Schoology SIS Connect Teacher App

If your school is using the Schoology SIS Connect app to provision users, courses, and enrollments into Schoology, your System Admin can install the Schoology SIS Connect app to your course to sync Schoology grades to your SIS Gradebook.

The Schoology SIS Connect app is installed in your Schoology course so that you can sync grades from your Schoology gradebook to your SIS gradebook.

You can use the SIS Connect app in your course to determine which categories in your Schoology gradebook correspond with the categories in your SIS gradebook. You can also use the app to manually sync grades from Schoology to your SIS.

Grade Information is passed back from Schoology to your SIS when a teacher chooses to sync the two gradebooks and cannot be scheduled.

How does the System Admin install the app in courses?

System Admins can install the app with the following steps:

1. Click the Apps icon (four squares) in the top navigation of Schoology.
2. Click App Center in the drop-down menu.
3. Click Organization Apps at the top of the page.
4. Click Install/Remove to the right of the Schoology SIS Connect app.
5. Select the box to install the app to All Courses. We also recommend that you enable the box to make the app available to Course Admins Only.
6. Submit to complete.

Once the form is saved, all courses in your schools mapped to your SIS have the Schoology SIS Connect app in the left menu of the course profile.

There currently isn't a way to select specific courses during this installation process. If there are some sections in Schoology not mapped to your SIS, the app will still be installed into the course. In this case, the teacher can simply elect not to use the app.

The Course Admins Only configuration enables only enrolled Course Admins (teachers) to launch the app from the course. System Admin cannot configure the app or sync graded items on behalf of the teacher unless they are directly enrolled in the course.

How do teachers configure the app?

1. First, click the Schoology SIS Connect app from the left menu of your course.
2. When the app is launched for the first time, it will ask for your approval.
3. Begin by saving your category settings in the Configuration tab of the app.

4. Map your SIS Connect Course Categories to the Schoology Course Categories. When creating graded materials in Schoology, assign a Category to each item. When items sync back to your SIS gradebook, they will be assigned to categories in your SIS based on the mapping in this area.
   
   

   

   You can map more than one Schoology grading category to a single grading category in your SIS.

5. Click Save Configuration to apply your changes.
6. If your sections are linked in Schoology, you must configure the SIS Connect teacher app in each of the sections. Once you have configured the first section, click Save Configuration, then click on the section drop-down menu to toggle into a different section to continue configuration.

If you have not yet created any Schoology Course Categories in the Grade Setup area of your Schoology course.

You can create a new category from the SIS Connect app with the following steps:

1. Select (Create New Schoology Category) in the drop-down menu.
2. Click Save Configuration.
3. This will create the category in the Grade Setup area of the Schoology course.

Depending on the settings in place for the Schoology SIS Connect app, only Course Admins (teachers) directly enrolled in the course may be able to launch the app. System Admins cannot configure the app or sync graded items on behalf of the teacher unless they are directly enrolled in the course.

What information is transferred from Schoology to my SIS?

The following information will be sent to your SIS:

• The name of the graded item. Each graded item must have a unique name within the course.
• The due date for the graded item. Please make sure your Schoology assignments have due dates within the grading period to ensure your grade sync is successful.
• The grading category the item belongs to, as established by the Course Admin in the Configuration area of the SIS Connect app.
• The numeric score a student received on the graded item.

How do teachers sync grades?

Scheduled sync

Scheduled sync automates the grade passback synchronization for educators by allowing teachers and administrators to set up a weekly schedule to sync courses and grades from Schoology to PowerSchool SIS Connect. Syncs can be scheduled within a three hour window, and the progress of the sync can be referenced on the Grade Sync page. If an update is made during the sync window, that update will not be included until the next scheduled sync.

To set up a scheduled sync:

1. From the SIS Connect app in Schoology, navigate to the Configuration tab.
2. Select the Schedule Sync checkbox.
3. Choose a day and time for your sync to run.
4. Select Use this schedule for all my existing courses if you want the sync to run for all of the teacher's active courses.
5. Define your categories by mapping the SisConnect Course Categories to Schoology Course Categories.
6. Click Save Changes.

