  3. Advantages and Disadvantages of Registration Feeds: Automated Registration Feeds require little long-term maintenance and intervention after the initial setup and troubleshooting period; however, if feeds are not processed in the correct sequence or at the correct frequency, there may be errors that delay correct access for end users. 
  4. Effort: Processing Registration Feeds (and Drop Registration Feeds) requires more time investment than auto-creating registrations, but it is typically not a very time-consuming task once the initial set-up is complete. We recommend that feed files be generated and processed manually at first to ensure accuracy of data.
Option C: Manually Create Registrations
  1. Approach: Concourse Domain Administrators are the only users who are able to create and drop registrations manually for other users. A Domain Admin can register an existing user to an existing course, but the Domain Admin does not inherently have permission to create users or courses. If a user or course should be created before registrations can be created, a Domain Admin and System Admin should collaborate to complete the process. In addition to creating exceptional registrations on an as-needed basis, this ability is helpful if a user’s registration needs to be adjusted very quickly, as in the case of instructor reassignments at the start of term.
  2. Better For: This option is typically used only for exceptional cases at a variety of institutions, when a limited number of registrations must be created, and creating the registration via Auto-create or Registration Feed it is not feasible. 
  3. Advantages and Disadvantages of Manually Creating Registrations: Creating registrations manually is not so time-consuming as to be prohibitive for limited uses. For example, if there is a training syllabus for new instructors to explore Concourse, multiple registrations can be processed into a single course at once. A drawback, however, is that Domain Admins must enter the users’ email addresses exactly as they exist in Concourse, otherwise the users can’t be registered. Again, this is not the process we recommend for processing all end user registrations at your institution.
  4. Effort: The time investment for manually creating registrations is minimal, provided the courses and users already exist in Concourse and the Domain Admin has a list of correct email addresses and user roles to guide registrations. If courses and user accounts haven’t been created yet, the process will take longer to complete since other high-level users must participate in the multi-step process. While it is not arduous to manually create a few registrations manually, trying to create dozens or hundreds of user accounts manually is far too time consuming to be effective. 

Post-Decision Changes

Your institution’s needs may change over time and you may need to make changes to your configuration settings. In other words, the configuration decisions you make during the implementation phase might not be as efficient five or ten years afterward. Review the guidance below to better understand how changing this particular decision may affect your Concourse system or deployment in the future.
Disabling Auto-create Functionality to Switch to Registration Feeds
If your institution initially provisions registration data via Auto-create and later decides to switch to processing Registration Feeds, you will need to:
  1. Review the format of user and course data within your system so that Registration Feeds can be formatted appropriately.
  2. Work with a member of your IT staff to implement feed generation and processing (automated if possible), including formatting and sequencing of feeds.
  3. Contact Concourse to request the Auto-create Registration component be removed from your middleware adapter. At this time, also request that your sandbox be refreshed.
  4. Test all new feeds in your sandbox prior to processing feeds in the production environment. Once you have confirmed that accounts are being created as expected in the sandbox, process the feeds in your production environment.
  5. Communicate with users if a delay can be expected in their role-specific Concourse access. For example, let instructors know if they might not be able to edit certain items until their registration is created by Registration Feeds, which is processed at certain times of day.
Discontinuing Registration Feeds to Enable Auto-create Functionality
If your institution initially provisions registration data via Registration Feed and later decides to switch to Auto-create registrations, you will need to:
  1. Reach out to Concourse to request that the Auto-create registrations component be added to your middleware adapter. Confirm whether the Auto-create user component should be included as well. 
  2. Meet with Concourse (strongly encouraged) to test that registrations are being created automatically as expected.
  3. Reach out to your IT staff to request that Registration Feeds be discontinued.

Related Topics

Before making a decision about provisioning and synchronizing registration data, you should be familiar with some related issues and contexts. See the following articles for more information:
  1. Learn more about constructing User Feeds and Registration Feeds in Construct and Process System Data Feeds.
  2. Read about Drop Registration Feeds.
  3. Learn more about user management in Concourse.
  4. Learn about group permissions in Concourse.

Tell Us About Your Experience

Did this article answer your question? If you made a decision like this for your Concourse instance, let us know how it turned out. If we missed something in this article or if you have a question that isn’t addressed in our Knowledge Base, let us know how we can help by reaching out to support@campusconcourse.com.

    • Related Articles

    • Configuration Options: Provisioning and Synchronizing User Data

      Synopsis User accounts are created in Concourse so that individuals at your institution are able to access Concourse and engage with the appropriate permissions. User accounts must be created before individuals can edit or view syllabi in Concourse. ...

    • Configuration Options: Provisioning and Synchronizing Course Data

      Synopsis Courses must be created in Concourse before related syllabi can be populated and users can be given access. If Course Files and Curriculum Vitae are enabled in your system, Files and CVs display in relation to the course. Users are ...

    • Configuration Options: Provisioning and Synchronizing Syllabus Item Content

      Synopsis Once courses are created in Concourse, their syllabi can be populated to contain the correct language that reflects your institutional policies and procedures. Content is added to syllabus items, which you can think of as the different ...

    • Configuration Options: System/User Permissions

      Synopsis Concourse provides many permission types so that your system can be administered in the method that works best for your institution. You can set permissions from the syllabus level to the domain level to the system level. Individuals ...

    • Configuration Options: Authentication

      Synopsis In Concourse terminology, authentication refers to the way in which your users’ accounts and access to Concourse are verified. Authentication can occur in your institution’s other systems or within Concourse, and the option you choose, ...