Information for SMS Integration

Information and documents for SMSs interested in connecting to ELI.

Please regularly check this page for:

the process for contacting the Ministry of Education to register your interest to be considered for the January 2019 tranche
updates/additions on steps that need to be taken for integration
new releases of updated specifications.

For new Early Childhood Education (ECE) SMS vendors considering development of their SMS to integrate with the Ministry’s Early Learning Information (ELI) system, please note that the Ministry will be available to engage and provide support to the next tranche of new SMS vendors in January 2019.

In the interim period the following information is available:

For information regarding how an ECE service must operate, please review the following:

Funding Handbook – Information covering ECE Funding Subsidy, 20 Hours ECE, Equity Funding and the Annual Top-Up for Isolated Service.
Regulatory Framework for ECE – the rules that govern ECE services.

For information regarding the technical specifications for integrating to the ELI system, please review the following:

NSI GINS document [PDF, 1.77MB] – The technical specification for interfacing to the National Student Index (NSI). This document includes the REST instructions for implementation (Section 5) and must be read in conjunction with the ECE NSI GINS Appendix.
ECE NSI GINS Appendix [PDF, 340KB] – The general and functional requirements of Search, Add and Update of the NSI for integration into your SMS. This must be read in conjunction with the NSI GINS document.
InfoHub Specification [PDF, 663KB] – The technical specification for interfacing to InfoHub.
ELI Data Collection Specification 5.0 [PDF, 1.41MB] – The technical specification contains both data information collection and validation requirements for ELI Events and ECE Returns.
- ELI Event 5.0.xsd [Zip, 2KB] - Appendix A from the ELI Data Collection Specification. Mandatory XSD Validation schema must be used to validate the format of each message to be sent to the ELI system. Application of the validation will reduce the potential for transmission failure.
RS7 Return Specification [PDF, 1.22MB] – The technical specification for automating the four monthly RS7 Returns submitted by ECE services.

Once the new tranche period begins in January 2019 the following steps must be undertaken by the vendor (not yet a complete list):

Review and understand information provided in the attached documents and links.
Complete the ELI/NSI Design template below for review and approval.
Development and testing of the SMS interface to the National Student Index (NSI GINS, ECE NSI GINS Appendix).
Development and testing of the ELI Data Collection development (InfoHub Specification and ELI Data Collection Specification).
Development and testing of the ECE Return (ELI Data Collection Specification)
Development and testing of the RS7 Return (RS7 Return Specification, Funding Handbook).

The Ministry will provide advice and the necessary testing credentials as required from January 2019, as well as undertaking its own acceptance testing on your integration development before giving approval to integrate to the NSI and ELI.