Any changes made to the scheduled sync will take 24 hours to take effect. 

Syncing grades from the Schoology SIS Connect app

Once the configuration settings are saved, teachers can view the status of graded items and grades from the Sync Grades area of the app. The column on the left displays the title of the graded item. The columns in the middle display the timestamp of the last successful sync and the status of the last sync.

The Action column on the right allows you to sync individual items. To sync all new or updated items in the course at once, click Sync Changes in the top right corner.

Status indicators:

• Successful — This means that the item was successfully synced to the SIS gradebook.
• In Progress — A sync has been initiated and is waiting to process.
• Failed — There was a problem with the sync. Move your mouse over this indicator for specific details.
• Updates Available — A sync has not yet been initiated since the item was updated in Schoology.
• Opt Out - This material has Sync to SIS disabled in the material's edit screen.

If a graded item or grade has not yet appeared in your SIS Gradebook, you can navigate to this area of the app and click on the Sync icon or on Sync Changes to manually resend the information to your SIS.

If there has been an error in the sync, a red message icon will appear. Hovering over the icon displays a message that details the error.

Syncing grades from the Gradebook

You can also sync grades and access logs directly from the gradebook by selecting the sync and log icons along the top.

How to locate materials

You can locate your materials in a few different ways:

• Search by assignment title
• Filter by grading period
• Filter by sync status
• Sort materials by title, due date, and last sync

If your most recent changes are not displayed in the Grade Passback material list, click Clear Cache, to refresh the cached item list. 

Important notes

• Currently, only assignment grades are supported as part of the gradebook sync. Grading scales, weights, and attendance will not be passed over to your SIS.
• Due date may be a required field in your SIS, but not in Schoology. Please make sure your Schoology assignments have due dates within the term to ensure your grade sync is successful.
• If an item is ungraded in Schoology, meaning it is not associated with a grading category, it will not sync to your SIS. For organizations using SIS Connect with Synergy, the item will still sync to your SIS under a generic category, depending on your SIS settings. Teachers that wish to exclude items from syncing should use the Sync to SIS option in each item.
• When you've assigned an exception code in the Schoology gradebook, the SIS Connect sync passes back the OneRoster ScoreStatus. How these exceptions will appear in your SIS gradebook depends on your SIS provider. Please work with them for more information on what is supported and what to expect:

Frequently asked questions

What happens if I delete course material from Schoology?
If an assignment is deleted from Schoology, it will no longer be updated in subsequent syncs from the SIS Connect app. However, the item will still appear in your SIS gradebook.

If I restore a deleted material from Schoology, will the sync still work?
Yes. If you restore deleted materials from the Course Recycle Bin, the next time you Sync Changes from Schoology, it will effectively “reconnect” based on the item's unique ID and start updating the material in the SIS again.

Should I make changes directly in the SIS gradebook? If so, will they be reflected in Schoology?
No. Graded items created and updated in your SIS will not be transferred to Schoology. We strongly recommend that you maintain Schoology as the master source for changes to grade data. In order to provide a consistent data model for your school, all grade changes should be managed from Schoology.

How does the sync handle unpublished materials in Schoology?
The ability to publish or unpublish materials in Schoology does not determine the sync status of an item. Learn more about unpublishing materials in Schoology here: Why do students see a different Overall Grade than I do?

Materials that are unpublished in Schoology are still synced and created in your SIS gradebook. If you want to prevent specific materials from syncing back to your SIS, you may wish to speak to your System Administrator about SIS Grade Passback: Selectively Sync Graded Items to your SIS Gradebook

Can I sync comments on graded items? If so, will the comments be visible to students or hidden from students based on the setting in Schoology?
Yes, comments under 100 characters on graded materials are supported in the sync of grades from the SIS Connect app.

Can I sync items with titles longer than 50 characters?
Yes, but this may depend on your SIS and their character count limitations.