Optional (Admins): IT Integrations

Available IT Integrations

Below are common IT integrations that we can set up alongside your IT.

To initiate any of these, please contact [e-mail]. When contacting Penji Support please indicate which integration you would like to set up, for which communities (or school-wide), and who would be the best IT contact. 

Not every community within a school has to have the same data integrations. Data integrations can be turned off or on for a given community, without affecting other communities within the same school. However, SSO is a school-wide integration that will be set up for the entire school.

The list of available IT integrations, explained below, include:

• Single Sign-on (SSO)
• Students
• Courses
• Course Enrollment 
• Student Metadata
• Course Grades
• Data Exports
• Canvas
• Card Readers

Single Sign-on (SSO)

We highly recommend setting this up. Single sign-on allows students to log in through their school credentials to access Penji. An example of SSO can be found in, Students: Setting up Penji (Start Here!).

Setting up SSO will also create a school sharelink. The Share Link can be found on the left-hand side of the admin panel, see below. This link can be used by students/providers to login into web.penjiapp.com. Instead of visiting the website, students/providers can click on your school-specific share link and jump right into the SSO process.

If we opt to set up SSO after Penji has launched at your school, that is okay, although we recommend getting this done before launch. If a student has already accessed Penji before SSO was implemented and uses your school-specific share link to log in, they'll be asked to log in through SSO. If the student goes through the website or mobile app to log in, they can either log in through SSO or use their Penji password. New students will always be asked to log in through SSO. 

School Share link - "Link to School"

The school share link will direct users through the general SSO flow. If they were logged in, users will land on the community they were the last active in. If the user is logged out, once they sign in, they will be directed to the oldest community they have joined. "Oldest Community" is defined as the first community created out of their list of joined communities.

Community Specific Share link - "Link to Community"

These will link a user DIRECTLY to your community in Penji. If they aren't signed in they'll be asked to log in through SSO and will then go straight to your community. Overall, this is to help reduce the number of clicks it takes for a student to find and access your community. If the user is already signed in, they will go directly to your community. 

Students

When turned on, we will import basic information about all students at your school/campus, and all students from this import will begin appearing on the Students tab. 

Benefits of turning on the Student integration (or uploading a file manually):

1. Create more complete data for Kiosk Check-Ins (Penji will match the student check-in information to their greater Penji Profile)
   • This still happens with the manual student upload, however, the list will likely capture more students through the IT integration. 
2. Allow logging of sessions for students who haven't logged into Penji (Create a session and record a retroactive session)
3. Provides a searchable list of all students

The source for students is a collection of "custom students", uploaded through the CSV file on the admin panel, and the data received from your IT team. Editing the student.csv file on the admin panel will only affect the custom students that were previously imported through the student.csv, not the information within the Student SFTP Import. To manually upload custom students, please review the article, Optional (Admins): Manual Upload for Students.

Courses

When turned on, this will import all courses offered at your school for the current semester. If you have any custom courses currently listed, this will replace all courses you've uploaded. After the Course Integration is turned on, you'll be able to re-add any custom courses on top of the import. How to add a course can be found in Admins: Courses (or Topics) Setup.

The courses shown on the admin panel are a collection of "custom courses", uploaded through the CSV file on the admin panel, and the data received from your IT team. Note, editing the course.csv file on the admin panel will only affect the custom courses that were previously imported through the course.csv, not the information within the Course SFTP Import. 

If you are turning on the course integration and your community is already live, once the integration is enabled for your community, the tutor.csv file will need to be updated. Your providers will need to be certified in the new course names. However, you do not need to certify providers in each course if you use our "*" method. For example, if you would like one provider to teach BIOL110 regardless of professor (or section), instead of listing out each professor (Ex: BIOL110-Smith|BIOL110-Lim), you can certify the provider in "BIOL110*". The "*" symbol lets the system know that anything that starts with the characters before the "*" the provider should be certified in.

Course Enrollments

When turned on, this import auto-assigns students to the courses they are currently enrolled in, so that they don't have to join these courses when searching for drop-in or appointment times when they are logged in. Note that courses are only auto-populated if the student is signed in within the web/mobile app (courses still must be selected at drop-in kiosks). This import will replace any file you've manually uploaded.

When course enrollments are turned on we have the option to limit a student specifically to the courses they are enrolled in. This feature disables the ability for students to join/remove a course, so students would not be able to edit their preloaded courses. However, a student would also then not be able to add a custom course, for example, "Standardized Test Prep". Custom courses are explained above, in the header "Courses". If you would like to disable the "Edit your classes" button from students' "Pick a Class" screen, email [e-mail]. This feature is explained in Admins: General Settings.

