LYNX for Ethos Integration

Image: LYNX Processing Cycle for Ethos

The LYNX Interface facilitates the bi-directional flow of academic-related data between the Ethos tenant and 25Live. Since LYNX integrates directly with the Ethos API, there is no installation required.

Generate an API Key

Use Ethos to make an API key to share with CollegeNET. This key will be specific to your LYNX installation and should not be used with other vendors.

You will need to make a separate key for each of your test and production instances.

Give Access to Specific Resources

The API key you generate must have access to GET and PUT methods to specific Ethos resources.

• academic-levels
• academic-periods
• buildings
• consume
• courses
• credit-categories
• educational-institution-units
• educational-institutions
• email-types
• instructional-delivery-methods
• instructional-events
• instructional-methods
• instructional-platforms
• person-name-types
• persons
• regions
• room-characteristics
• room-types
• rooms
• section-crosslists
• section-instructors
• section-registrations
• section-statuses
• sections (includes sections-maximum)
• sites
• student-section-waitlists
• subjects

Restrict Permissions for Sensitive Endpoints

LYNX needs access to the "Persons" and "Sections-Maximum" Ethos endpoints in order to integrate instructor data. However, these endpoints contain PII (personally identifiable information) LYNX does not collect or require. This data will need to be restricted within Ethos.

Information Required to be Restricted:

• Tax Identification
• Social Security Number
• Date of Birth

Recommended Additional Restrictions:

• Gender
• Race
• Ethnicity

Use the instructions on the link below to restrict access to the information listed above:

https://ellucian.force.com/clients/s/article/Colleague-How-to-restrict-SSN-access-using-Ethos-API

(Ellucian login required) 

The Information CollegeNET Needs From "GET Persons"

$.id
2$.names.type.detail.id
3$.names.type.category
4$.names.lastName
5$.names.firstName
6$.names.middleName
7$.names.preference
8$.emails.type.detail.id
9$.emails.type.emailType
10$.emails.address
11$.emails.preference

Provide the Following for Testing 

Your assigned Support analyst will need to verify connectivity. (Note: This step is required before proceeding.)

Please send your:

• Production and Test API keys
• Academic Period GUID

Configure LYNX

With your API key set up in Ethos, all that remains is for you to configure it in LYNX.

1. Go to the Configurations > API Integration Settings area.
2. In the provided fields, enter the API Base URL and API Key from Ellucian.

These fields are automatically saved as soon as you enter data, establishing the connection between Ethos and LYNX.

Image: Configuring API Integration Settings for Ethos

Initialize Course and Reference Data

Once the connection between your SIS database and LYNX has been established by entering the API details into LYNX, you can begin initializing data.

Follow the steps on Initializing Data in LYNX to begin syncing data with your SIS:

1. Initialize reference data (background information like location names, subject codes, instructors, etc).
2. Initialize course section data (information for a specific term code).
3. You may enter up to three-term codes in the "Auto Initialization" field to automatically initialize their course section data.

Use of Data in Ethos

Cross-Listed Sections

If your institution has any cross-list groups with only a single section in Colleague, the API may show an error. Because Ellucian's API does not support filtering cross-list groups by term code, LYNX must retrieve this data for all terms’ sections every time course section data is initialized (either manually or via auto-initialization).

Ethos requires that all cross-list groups contain two or more sections, and LYNX will encounter an error for any cross-list group that does not, even if that cross-list group is part of a term in the past.

Ellucian customers who have experienced this error have done the following:

• Go into the COURSE.SEC.XLISTS file and find the record number (or ID) that corresponds to the cross-list ID provided in the error
• Make any needed modifications directly to the record there. If the data causing the error is in a development environment, delete the cross-list group after confirming it isn’t needed. If working in a production environment or in an environment where deleting this data is not preferred, you may need to add an additional section to the crosslist group.
• The error will only return the crosslist ID of the first group encountered. Once this is resolved, some customers may need to work through these steps again for each subsequent crosslist ID until all erroneous data is corrected.