If you're rostering your data via TalkingPoints Connector and you have noticed that your TalkingPoints data hasn't updated as expected, or if our team has reached out to let you know a review is in progress, this article explains what's happening and what to expect.
What Is a Circuit Break?
TalkingPoints Connector syncs your district's roster data from your SIS every night. When a large volume of records changes in a single sync — for example, when a new school term begins, when summer school data comes in, or when your SIS processes grade-level promotions — our system automatically pauses the sync and flags it for review before those changes flow through to TalkingPoints.
This is called a circuit break. It's a built-in safeguard, not an error. It exists to make sure that large, sudden shifts in your data don't overwrite accurate information before we've had a chance to confirm the changes look right.
When Do Circuit Breaks Happen?
Circuit breaks are most common during data transitions — moments when your SIS processes a significant number of changes at once. The most frequent triggers are:
Term changes — when your SIS rolls from one semester or academic year to the next, creating new classes, sections, and enrollments in bulk
Summer school — when summer program data arrives in your SIS and syncs for the first time, introducing new orgs, terms, and enrollments
Back-to-school processing — when your SIS promotes students to new grade levels and finalizes fall rosters
Large enrollment changes — when a significant number of students transfer, withdraw, or enroll in a short window
If your district runs summer school, you may see a circuit break when summer school data first syncs — this is expected and is one of the reasons we ask about your summer plans in advance.
What We Do
We manage circuit breaks on your behalf. When a circuit break is triggered, our data team reviews the changes to make sure they look correct before approving them to sync into TalkingPoints. In most cases, you don't need to do anything — we'll review the changes and approve them as quickly as we can.
Because we're reviewing a potentially large set of changes before they sync, your TalkingPoints data may not update on its usual overnight schedule. In some cases, it may take an additional day or so before you see the updated data in your TalkingPoints site. This is normal and expected during the review process.
When We Might Reach Out to You
Sometimes, the changes in a circuit break include shifts that look unusual — for example, a large number of unexpected deletes, new schools or org IDs we haven't seen before, or attendance codes that don't match your existing configuration. In those cases, we may reach out to ask you a few questions before we approve.
When we contact you about a circuit break, we'll typically share a summary of what changed and ask you to confirm whether it reflects expected activity in your SIS — like a new term being set up, a schedule rebuild, or summer school orgs coming in. The more context you can give us about recent changes in your SIS, the faster we can resolve it.
How to Read a Matching Summary (If We Share One)
If our team sends you a summary of sync changes for review, here's how to interpret what you're seeing.
Changes are broken out by data category with three counts:
Creates — new records introduced from your SIS that weren't previously present (e.g., new classes, new enrollments, new students)
Updates — existing records that were found and refreshed with new information (e.g., name changes, grade level updates, schedule changes)
Deletes — records that were present previously but didn't match in this sync (e.g., ended terms, withdrawn students, closed sections)
Creates and deletes are normal. A healthy sync doesn't require all counts to be zero or perfectly balanced — changes reflect real activity in your SIS.
What to expect by category
Academic Sessions (terms, semesters, school year)
Expect creates when new terms or school years are set up in your SIS. Small deletes are normal when prior terms close. This category is one of the most common circuit break triggers at the start of summer and back-to-school.
Example of expected activity:
academicSession create: 72 delete: 5
Classes and Sections
Expect high updates during active scheduling periods, plus creates when new sections are added and deletes when sections close or are replaced.
Example of expected activity:
class create: 490 update: 7863 delete: 0
Enrollments
Enrollments are the most volatile data type. Large creates and deletes are normal during semester transitions, roster rebuilds, and schedule changes. Don't interpret high counts here as a problem on their own.
Example of expected activity:
enrollment create: 194,986 delete: 191,429
Users (students, teachers, parents/guardians)
Expect high updates, especially for users — this is the strongest indicator that matching is working correctly. Creates and deletes reflect normal student enrollment changes, staffing updates, and contact data refreshes.
Example of expected activity:
user create: 1,238 update: 47,560 delete: 1,807
Organizations (schools, district)
Organization data is generally stable. You should see very few creates or deletes here. Occasional updates are normal for metadata corrections. Unexpected creates in this category — especially during summer — may indicate new summer school orgs coming in from your SIS, which is worth flagging to our team.
Example of expected activity:
org.school update: 32 delete: 1
What should prompt a question?
Please reach out if you see anything in a summary we've shared that doesn't match what you'd expect from your SIS:
Large deletes in active students without an obvious reason
New schools or org IDs you don't recognize
Sudden spikes that don't align with any known scheduling or enrollment changes
Context is everything — knowing that your district ran a schedule rebuild last week, or that summer school orgs were just added in your SIS, helps us approve the right changes quickly.
What to Do If Your Data Hasn't Updated
If your TalkingPoints data looks like it hasn't updated and you haven't heard from us:
Wait one additional business day. If a circuit break is in review, data may take an extra day to sync.
Check your email for a message from our team — we'll reach out if we need input from you.
Contact us if it's been more than two business days or if you're approaching a time-sensitive date (like the first day of school or the start of summer school).
Get in Touch
Email partnersupport@talkingpts.org with your district name and a description of what you're seeing, including any changes you recently made to your SIS data. If you're contacting us about a data delay, it helps to include:
Your district name
What data looks out of date or missing
Any recent changes in your SIS (new term, schedule rebuild, summer school setup, etc.)
Whether you have a specific date by which the data needs to be current (e.g., first day of school)