Setting Up Your Environments

Setting up different environment types in Edlink

Edlink offers a straightforward way of testing how your application will integrate with your data sources which will take the form of LMSs or SISs. We do this by offering access to sandbox sources so that you can make an integration between your app and the sandbox so that you can test out your integration with Edlink and view behavior in a completely risk free environment.

Differences between development and production application

The difference between development and production applications with Edlink are effectively none. The only thing separating them is what kind of source you have connected to. Edlink offers connections to multiple sandbox sources which you would use on your test applications, and on your production applications, you would connect with real school and district data. This means that in the eyes of Edlink there is no difference between your production and development environment so you can expect the same behavior from both.

Access Routing for LTI Launches

A common question regarding environments is how Edlink determines which application environment (e.g., Staging vs. Production) to use during an LTI launch from an LMS like Canvas.

The routing is determined entirely by the LTI External Tool installation within the LMS.

1. Unique Credentials: When you create an Application in Edlink (e.g., "My App - Staging" and "My App - Production"), Edlink generates unique LTI credentials for each one.
   • For LTI 1.1, this is a unique Consumer Key and Shared Secret.
   • For LTI 1.3, this involves unique configuration URLs and Client IDs.
2. LMS Installation: You install the LTI tool in your LMS (or the school's LMS) using these credentials.
   • If you install the tool using the credentials from your Staging application, any launches from that specific tool placement will route to your Staging environment in Edlink.
   • If you install the tool using the credentials from your Production application, launches will route to your Production environment.
3. Multiple Environments: You can have multiple installations of your tool in the same LMS instance (e.g., a "Staging" tool and a "Production" tool) for testing purposes. The LMS keeps them distinct based on the credentials you entered during installation. When a user clicks a link, the LMS signs the launch request with the specific credentials for that tool installation, allowing Edlink to route the user to the correct Application.

Multiple Development Applications

Once you create your developer team, feel free to create as many applications as you would like. You can make these applications with different settings and integrate them with different sources. Deleting applications and making new applications are both very smooth UI processes so you can feel very welcome to delete and create test applications freely to become comfortable with the process.

Other benefits to having additional applications

There are a couple of other reasons that you might want to maintain development applications. Your secondary applications can help you properly secure your secret keys and to segregate student data. And lastly of course it will let you mess around with any of the features we offer on the integrations page such as set sharing rules, transforming your data, setting overrides and more.