It is always important to confirm that your district or school is sending the right data to ParentSquare. Data tools can be found on your ParentSquare site – click the Admin menu at top. Throughout this guide, the Data Integration and the Data Assistant pages will be referenced. The Data Integration page shows data from your SIS. The Data Assistant and other pages, like the dashboard, show data as it has been loaded to ParentSquare. Here is how you access both of these pages:
From Admin > Main (below Data Integration), you can see:
SIS Data - see the raw data as it has been imported into ParentSquare.
SFTP Upload History - shows the SFTP files we are receiving from your school’s SIS and the time the files were received. Only users with district admin permission can view this page.
Sync History - shows all recent syncs and what data changed during each sync as well as the time that the sync last ran.
From Admin > Data Assistant you can view and search the data on your ParentSquare site.
SFTP Basics
ParentSquare makes associations between the different SFTP files to correctly associate data in ParentSquare. When troubleshooting SFTP issues, it is necessary to look at the files and check for these associations. All ‘id’ fields are used to create associations between files. Below is a visualization of some of these associations.
When troubleshooting SFTP files, it can be necessary to look at files in a text editor rather than in spreadsheet software like Excel, Sheets or Numbers. These programs may not display leading 0s or hidden characters.
Finally, A header row should be present in each file and match the specifications exactly. Most headers use underscores. Spaces or dashes are not acceptable substitutes.
Common SFTP Issues
1. How can I see which students are not assigned to any classes?
From Data Assistant, select Rostering. You will see all students and their class enrollments. To see students without classes at the top of the list, use the sort buttons next to classes.
2. A parent in my SFTP file is not being imported into ParentSquare? How can I fix this?
From Admin > Main (under Data Integration) >SFTP Upload History download your parents.csv file. This is the file that we are receiving from your SIS.
Confirm that the parent is included in this file and that they have all of the data fields required in our
. If they are missing any piece of required information, add this info in your SIS.
If they have all required information check that the student_id for this parent is associated with a student who is loaded to your ParentSquare site.
3. A class section does not have a teacher. How can I fix this?
From Admin > Main (under Data Integration) >SFTP Upload History download your sections.csv and staff.csv files.
Confirm that the class is included in your sections.csv file and that the class has an associated staff_id. Then, in your staff.csv file, check that this staff_id is associated with a staff member and that this staff member has either a phone or email address. ParentSquare will not import users without contact information.
4. Students are not enrolled in their expected classes.
From Admin > Main (under Data Integration) >SFTP Upload History download your sections.csv and rosters.csv files.
Confirm that the section_id in your rosters.csv matches the section_id in your sections.csv. Then confirm that there is a line with the student_id of all expected students for that section.
SFTP Connection Issues
Ensure the servername is “sftp2.parentsquare.com” and port is 22.
Ensure the protocol used is SFTP and not FTP.
Ensure the username and password are typed in correctly. If needed, reset your password with the instructions above and test again.
Ensure the filename matches our specifications. i.e. schools.csv. No spaces, slashes, numbers, or extra characters. Some alternative filenames may not appear in your district/school SFTP history.
Check your advanced settings to ensure the default remote directory is blank or empty. For data security and privacy reasons, your username will not have access to the root directory and any connections with a default remote directory of root (“/”) will fail by default.
If your SFTP client is producing an error similar to: “error occurred while setting the permissions and/or timestamp.” Our server does not support these operations. You can check your SFTP history page and likely, the file was transmitted successfully despite the error. If you do not wish to continue to see this error. You can change the permissions/settings on your SFTP client to not make any modifications to the file after it is sent.
. You may need to get support from your specific SFTP client.
It’s possible your firewall may be blocking connections to certain IP addresses you need access to. If necessary, please ensure the following IP addresses are whitelisted on your end:
SFTP Troubleshooting
