Force resync a sync list

Lists that have "(sync)" in the name are considered sync lists. Sync lists get their data from a source outside of BrightArrow. The data can come from a google spreadsheet, a student system such as PowerSchool or Infinite Campus, or a separate database all together. The difference between a sync list and a list you upload your spreadsheet into is that sync lists update automatically and on a scheduled.

When do sync lists update?

Sync lists are scheduled to update at various times depending on what they are for. Static list updates are done overnight when they are least likely to interrupt a message being sent. These are lists like your parents list, your staff list, your board of education list, etc.

Other lists need to happen during the day as they are a reaction to what is happening. Attendance, for example, might happen in the morning so messages about a student not arriving at school can go out ASAP. Many of these lists will be set up to import the data and then immediately send it which should be considered when thinking about forcing a resync.

Still others happen during the day but not everyday such as weekly reminders of money owed. These lists are often set up to import and then send immediately without a user hitting the send button but are more of a periodic reminder rather than an everyday alert.

How do I force a sync to happen now rather than wait for the schedule?

To force a sync to happen now:

1. Go to the My Lists page
2. Click on the sync list you want to force refresh
3. In the drop down select Resynchronize to source data
4. Wait. Depending on where the data is coming from the process can take several minutes.

What are the downsides?

There are only a few possible downsides to consider

• Forcing a resync will count as that day's sync. If you do it early then you will not get the normal update again overnight so any changes made for the rest of the day will not show up until the following day's sync. Not a huge problem, but something to be aware of.
• Your list may have more than 1 sync attached to it. If so the next one on the schedule is what will happen. An example of this is attendance lists. Each night a separate sync rule is run to clear the attendance lists so you start fresh each day with 0 records so you always know that any attendance in the list is for the current date. If the normal sync has already happened then a resync will trigger the other sync rule instead of re-importing.

In all these cases support can get around them. If you've already run the resync you can let support know and they can reschedule the sync for that day or you can let them know and they'll handle the whole resync for you in a way that doesn't have the downsides.

What happens to linked lists?

Lists that are linked to the sync list you are updating will also get updated. This is not an immediate update, it will take several minutes after the sync list is done for the linked lists to get their new data. There is also a period of each morning where the linked lists will not get updated, we call this the "attendance window" where we do not update linked lists so that more urgent things can happen, however the linked lists will get updated after.

How do I know when a resync is done?

On the My Lists page you can hover over the date in the List Updated column. This will tell you the last time any change was made to the list (manual or sync). Hovering reveals the time as well. If you see that the last update happened 5 hours ago and you just resynced you know it's not done.

I did a resync and didn't see what I wanted so I did another resync and nothing seems to be happening?

Some syncs use files to update. These are pretty quick since the file is there, but if you haven't sent us an updated file then it will re-import the same data and you won't see any changes. 

Other syncs use what's called an API call. When these syncs run our system contacts your system and requests data. These syncs are slower, in some cases a lot slower. DASL syncs, for example, can take up to 20 minutes. If you keep resyncing while it's still in the process of performing the sync you'll slow down the system exponentially. The more you do the longer it will take for your data to refresh. Refer to the section above on how to know when the resync is done before trying again.