As part of the attendance package, TalkingPoints provides the ability for you to see specific attendance trends that are occuring. In order to do this, we need both your attendance data and your calendar data. This calendar is used to distinguish school days from holidays, breaks, and non-instructional days.
Calendar Data File Requirements
At minimum, your Calendar Data.csv file needs to include four fields:
school_id
calendar_date
calendar_events
school_year_ID
Optional fields may include:
calendarCode
description
If all schools share a single calendar, only one set of rows is required. If calendars vary by school, provide school-specific data.
How TalkingPoints Receives Your Files
TalkingPoints has two ways of ingesting data into TalkingPoints Connector: API or SFTP. At this time, only PowerSchool partners are able to send their attendance data via API. For all other Student Information Systems (SIS), the file will be received via scheduled SFTP.
PowerSchool partners: You will receive a custom plugin to enable our team to connect to your SIS and access the data we need to enable the Attendance feature. TalkingPoints Connector API Integration Guide
For all other Student Information Systems: We will only need to receive your calendar data once per academic calendar year, unless you have made changes to the calendar due to severe weather days, etc. Please reach out to implementations@talkingpts.org if you need to update your yearly calendar data.
📌 Example Calendar Data File:
school_id | calendar_date | calendar_events | school_year_id |
123 | 2024-09-02 | ["Not In Session"] | 323 |
123 | 2024-09-03 | ["In Session"] | 323 |
Delivery Guidelines
Upload the calendar file to TPC’s SFTP server at the beginning of the school year. If your calendar changes during the school year, please upload an updated file (e.g., emergency closures or updated holidays).
File should be named calendar.csv and be UTF-8 encoded. Any subsequent data files should have the identical file name (spelling and case). Please omit any custom dates so that the process is seamless year after year.
Please notify the Implementation team at implementations@talkingpts.org so we can validate your data once it is uploaded and ensure your Attendance Trends data is accurate.