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Student Information Systems API for Data Standard v5 Certification - Steps

I. Pre-Certification Documentation​

The following documentation MUST be received by the Ed-Fi Alliance prior to certification. Ed-Fi may ask for clarifications or changes in order to ensure clarity and uniformity.

1. Product Availability Information​

See Requirements - Product Availability Information

2. Initial Implementation Verification Information​

See Requirements - Implementation Verification

3. Data Mapping​

See Requirements - Data Mapping

4. Usage Narrative​

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The usage narrative is a short narrative text account of how the data exchange functionality is made available to product users. This information will be part of the certification registry entry. This SHOULD be fewer than 1000 words and can be provided in any common text format (MS Word, .txt file, etc.).

II. Certification Tests​

Certification tests test conformance of the product to API specifications and other normative requirements of the API standard. It also validates the submitted documentation.

5. Transactional Test Cases​

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The provider will show evidence, via a live, synchronous meeting and screen sharing, the ability to perform the transactional tests listed in Student Information Systems API v5 Certification - Test Scenarios#TestScenarios-TransactionalTestCases This includes exercising the individual API resources.

Note that there are often some questions as to what outcome qualifies as "passing" a test, when there are significant data model differences, slight differences in data semantics between systems, use of default values, or other situations. In such cases, the Requirements - Testing Requirements document is used to determine the outcome.

Please be aware that actual student data — including anonymized or obfuscated data derived from real data — MUST NOT be used in certification testing.

6. Batch Test Cases​

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The provider will show evidence, via a live, synchronous meeting and screen sharing, the ability to perform batch updates. See Student Information Systems API v5 Certification - Test Scenarios#TestScenarios-BatchTestCases for details.

7. Error Handling Verification Test​

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The provider / API client MUST be able to perform the following actions:

  • Capture and log transport errors, including all HTTP errors.
  • Re-attempt delivery of API resources updates following failed transmissions.
  • In the event that repeated delivery fails for the same resource update, surface the error to a system user.

Field work within the Ed-Fi community has revealed that this application behavior is a necessary condition of system interoperability. Accordingly, the test scenarios may include situations in which an API resource (or resources) will be made unavailable to the client, or in which the API reports other errors due to resource availability (e.g., HTTP 500 error). The client is expected to be able to successfully handle such situations.

8. Descriptor Configuration Test​

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The provider will show evidence, via a live, synchronous meeting and screen sharing, the ability to allow enumeration configuration. See Student Information Systems API v5 Certification - Test Scenarios#TestScenarios-EnumerationConfiguration for details.

III. Certification Completion​

Upon completion, the Alliance will record the certification in the Registry of Ed-Fi Certified Products The certification record will contain all documentation submitted above.

Certifications are valid for one year. Please review the Requirements for Recertification.

Please note that remaining Requirements - Implementation Verification documents must be submitted within the time period described in that document, in order to retain the certification.