An affilate feed file specifies information about people who are in some way associated with Columbia University. The information specified includes the person's name, and may include other information such as social security number or department.
AcIS processes affiliate feed files nightly (or every other night). When a file is processed, each person in the file is assigned a UNI (if he or she doesn't already have one), and the person is added to the AcIS ID System. (A partial overview of the AcIS ID System)
The ID System in turn grants privileges to the person, which might include access to email or email forwarding, web resources, printing, or other electronic services. The person may also be included in the online directory.
Affiliate feed files should be copied securely (for example, via scp or sftp) to a location on an AcIS machine; the specific location varies by feed and must be negotiated with AcIS.
Every time a file is submitted, it must contain records for all people who should receive UNIs.
When a new file is processed, AcIS will compare the new file to the previous version of the file. Any person who appears in the new file only will be added to the system, and any person who appears in the previous file only will be removed from the system. Thus the system requires that each new file contain all records for all people.
Affiliate feed files must contain one record per line. Each record corresponds to one person, though one person may be associated with multiple records.
Affiliate feed files must be plain ASCII test, and the line delimiter must be a unix newline character (ASCII linefeed). AcIS cannot accept files in word processor formats.
All fields should be left-justified and space-padded on the right. Some fields may be left blank, which is to say, a string of spaces up to the width.
Dates must follow the format YYYYMMDD; for example, 20040421 represents April 21st, 2004. If a date is not supplied or is "infinite", it should be left blank (i.e. the field should be populated with 8 spaces).
A new person (or a person who has forgotten his/her password) must use the social security number, date of birth, and pin information provided in the feed to authenticate. It is therefore important that this information be provided accurately.
The title group, department, and school fields may be used to control access to specific resources; errors in this information may result in a user getting inappropriate access to such resources.
The name, title, department, and other fields which are of use to the general community may be used in the person's online directory entry; it is therefore important that this information be correct so the person's listing is accurate.
The following fields must be included for every record:
| Name | Required? | Width | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNI | The AcIS-assigned unique person identifier. Should be supplied only if known. An incorrect UNI may result in inability to log in or in assignment of privileges to the wrong person, so if there is any doubt about the person's UNI, this field should be left blank. | ||
| Title Group | General category of affiliation with the university; must be one
of:
| ||
| Unique ID | The unique identifier in the database that is the source of this feed. This field is assumed never to change for a person, and is used to determine the difference between a new entry and a changed entry. If no such unique identifier is available, the ssn can be used. This practie is strongly discouraged because ssns change often enough to cause problems for users. | ||
| SSN | Social Security Number. Used for matching with data from other feeds (e.g. personnel, the registrar) so that a person with multiple affiliations shows up as one person and not several. Please either list an actual SSN or leave blank. | ||
| Surname | Last name. Correct alphabetic case preferred. | ||
| Given Name | First name. Can include middle name(s) separated from first name with blanks, but this information is best if included in the middle name field. | ||
| Middle Name(s) | Middle name(s). | ||
| Date of Birth | The person's date of birth, in the format YYYYMMDD. Please provide either the correct date of birth or leave blank. | ||
| PIN | A random number or text-string to be used by the person in conjunction with date of birth and ssn to select an initial password. To achieve the best level of security, the pin should be at least 8 characters long, and pins should not be issued in a sequential fashion. | ||
| Title | Job title. Mixed case preferred; leave blank if none. | ||
| Department | Department within organization. Mixed case preferred; leave blank if none. | ||
| School | School code, as it appears in SIS. | ||
| Graduation Year | Year of graduation, in form YYYY, or blank. | ||
| Gender | M or F, or blank. | ||
| Address Line 1 | Line 1 of local mailing address. Leave blank if none. | ||
| Address Line 2 | Line 2 of local mailing address. Leave blank if none. | ||
| Address Line 3 | Line 3 of local mailing address. Leave blank if none. | ||
| Address Line 4 | Line 4 of local mailing address. Leave blank if none. | ||
| Phone | Phone number (sample format: 2128541234), or blank. | ||
| Fax | Fax number (sample format: 2128541234), or blank. | ||
| Directory Release | Y or N. Y indicates that listing in our online phonebook (lookup) is authorized by affiliate and that affiliate has necessary permission to do so, e.g. FERPA clearance for students. | ||
| Good Until | Date that affiliation should expire. If date is for the forseeable future (i.e. until removed from file), leave blank. |