The source for course enrollment is a collection of "custom course enrollment", uploaded through the CSV file on the admin panel, and the data received from your IT team. Editing the course_enrollment.csv file on the admin panel will only affect the custom course enrollment that was previously imported through the course_enrollment.csv, not the information within the Course Enrollment SFTP Import. To manually upload custom course enrollment, please review the article, Optional (Admins): Manual Upload for Course Enrollment.

Student Metadata

When turned on, student information, like the year in school, hometown, GPA, academic standing, etc. can be viewed on the student profile within the Admin Panel. You must specify the fields you're interested in, to Penji and your IT team when setting up this automatic integration. From there, IT will confirm if those fields are possible to include in the export sent to Penji.

Examples of student metadata columns are listed below:

• Year In School
  
  • Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior
• Status
  • Active, On Leave, Withdrawn, etc.
• Academic Standing
  • Good standing, Probation, Suspension, etc.
• Nationality
• Home Town
• Major
• Credits Earned
• Academic Track
• Athletic Status
• Academic Advisor
• On-Campus Residence location
• Holds
• Expected Graduation
• Email
• Student ID
• Phone number
• Opt-in status 
• Enrolled courses
  • A list of the courses that the student is taking, presented as: Course, weekday, and time of the course (Ex: "CHEM1300 MWF 8-9 | MATH212 TTH 11:15-1 | NUTRI SCI300 MWF 10-11:30")

The source for student metadata is a collection of "custom student metadata", uploaded through the CSV file on the admin panel, and the data received from your IT team. Editing the student_metadata.csv file on the admin panel will only affect the custom student metadata that was previously imported through the student_metadata.csv, not the information within the Student Metadata SFTP Import. To manually upload custom student metadata, please review the article, Optional (Admins): Manual Upload of Student Metadata.

Course Grades

Import student grade data at the end of a semester, allowing for analysis within Penji's data system on engagement by GPA.

Data Export

Some schools will request automatic Data Exports of the Penji data, sending it to other systems used for analysis on campus. This will occur via Flat-File SFTP Transfer that is Penji hosted.

The files we export, and the help center articles that describe them, are:

• sessions.csv - Admins: Data Collection - Sessions Tab, under the header, "Manage Tab - Exporting sessions.csv"
• drop_in_check_ins.csv - Admins: Data Collection - Check-In Tab, under the header, "Manage Tab - exporting drop_in_check_ins.csv"
• tutor_sign_ups.csv - Admins: Providers Setup (Tutors, Advisors, Coaches, etc.), under the header, "Exporting Provider Availability - tutor.sign_ups.csv"
• student_sign_ups.csv

Each community within Penji will have its own set of export files. Each day, a new file is added to the export folder (replacing the previous day's file) containing historical data from the start of Penji through the day of the export.

Canvas Integration

Penji integrates with Canvas. This can be done in the global canvas navigation or the course menu navigation. If you would like it in the course menu navigation, you will be able to decide if it is going to be enabled for all courses on campus by default, or if it is an option that instructors must turn on. When contacting Penji, please specify your preference. 

Note that this will not open up a new tab or window, students will be able to seamlessly use Penji within Canvas. 

Global Navigation 

Course Navigation 

Card Reader Support

Penji can optionally integrate with student ID card readers to use with our Drop-In Kiosks. If you do not already have one, we have a recommended card reader linked here. Once you have a card reader, we need to know the card track data layout and the portion to extract as the student ID.

• A barcode USB scanner is compatible if the USB Keyboard Emulation or HID mode is supported, which is common.
• A USB OTG adapter for an iPad is compatible if it is a USB HID/Keyboard mode card reader, which is common. Depending on the iPad, you may need a Lightning to USB OTG cable or a USB-C to USB OTG cable. We recommended using an adapter like this one, linked.

 

Example image of how the Drop-In check in/out will be shown to students when card reader is enabled. 

How Penji Integrates

Integrations Occur via Flat-File SFTP Transfer. Penji hosts an SFTP server that can be used as the medium for transferring one or more flat-files (CSVs) to and from your schools systems. Both your IT team and Penji will set up a recurring piece of code to initiate an export from one system and an import into the other, occurring via SFTP. Many of the above examples run on a 24-hour schedule, keeping the data in all systems fresh.

Once turned on, the standard import/export for the SFTP Data is automatically once a day around 00:00 UTC (4 PM PST, 5 PM MST, 6 PM CST and 7 PM EST).