Build Sample Data in Your K-12 Architecture Kit Trial Org

Create a Sample Student and Household

Create sample records for students and households to use in your K-12 Architecture Kit trial org.

Let’s create a student Contact record.

1. Click the Contacts tab and click New.

2. On the New Contact page, select Student, and click Next.

3. Enter required information and some optional information, such as birthdate and gender.

   

   Important Be sure to leave the Account Name field blank so that a Household Account is created automatically for this student. Anytime you add a new student Contact who doesn’t have an existing Household Account, let K-12 Architecture Kit create the household record for you. An exception would be if you were adding a Contact record for this student’s sibling, for example. In that case, you’d want to enter the existing Household Account name instead of leaving it blank, to avoid creating duplicate Account records.
   

4. Click Save.

What do we see in the resulting Contact record?

• In the highlights panel, we see that a Household Account record was automatically created. If you filled in a birthdate or gender, those information fields are displayed, too. (1)

• On the left side, we see more details that can be expanded and collapsed. (2)

• On the right side, related lists show groupings of things that are related to the student. Things that show up in related lists, like Program Enrollments, Course Connections, Grade Enrollments, and Relationships, are all examples of objects. (3)

Objects might be considered the most important building block in K-12 Architecture Kit. The things that objects represent and how those things are related to each other are the foundation of your school's data model. Often, you access objects from the tabs across the top of the page. From a given tab, such as Accounts, you can access lists of the Account records created for your institution. And if you're the K-12 Architecture Kit administrator, you might customize how the user interface displays data records for different objects. We'll see more examples as we look at more data types.

Create a Sample Family Member

Create sample contact records for family members to use in your K-12 Architecture Kit trial org.

Next, let’s create a Contact record for one of your student’s family members.

1. From the student’s Contact record, click the Household Account in the Account Name field.

2. From the actions menu on the Contacts related list, click New.

   

3. This time, because you’re creating a family member Contact, select Guardian, then click Next.

4. Enter information about this family member, including essentials like a phone number.

5. Don’t change the the Account Name field. By creating this Contact record from the Household Account record, it automatically associates the person with the correct household—which is exactly what you want.

6. Click Save.

Notice that the family member now appears in the Contacts related list on the Household Account record. But how do we capture the relationship that exists between these two Contacts? Let’s handle that, next.

Connect Household Contacts to Each Other

Create relationships between household contacts.

1. Return to the student’s Contact record. You can find your way back from anywhere in the user interface that you see the student’s name linked.

2. From the actions menu on the Relationships related list, click New.

   

3. Under Related Contact, select the family member’s name, such as the guardian whose record you just created.

4. Select the Type of relationship this person has to the student. We call this list of options a picklist, which is a good way to enforce consistent, standardized data entry and data reporting.

5. Click Save.

Now, the Relationships related list on the student’s Contact record shows this connection between the student and family member. You might even see information such as whether this person is an emergency contact.

And, if you go to the family member’s Contact record, you see the reciprocal relationship that the family member has with the student. This view of the Relationship is created for you automatically.

Create a Sample District and School

Create sample accounts for a school and school district to use in your K-12 Architecture Kit trial org.

Like we did for Valley Elementary in Represent People and Your School, let’s create Educational Institution Accounts to represent your school district and school.

1. Click the Accounts tab and click New.

2. On the New Account page, select Educational Institution, and click Next.

3. Enter your district’s name under Account Name, and other information such as the address and website.

4. Click Save & New.

5. Select Educational Institution, and click Next.

6. Enter your school’s name and other details. Then under Parent Account, enter the district name you just created. This effectively connects the school to the district and starts building out a hierarchy of Accounts.

7. If you’re done, click Save. Or if you’d like to create more Accounts for other district schools, click Save & New and repeat these steps.

Connect People to Accounts

Connections between Contacts and Accounts are represented differently, depending on whether the connection is the primary Affiliation for a Contact, or a secondary one.

Here are some examples.

Remember that an Affiliation represents a connection between a Contact and an Account, while a Relationship represents a connection between two Contacts. When you create an Affiliation between a Contact and an Account and select the Primary field on the Affiliation record, the Affiliation shows up on the respective Account’s Contacts related list. Other Affiliations are considered secondary and show up on the Account’s Affiliated Contacts related list.

In this example, you see a teacher, Fred Rogers, as a Contact at the school, and a counselor, Melinda Barnes, as an Affiliated Contact; her primary Affiliation is with the district because she works at multiple schools. You also see that the sample school is identified as an elementary school.

Create an Affiliation between a faculty member and your school.

1. Make your way back to your school’s Account record.

2. From the actions menu on the Contacts related list, click New. By creating faculty Contact records from the school’s record, they’re automatically associated with the school’s Account record.

3. This time, because you’re creating a faculty member Contact, select Faculty, then click Next.

4. Enter information about this faculty member, including a phone number, email address, and so on.

5. Don’t change the Account Name field. By creating this related Contact record from the school's Educational Institution Account record, the correct Account name is already filled in and the correct Affiliation is created for you automatically.

6. Click Save.

Repeat these steps for any additional Contacts or Affiliated Contacts you want to create. While you’re on the school’s Account record, you might also want to create records for Terms, Time Blocks, or Facilities.

Create a Grade Level Account and Courses

We've recommended that you represent grade levels using Academic Program Accounts.

1. Click the Accounts tab and click New.

2. On the New Account page, select Academic Program, and click Next.

3. Enter the grade name. Then select the name of the school you created under Parent Account. This effectively connects the grade level to the school.

4. Click Save.

5. On the grade level Account record, from the actions menu on the Courses related list, click New. By creating this related Course record from the grade level Account record, the correct Account name is already filled in and automatically connects the Course to the grade level’s Account record.

6. Enter a Course Name and other details.

7. Click Save.

For an example grade level for Valley Elementary, see Represent Classes and Other Programs

After you’ve created Account records for grade levels, you can connect faculty Contacts to them through Affiliations.

Create a Course Offering and Connect People to It

Create a specific instance of a Course, known as a Course Offering. It represents the specific Course being offered during a specific Term, at a specific time and location, taught by a specified faculty Contact.

1. From the grade level’s Account record, click the name of a Course.

2. From the actions menu on the Course Offerings related list, click New.

3. If you haven’t created any Terms, create a new one in the Term field using the New Term option.

4. Enter a Course Offering ID, which might look like the Course ID followed by the Term, or Fifth Grade English 2018/2019.

5. Select the Primary Teacher.

6. Click Save.

After you’ve added the Course Offering, the Course record looks like this:

You can now connect students or faculty to the Course Offering by creating new Course Connections from the Course Offering record.