Schools! How do you 'refresh' the student user info in JSS every year?

[lehmanp00]

We map homeroom to the Room field
Grade = Phone
Building = School
Position = Grad Year

When a student starts a new school year, we have a script that calls the API and slowly goes through the export from our SIS and updates those fields in the JSS.

How do you do it? Is there a better way?

[danny33c]

We have a very similar setup, but we do not map "grade". We map Position to Job Title in Active Directory which is "Student 2018" (grad year) so essentially puts them in a grade. We also map Building to Company in AD. These rarely change so there's no need to update or change the student data every year.

[Asnyder]

Any chance I can get a look at the script you use? Currently I have one that adds new computers to the JSS and updates a few fields. But if there's an easier way to upload student information from an infinite campus export that would be fantastic.

[jyergatian]

We also map Grad Year, along with Stream (A | B) and Position (Student | Teacher | Staff). We have everything public here: https://github.com/macfanatic-ca/jssAPI

[Graeme]

We have a provisioning system that each night takes the output from a dump of our SIS and provisions student accounts into our AD. It puts all the students into OUs named after their home groups (or year levels) and also into security groups named likewise. If a student moves home groups (or year levels) it moves the account accordingly to the correct home group or year level. This utility is used at many schools in my home state (Victoria Australia) and can be made available.

After each change to device allocation we run a script that updates the relevant information in our JSS.

Regards
Graeme

[Asnyder]

@Graeme Do you use mobile accounts or or local on the machines? Do you know if you can use AD to get user information without having to bind the computers? Our school uses local accounts on the machines but we have AD setup for the network shares to control who can see what. If I could output from infinite campus (our SIS) and use the grades as departments or something without having to bind them that would be helpful.

[Graeme]

We only use mobile devices, otherwise we are a Windows shop. You can script a query to AD for information. UserCreater (the provisioning system) by default puts the Home group into the department field of the AD account. It also automatically creates security groups for each home group (or year levels if you use year levels) The powerpoint presentation I gave at a conference in 2012 is at http://www.shea.com.au/downloads/UserCreator_VITTA_2012-2.pptx It still has the "Grey 2012 style" but that does not effect operation. The link at the end is for a very old version but I can make a newer one available.

Not sure what your requirements for the shares and folders are. UserCreator puts all the student home directories into the same folder structure as selected for their user accounts. i.e. if the user accounts are put in an OU for each home group then the home folders are put into folders for each home group. The software by default creates a folder tree where everyone can read/write in the root of the share. This is the public shared folder. Each member of a home group can see a folder for their own home group inside the public share but not any other home group's folder. Inside that home group folder sits the student's home folder which they can see but not other students. The permissions are automatically set up so users cannot rename, delete or drag and drop the folders.

its bit long winded but I hope it answers your questions.

Regards
Graeme