Connecting the campus Internet billing system and the teaching service system is a legitimate demand for upgrading management in many schools: student registration changes automatically link online accounts, graduates' school leaving accounts automatically write off, and study workers directly use them for online certification……These functions sound logical, but when really pushing the docking, they are found to involve much higher technical and coordination costs than expected. This article does not talk about architecture ideals, but just a few links that are often stuck in actual projects.
The interfaces of the teaching system are very open.
The producers of the teaching system are concentrated in the market for higher education, often on the mains, nuts, and direts, but there is a wide variety of customizations. Even the same system has different versions and secondary development content from those deployed at the same university, with no interfaces open to them, how they can be opened, and it is entirely up to each school. Many schools have no external standards at all. API, which allows students data to be obtained only by regularly exporting database files or Excel."File-level docking"——This approach is not timely, and the fastest-changing school status takes the next day to synchronize with the Internet billing system. More difficult is that the database structure of the teaching system is sometimes unclear even for schools’ own information centres; changes require a long cycle of process by providers of the teaching system.
Uniform authentication of the account system is a prerequisite
Teaching systems are usually based on a school number, and Internet-based billing systems are typically based on mobile or self-generated accounts, which connect the user identity of both systems. A single account map is needed. This step is relatively easy if schools have a unified identification platform (CAS or OAuth2 integration); but many universities have a uniform identity certification platform that is in itself a bad tail project with limited access to the system, or have not been built at all."We'll use the grad number to log in.", a separate account map can be maintained by the Internet billing system and the teaching service system, manually or automatically. This map will appear when it is maintained."No, I don't know the number."Or..."There's two accounts in the same school number."The problem is that the check-ups are very time-consuming.
The particle size of the grad status connection
The ideal state is that the student drop-out, drop-out or transfer day will be cancelled; the account number will automatically resume on the day of the resumption. But the change in the status of a student in the teaching system is not real time, sometimes it takes several approval nodes to pass and updates in the system may be delayed by one or two days or even longer. If the Internet billing system relies on real-time synchronization, this lag can lead to problems in two directions: either the account number should be stopped (and students who have dropped out can also access the Internet) or the account number might be misplaced (the process has not been completed but the system has changed and normal school life cannot be connected)."School leave"After that, the account's in."To Disable"The state is effectively disabled 24 hours or 48 hours later; manual review channels are also in place to allow information centres to intervene manually in specific cases.
The batch accounts for the graduation season are a real stress scene.
In June and July, a one-time process of writing off thousands or tens of thousands of graduates’ accounts, the return of balances, data archiving is the biggest test for the campus system and teaching systems to match results. If the data synchronization mechanism does not maintain its accuracy in daily operations, it will be found that the account numbers are not matched by graduation season: the number of still-in-the-system accounts has actually been left school or the student account number of those who have already obtained their diplomas has not been written off. It is proposed that one month before the graduation season, a data check be performed specifically for teaching systems and Internet billing systems rather than relying entirely on automatic synchronization.
Incomplete accountability for maintenance of data interfaces
The Internet billing system and the teaching system are divided into two different manufacturers (sometimes involving a third certified) whose responsibility is considered problematic when there is an interface problem."The interface is fine. It's the other guy who misconstrued it."; the provider of the Internet billing system says"The data format returned by the interface is different from what was agreed"; school information centres are co-ordinated between the middle. This is particularly easy to do in projects where no interface protocol documentation is available. The solution is to fix all interface files, data formats, error code definitions, and match testing options in the form of contract attachments at the project creation stage, with clear designation of one party as primary duty manager for interface maintenance, and the other as partner.
The setting of the tactile testing environment is often underestimated.
Re-engineering requires a stable and available testing environment: the test library for teaching systems, examples of tests for online billing systems, and test-based log data (dissensitivity). But many institutions of higher learning have only one production environment, with no independent testing bank. It is recommended that the project contract explicitly require the provider of the teaching systems to provide a test environment within a limited time, otherwise liability for delay in the JIT period would be controversial.
Special processing of accounts for teachers and administrative personnel
The system of teaching services is primarily for students, but the Internet accounts of teaching staff and administrators are also managed. Personnel systems and teaching systems are usually two separate systems, with schools using OAs or some HR systems with different structures. This way, the complexity is contained within a border and at least the core scene is kept in motion.
In general, the interface between the campus-based billing system and the teaching system is worth doing but should be clear. If a unified identity certification platform for schools has been built, the teaching system has standards API, and information centres have sufficient technical capacity to support the maintenance of the interface, it will result in significant managerial efficiency gains.