ClassLink
Managing school rosters can be time intensive. It all gets easier with ClassLink.
ClassLink is a third-party service used by school districts to facilitate the secure transfer of student rosters between their school information system (SIS) and digital learning applications. Districts maintain control over their data, including what they send to ClassLink and how it is shared.
Our partnership with ClassLink can help you maintain consistent, up-to-date patron records by automatically syncing (importing) your school’s teacher and student rosters to Alexandria on a daily basis. When a student moves from one school to another or changes are made to their school record, the updated information will be synced with your Alexandria patron records, eliminating data entry errors that can occur when you have to update student records in multiple applications.
If your district hasn’t signed up for ClassLink yet, head on over to https://www.classlink.com/ to learn more, or check out the ClassLink Help Center to get started.
Table of Contents
How does it work?
Your district data syncs with ClassLink, which securely shares authorized data with Alexandria. Changes made in your SIS are automatically synced to ClassLink and imported into Alexandria during Daily Operations, or you can manually initiate a full sync at any time from Preferences > SIS Integrations > ClassLink. During a sync, imported data overwrites matching patron fields in Alexandria; if no matching patron record is found, Alexandria creates a new record using the imported data and Alexandria default values.
How do I get started?
The first thing is to sync data from your district’s SIS with ClassLink; if your district is already set up on ClassLink, follow these steps to add Alexandria to ClassLink:
- Contact COMPanion to enable support for ClassLink integration.
- Add Alexandria to your ClassLink (learn more from ClassLink).
- In the app library, search for Alexandria Library Software.
- You’ll choose to add rostering, and (optionally) SSO.
- ClassLink must be approved manually. Please allow 24-36 hours for us to receive and approve your request. You’ll be notified when this process is complete. Then, when you’re ready, either give us a call to walk you through the rest of the process, or proceed by following the steps to enable ClassLink.
- Locate your ClassLink Tenant ID.
- Enable ClassLink in Alexandria.
And that’s it! Alexandria will accept the request to receive data from ClassLink and begin automatically syncing roster information during Daily Operations.
Data Matching and Field Mapping
During the sync, ClassLink data is associated with Alexandria patrons by matching one or more key identifiers, including GUID, Student #, and Email. Blank fields are never used for matching.
Not all fields in your SIS are applicable to Alexandria, so not all student roster fields will be synced. Here’s a list of the fields in Alexandria and the corresponding field in ClassLink that are matched during import:
Available Fields
| Alexandria | CLASSLINK |
|---|---|
| 1200 GUID | Student id / sourceID |
| 1000 Barcode | Not Mapped Optional mapping to User ID of Type |
| 1001 Community ID | Not Mapped Optional mapping to User ID of Type |
| 1007 First Name | users/givenName |
| 1008 Middle Name | users/middleName |
| 1006 Last Name | users/familyName |
| 1045 Birthdate | demographics/birthDate |
| 1032 Sex | demographics/sex |
| Alexandria | CLASSLINK |
|---|---|
| 1017 Phone Number | users/phone |
| 1019 Email | users/email |
| 1049 Additional Contact (parent/guardian) | users/agents |
| 1054 Other Emails (parent email) | users/email of parent user |
| 1004 Location (homeroom) | Not Mapped Optional mappings: Homeroom Class Code Homeroom Class Location Homeroom Teacher Name |
| 1010 Level | users/grades |
| 1050 Site | Alexandria Site Code for the site record with a GUID that matches the sourcedId for the first ‘org’ in ‘orgs’. |
| 1026 Status | 1 indicates an “active” status and 4 indicates a “tobedeleted” status. These are equivalent to the “Active” and “Transferred” statuses in Alexandria. |
Enabling ClassLink
Enable ClassLink in Alexandria by going to Preferences > SIS Integrations > ClassLink.
Multiple SIS integrations cannot be enabled at the same time: When you turn the integration ON, Alexandria will disable the other services and clear all related identifiers. The ClassLink system and identifiers will then be initialized.
1. Tenant ID
Enter your ClassLink Tenant ID in the Settings tab, then Save and Alexandria will validate with ClassLink.
2. Site Mapping
Your sites must be mapped to sync with ClassLink. Select a site from the Alexandria list on the left, then select the matching site from the ClassLink list on the right, and then click Match. Repeat this process with all of your sites. If a site has been matched incorrectly, select the site and click the X to clear the current match.
When you’re done matching your sites, Save your changes.
3. Syncing
Select if you want Student, Teacher, and/or Admin (Staff) data to be synced and updated during Daily Operations.
4. Modify Field Mapping (Optional)
Field mapping is automatically configured to match and overwrite fields in Alexandria with fields in ClassLink. By default, Alexandria’s Barcode, Community ID, and Homeroom [Location] fields are not mapped with ClassLink. If you use these fields to identify patrons between systems, click Modify field mapping to customize how they’re mapped with ClassLink.
We will not attempt to match these fields unless you map them here.
5. Sync Now
Save your changes, then click Sync Now. Check the status of the import in Operations Management; once it’s finished, select the ClassLink Full Sync operation, and from there you can view and download the log. The first sync (full sync) may take some time. Following that, changes sync automatically.
SSO (Single Sign-On)
If you use the ClassLink integration to sync Alexandria with your SIS, you can now turn on SSO for your teachers and students. Students can also log in to Alexandria directly from the ClassLink LaunchPad.
In Preferences > SIS Integrations > ClassLink, enable Single Sign-On by checking the box Allow log-in with ClassLink.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens to a patron record in Alexandria when the student is removed from our school roster?
If a student record is deleted from your SIS, the patron record in Alexandria will be marked as Transferred. Your librarian can delete or update those records manually as needed or during end-of-year procedures.
Whom do I contact for ClassLink technical support?
Find answers in ClassLink Help Center, or contact them directly.
When you have questions about the data in Alexandria, or the Alexandria preferences, contact us.