Next Steps

So, you've looked at the use cases and have decided to implement one or more. What's next?

The high-level steps are:

Detail on each follows.

Review the Snapp Profile and the Snapp Data Standard

A student's Snapp Profile contains the data about a student that you can import and export via the Snapp Central API.

The Snapp Profile is simply an XML Data File that adheres to the Snapp Data Standard. The Snapp Data Standard is specified as an XSD.

Data Overview

A student's Snapp Profile contains hundreds of data points. At a high-level, the elements cover:

Name
Contact & Address Information
Birthdate
Gender, GenderDetail, Orientation
Race, Ethnicity
Birthplace, Citizenship
Disability Status, Disability Description
Armed Services History, Program Eligibility
Education Level
Test Scores
GPA
Current Enrollment
College Choices, College Application Status
Intended Major, Discipline
Current Major
Application Essays
Activities, Hobbies, Volunteering
Employment, Income
Parent's Finances, FAFSA
Marital Status, Dependents
Home Environment, Family Situation, Sibling Information
Government Aid, Program Participation
References, Reference Contact Information
Transcript Information

Presuming your application contains any of these data points, your system makes a good candidate for integration with Snapp.

Data Standard Detail

The Scholar Snapp XSD is downloadable from this site. The download includes a sample Snapp Profile XML documents, including a "typical" data file, a minimal data file illustrating just the required elements, and a data file with every element filled in – which is semantically unrealistic, but useful for testing.
The XSD contains type characteristics and annotations. For expanded documentation and real-world usage guidelines, see the Snapp Data Standard Documentation section of this site.

Review the Snapp Central API

The Snapp Central API is the system handles the exchange of Snapp Profiles with your application.

Like most modern APIs, Snapp Central is RESTful, and uses JSON to structure control information. The JSON acts as a "wrapper" for the Snapp Profile XML payload.

Snapp Central API Detail

Complete documentation for the API can be found in the Snapp Central API section of this site.

Developer Toolkit Contents

Map Your Application Form Data to the Snapp Profile Data

If you've ever done a data integration project, you know that it starts with data mapping. Depending on the nature of your application, you may have a few fields that map to a Snapp Profile or you may have, literally, hundreds. A detailed data mapping is the ideal starting point.

We have an Excel data dictionary downloadable from the Snapp Resources section of this site. Analysts and subject matter experts assisting with data mapping usually find Excel easier to work with than the XSD.

You or your technology team likely have a mapping template. If you haven't seen one, it's fairly simple – here are a few example rows from a hypothetical mapping:

My App Path	My App Field	My Data Type	Snapp Element	Snapp Data Type	Business Rule Pseudocode	Note
App.Contact.ContactInfo	ApplicantFirst	String, Max 50, Required	Student.Name.FirstName	String, Max 100, Required	`if snappValue.Length <= 50 then snappValue` else value.Substring(0, 50);	Snapp allows a longer first name, need to truncate if longer than our max of 50 characters.
App.Contact.ContactInfo	ApplicantMiddleInitial	String, Max 1, Optional	Student.Name.MiddleName	String, Max 100, Optional	`if != null` `value.Substring(1);`	Snapp allows an optional, 100 character full middle name, we just hold initials. Need to check whether the Snapp Profile has the data and just grab the initial if present.
...and so on.

This is an admittedly tedious exercise, but it's essential.

Get a Key and Secret to our API Sandbox

If you've read this far, you know a Key and Secret are OAuth credentials required to connect your application to the Snapp Central API. As the name implies, every application has its own unique key and secret...which you really should keep secret.

Developers who are comfortable with JSON and APIs can skip this step. However, most developers find it useful to connect to a test (or "sandbox") environment during development. As you'd expect, the sandbox behaves exactly like our production API, but since all the data is test information you can experiment and debug without causing problems for real Snapp users.

To get a key/secret pair, send a note to ContactUs@ScholarSnapp.org.

Develop and Test Your Solution

This is where you do that voodoo that you do so well.

Get a Key and Secret to our Production API

When you've completed your development and testing, contact us (same address: ContactUs@ScholarSnapp.org) for a key/secret pair to our production environment. At this point, you're done – and can sleep well knowing you're improving the lives of scholars everywhere.

Scholar Snapp v3.0

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