ARC offers a generic importing procedure that connects to any external data source. It is configured to match field’s tables from ARC to field tables from the external data source. With over 25 HEI’s utilizing the ARC System, ARC has the experience to integrate with a variety of systems utilized at HEI’s across the UK.
The ARC university link uses a scheduler type of approach to start the process and this can be configure to run either once a day or at certain times in a working day. The process starts by connecting to the external data and cycling through all the records, and using the student university number as the primary key, will locate the student on the ARC database. The process will then check for any fields that have a different value to that in the master data source and update accordantly. If any changes are needed then ARC will generate an audit record detailing the previous and new value. Once the process has finished it will update a log file so as users can always interrogate the log file on when the last upload was run.
Should the upload fail to run due to network issues the system will prompt users upon access to the ARC System.