1. Email Introduction
You will receive an email from us, to introduce you to the GG4L onboarding team it will include a link to the GG4L onboarding form - please note that this is separate from the SchoolsBuddy onboarding form. Shortly after you have completed their onboarding form, the GG4L onboarding team will contact you to begin the process of integrating your SIS data into SchoolsBuddy. GG4L will work with you and us to ensure your data is correctly synced with SchoolsBuddy.
2. Key Information
Every staff member and contact must have a unique valid email address or we cannot import them into SchoolsBuddy
If you wish pupils to have access they must also have a valid unique email address
Pupils must have Gender
PLEASE NOTE: GG4L has a 50-character limit for names fields
NB If you are using PowerSchool as your MIS/SIS t is very important to inform GG4L carefully of the following field names :-
1.Field name of Parent Email
2.Field name used for HomeRoom
3. Homeroom/ Registration Class / Form
Do you use homerooms and if so are they in the standard Powerschool homeroom field?
A number of schools skip setting up their homerooms in SchoolsBuddy, but we encourage you to provide this field as a student attribute if you can. In Schoolsbuddy, homeroom classes can be shown on registers for easy identification of students attending activities or Parent-Teacher Conferences. We also have a useful safeguarding feature, "What's Next?", for homeroom teachers to see their students' schedules for the day or upcoming week at a glance.
4. Contact Types
Please let SchoolsBuddy know if you want to import/sync other contact types- we typically import Mother/Father/Parent but can add Guardians for example if you require.
NB - Please also advise GG4L on the form if you are using the PowerSchool contacts module - this is a key module that we use to help integrate data with Schoolsbuddy.
5. Data Mapping
Homeroom/ Registration Class / Form - If you would like this information in SchoolsBuddy, we will map this from the "Lunch Status" field in GG4L so we will need to make sure that that information is mapped from wherever you "store" it in PowerSchool/your SIS into that field in GG4L. In Schoolsbuddy, Homeroom classes can be shown on registers for easy identification of students attending activities or Parent-Teacher Conferences.
Medical data - If you want to sync medical data we can do so if you can concatenate your medical data into one field - we map medical info from the "ELL" status so if you want this information in SchoolsBuddy, please let us and GG4L know.
6. Connection Initiation
Once setup is complete in your MIS, you will need the server endpoints to initiate the connection between ClassLink and GG4L. These will be sent to you by the GG4L team.
7. Notification
You will receive a notification from GG4L that the data is ready and will need to approve the request for our data access. In order to approve the request, you will be required to select an expiration date for the data access. The expiration time is set, based on the duration of time you would like to share your data with SchoolsBuddy. The duration can be renewed at any time in your GG4L account. Some districts/schools set it to the end of the school year, while others - to the end of the contract with the vendor.
Once the process is complete you and SchoolsBuddy will receive an email to say that Data has been imported successfully and is now available to SchoolsBuddy. The data team will review the data prior to syncing to SchoolsBuddy. Once the final integration is complete we will advise you when it is successful.
PowerSchool SSO
If you require SSO to be set up for PowerSchool, you can let us know on your SchoolsBuddy Onboarding Form.
Please note PowerSchool SSO only works if the users are logging into PowerSchool directly with their email and passwords. If users log in to PowerSchool through another SSO (Azure/Google), we will not be able to authenticate them.