The autoSync or non-interactive patron transfer and update allows your IT Manager to set up a rolling group transfer and update process between your school's administration system and Infiniti. This is a "set and forget" transfer facility which, once set up, will run according to the schedule implemented by your IT Manager. This process allows your school software to transfer records into Infiniti at scheduled intervals.


Library groups are required if you intend to provide additional services and/or privileges to specific groups of students, teachers, or parents. Note: Patrons can only be imported into pre-defined library groups. Define required library groups before importing.


Before Getting Started


Infiniti's non-interactive group transfer and update tool provides your school with a means of automating the synchronisation of group information from your Student Management System or other appropriate source. Much like the ad hoc interactive group import, this automated process accepts CSV (Comma Separated Value) files that you, or your IT team, have generated from your internal systems. 


This facility utilises a script created and scheduled by the school's suitably qualified IT Technician. Note: The scripts are not intended for use by library managers or library staff and does not run in a browser.


Prior to commencing the setup of autoSync please ensure you are familiar with the following:

  1. How to extract information, in CSV format, from your Student Management System.
  2. The use of your preferred scripting tool and language.
  3. Basic knowledge of cross-platform non-interactive web agents (we recommend cURL or similar).
  4. You school's Infiniti URL, which will be similar to: yourschool.concordinfiniti.com.
  5. The username and password of an account in your school's Infiniti with system administration privileges.

The CSV File

The first step in automating the synchronisation of your group information is to create the CSV file which will be used by your script to transfer or update your user groups. The non-interactive user transfer requires specific header column names in the CSV file in order to recognise user attributes.

The CSV File you upload to Infiniti through this script MUST contain the following fields:

username: is the mandatory matching key for updating an existing user groups or populating new groups.

library-group: is a defined library group in Infiniti. Note: Ensure library groups are created and data in the CSV file matches the group name/s precisely before proceeding.

system-group: is a defined system group in Infiniti.

 

The Non-interactive Script


Once your CSV is ready your import script is prepared by a suitably qualified IT technician and will HTTP POST a CSV file of users, extracted from your student administration system or similar source of user data, to this URL: https://[school.concordinfiniti.com]/api/import/userGroups


Infiniti will treat the first multi-part file of the HTTP POST as the CSV file - the file name and form attribute name of the post are ignored. The CSV file may be empty for schools performing scheduled incremental imports.


The action is protected by HTTP Basic Auth over SSL/TLS. You will need to provide the username and password of a new or existing user with system administration privileges in Infiniti. Best practice is to create a new account in Infiniti for transferring data, e.g., autoimport, and grant this user system administration privileges. As SAML Single Sign-On requires a browser, the credentials for this user cannot be verified via SAML; one of the other credential sources will be required.

 

Your school's script can be implemented in any fashion chosen by your IT Technicians. An example of how a script may post the CSV file to Infiniti is the cURL application, a cross-platform non-interactive web agent:

 

curl -k -X POST -F "[email protected]" https://[user]:[password]@[host]:[ssl port]/api/import/userGroups?tenantId=[tenant]

 

The user CSV file will be processed in the same manner as the interactive import. You should read the section Manual Import File Pre-checks in ad hoc interactive user import before running the script.

 

Results of Processing


When complete the script will produce a JSON result array: 

'success' - Whether all user records transferred without error 

'summary' - A summary of the transfer action; successful or otherwise. 

'details' - An array of each user row outcome. Only included if some rows failed to import. "row number" -> "row outcome" 

  

A JSON result array can look like: 

 

{"success":true, "summary":"100 users processed. 50 users created. 50 users updated. 0 users failed."}

 

or 

 

{"success": false, "summary":"Unauthorised. Check credentials."}

 

or 

 

{
  "success": false,
  "summary": "3 users processed. 1 user created. 1 user updated. 1 user failed.",
  "details": {
    "1": "User Updated",
    "2": "Field (emailAddress) is not a well-formed email address. User failed to import: Field (emailAddress) is not a well-formed email address. ",
    "3": "User Created"
  }
}