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How to automate user provisioning
Albert avatar
Written by Albert
Updated over 3 months ago

Most customers want to automate the provisioning, updating and deactivation of users based on data that exists in the other systems (SIS, CRM, Active Directory, etc). CampusGroups supports the following options:

To begin setting up automated provisioning, email integrations@readyeducation.com that you are ready to automate provisioning. Our team will provide additional information for the types of provisioning being set up


Automation through the API

You may use the CampusGroups CreateUpdateUser API endpoint to create, update and deactivate user records as needed. This is usually the recommended option as it offers the most flexibility.

The API will try and match users based on the data that is provided in the following fields: netid3, netid2, netid, email (as a default, please refer to your API documentation for the exact list). If a match is found using one of these values the user record will be updated, otherwise a new record will be created.

The API will only update profile fields for which you provide data letting you perform partial updates if necessary.

Please refer to the API documentation on your CampusGroups instance under Admin > More > API for additional information on how to use the API.


Automation through flat-files uploaded over SFTP

You may also upload flat-files in .xls, .xlsx or .csv format through a custom SFTP endpoint to create and update user records.

For SFTP automation we will require the following from your IT team:

  • the SSH public key you plan on using (which must be a RSA key in the form of "ssh-rsa [KEY]")

  • optional but recommended for added security: the IP addresses that the connections to the SFTP servers may be coming from

Once you provide this to our support team we will then provision the SFTP server for you and will provide you with the hostname, username as well as the folder in which the .xls, .xslx or .csv files should be uploaded to. The automation process will then run on a daily basis to parse all of the files that have been uploaded and process them.

The uploaded flat files should match the structure of the users upload template available under Admin > Users > Upload Users (including the header row which is required).

The process will try and match users based on the data that is provided in the following fields: netid3, netid2, netid, email. If a match is found using one of these values the user record will be updated, otherwise a new record will be created.

The process will only update profile fields for which data is present in the flat file for the given record; i.e. you can omit data for fields which should not be updated or for which you do not have the data.

The following fields are required: email, first name, last name, account type.

Note: If you are uploading CSV files via SFTP, you will need to nest any fields with numbers only (such as NetIDs) in double quotes ("000012345") to prevent incorrect processing of the values when the data is being imported.


Just in time provisioning on first login using Single Sign On

Finally the platform may also automatically create a new profile for a user at the time they first sign in using your configured SAML Single Sign On. This has additional requirements documented within the Single Sign On help article.

This method is usually set up on top of one of the methods above as a catch-all mechanism for users that have yet to be provisioned by the automated methods, this could be useful for staff and faculty members for example if you decide to pre-provision only student accounts through the methods above.

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