> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.deandesk.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Ed-Fi export

> Preview and export your school's data in an Ed-Fi-aligned format for state reporting and downstream systems.

<Info>
  **School-level feature** — managed within your school portal at `yourschool.deandesk.com`. Admin role required.
</Info>

DeanDesk includes an **Ed-Fi-aligned export** that maps your school's students, enrollments, courses, sections, attendance, and grades into resources structured around the [Ed-Fi data standard](https://www.ed-fi.org/). Use it to feed downstream systems, prepare state reports, or audit your data alignment.

## What's in the export

The export covers:

| Resource                              | Source data                                       |
| ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| **Students**                          | User Management student records                   |
| **Schools / education organizations** | Your school configuration                         |
| **Courses**                           | Courses you've created                            |
| **Sections**                          | Courses scoped to terms or instructors            |
| **Student section associations**      | Course enrollments                                |
| **Calendar events**                   | Academic calendar entries                         |
| **Attendance events**                 | Attendance records — full list or exceptions only |
| **Grades**                            | Gradebook grades and term grades                  |

## Preview the export

The Ed-Fi preview is admin-only. From the Admin Dashboard, navigate to **Integrations → Ed-Fi Preview**.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Pick the attendance mode">
    Choose how attendance events are returned:

    | Mode                | What it returns                                   |
    | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
    | **All**             | Every attendance record for every student/day     |
    | **Exceptions only** | Only non-present records (absent, tardy, excused) |

    Exceptions-only is much smaller and is often what state reporting requires.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Run the preview">
    Click **Preview**. DeanDesk returns a JSON document containing each Ed-Fi resource as a top-level array.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Download or pipe">
    Download the JSON file, or use the API endpoint to integrate the export with your state reporting pipeline.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Tip>
  The preview reflects your live data. Run it after grades or attendance have been finalized for a term to get the cleanest export.
</Tip>

## Common workflows

### State reporting

Most states accept Ed-Fi-aligned data for their annual reports. Use **Exceptions only** for attendance to keep the file size manageable, and run the preview at the close of each reporting window.

### Feeding a data warehouse

If you maintain a central data warehouse, you can poll the Ed-Fi preview endpoint on a schedule and ingest the resulting JSON. Each resource is a top-level array with stable identifiers, so you can run incremental updates.

### Validating data quality

The preview is also a useful **data quality check**. If a student is missing from the export, that often means their User record is missing required fields (date of birth, grade level). Use the preview to catch these gaps before a reporting deadline.

<Note>
  The Ed-Fi export is a **read-only** projection of your DeanDesk data. It does not modify any records or push data into Ed-Fi systems automatically — that's the job of whatever pipeline you build on top of it.
</Note>