Microsoft School Data Sync (SDS) is a service that allows school administrators to sync data between the school's student information system (SIS) and its Office 365 Education accounts. The SDS populates accounts in Office 365 and the school's Active Directory (AD) database based on the data from the SIS. This gives students and teachers access to the school's Microsoft suite of products by using their school-assigned Microsoft account.

SIS Integrations

SDS provides integrations with over 70 different student information systems (SIS's) through importing CSV files or through the OneRoster® API. The OneRoster standard provides a common format that SIS's and other applications use to transmit roster data between systems. Microsoft SDS also provides a direct API integration with the PowerSchool SIS. PowerSchool's integration allows for grade passback between Microsoft Teams and PowerSchool.

Integration with Microsoft Teams

Microsoft SDS plays an important role in a district's implementation of Microsoft Teams. The SDS will create courses and enrollments based on the data from the SIS. This process is completed using Microsoft's Graph API.

Developers can also use the Microsoft Graph API and SDS to integrate single sign-on (SSO) and rostering functions within their own applications. Single sign-on allows educators and students to log into your application using their school-assigned Microsoft account. Implementing rostering through SDS will permit your application to retrieve user data from a school's AD database and provision accounts and classes based on that data.

The Graph API can further be used by third-party developers to implement methods to create, modify, or delete objects in Microsoft Teams on behalf of students and teachers. For example, a Teams-integrated application could allow a teacher to create assignments in their Teams class from the application. Functions, such as resource creation and grade passback, are possible through integration with Microsoft Teams via the Graph API.

Our Edlink developers have worked extensively with Microsoft Teams to help our clients integrate their applications with the platform. If you're interested in hearing more about how to integrate Microsoft SDS or Teams into your own educational apps, please contact us at accounts@ed.link or at our support page.

OneRoster® is a trademark of the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. (www.imsglobal.org)