Troubleshooting Failed Syncs: Common Errors and Fixes

When syncing CES reports from Course Evaluations & Surveys (CES) into corresponding Scheduled Teaching records in Faculty Success (FS) through the integration, certain issues may arise that prevent the successful transfer of CES reports.

This guide outlines common problems based on when they occur and provides steps to resolve them by breaking them down into the following sections:

• Project Isn't Available for Sync
• Sync Fails to Complete (Status: "Attachment Failed")
• Sync Completes with Errors
• Sync Completes but CES Report is Missing from a Course
• Re-Syncing a Project

Project isn't Available for Sync

If a CES project does not appear in the Course Evaluations Management tool, check for these common causes in CES:

• Project Status is not "Ended"
• Course-Level Dates Exceeds Project's End Date
• Instructors Do Not have Access to Reporting
• The Project is Not a Course Evaluation Type Project

Project Status is not "Ended"

Only CES projects with a status of Ended appear in the Course Evaluation Management tool. Projects with a status of Not-Deployed or In-Progress are excluded.

To review your project's status:

1. Go to your project's Summary tab.
2. Locate the Project Properties box and find the Status field.

To modify the status of a project to "Ended":

1. Go to the project's Properties tab.
2. Update the project End Date to a date in the past.
3. Select Save at the bottom of the properties tab.

Course-Level Dates Exceeds Project's End Date

Individual courses within a project can have course-level dates set in the future, extending beyond the project's end date. Since course-level dates override project dates, this causes the project to remain open.

To review and modify course-level dates in CES:

1. Go to the project's Courses tab.
2. Select Export All Courses.
3. Open the generated Excel file.
4. Review the EndDate column to verify no courses have course-level dates for Survey Access beyond the project's end date.
5. Modify course-level dates manually if changes are needed.

Instructors Do Not have Access to Reporting

FS only displays CES projects where reporting has been made available to instructors.

To verify instructor access to run reports for the project in CES:

1. Go to the project's Report Setup tab.
2. Ensure Allow Instructors to view reports for their courses is enabled.
3. Verify instructor access to reporting has not passed or is kept open.

If this option is not enabled, FS will not include the project as an option to sync for.

Additionally, ensure that instructors have access to run reports for the report type you're syncing for. This can be done in CES by following these steps:

1. Go to Account from the navigation bar.
2. Select Results Settings.
3. Verify the report type (e.g. Detailed Report, Detailed Report with Comments, etc.) is available to instructors within the Project Results tab.

Project is Not a Course Evaluation Type Project

Only course evaluation type projects can be synced.

To verify the type for your project in CES:

1. Go to the project's Summary tab.
2. Verify the Type for the project is Course Evaluation.

If the type is not Course Evaluation, the project will not be included as an option to sync for.

Next Steps

If your project does not meet any of these conditions contact the Watermark's Support team and include the ID along with the full title of the missing project.

Sync Fails to Complete (Attachment Failed)

You may see an "Attachment Failed" error after attempting to sync a CES project to Faculty Success. This error indicates that the system could not connect evaluation results to courses in FS.

Common causes are:

• More than one sync was run at the same time.
• Adding, updating, or deleting Scheduled Teaching data in Faculty Success during a sync can result in the "Attachment Failed" message.

To avoid this error:

• Wait for one sync to finish before starting another.
• Avoid processing imports or making changes to Scheduled Teaching data while the sync is in progress.

Sync Completes with Errors

Below is a list of common errors you may find in your Results report after a sync has completed along with the recommendations on how to address them. Once they've been addressed, you may run a new sync to attach CES reports that were not previously attached to faculty whose Scheduled Teaching records encountered the error.

• No User Found
• More than one record found
• No matching records for (username)

No User Found

• Cause: The instructor's email address does not match between CES and FS. Matching instructors accounts between CES and FS relies on their email address being the same between both systems. If a matching email is not found in either system, this error is received.
• Resolution: Review the instructor's email address in both systems and update it as needed.
  • Update the email in FS by following the steps outlined in Searching and Managing User Accounts.
  • Or edit the instructor's email in CES while on Edit User mode. For guidance on Edit User mode, see Manually Edit User Information.

More Than One Record Found

• Cause: This error occurs when multiple FS records use the same course code across terms or academic years. Each course in FS must have a unique course code. Duplicate course codes across terms or academic years will cause this error.
• Resolution: We recommend modifying the course codes to be unique. For guidance on this process, refer to Modifying Course Codes to be Unique.

No Matching Records for "Username"

• Cause: This error occurs when course codes do not align between CES and FS or the Scheduled Teaching records have not been created. The integration relies on Scheduled Teaching records being created prior to initiating a sync and requires that course codes follow one of the two supported methods (Automated Matching or Custom Matching) to connect courses between the two systems.

• Resolution: Check the course codes in both CES and FS to ensure they align using either Automated Matching or Custom Matching.

  If you're unsure which method to use or need help reviewing how your course codes are structured, see Connecting Courses: Automated Matching vs. Custom Matching.

  If no Scheduled Teaching records have been created for the instructor in FS, consider importing those records now. For guidance on this process, refer to CSV Imports: Create New Records and Creating New Scheduled Teaching Records Using Export Data Report and CSV Data Import.

Sync Completes but CES Report is Missing

In some cases, a sync will complete successfully and the Results report will display a "Success" status for a course, indicating that the CES report was attached to a matching Scheduled Teaching record. However, when reviewing the expected Scheduled Teaching record in FS that you were expecting the report to attach to, you may find that the CES report is not present.

A common cause for this issue is having non-unique course codes across terms and academic years. If two or more Scheduled Teaching records share the same course code, the integration will likely attach the CES report to the wrong record.

To confirm this:

1. Download the Results report from the Course Evaluation Management tool. For details on how to download this report, refer to
2. In the report, refer to Column B (CourseCode). This column shows the course code used to match courses between CES and FS. Keep this code for reference in step 4.
3. In FS, utilize the Manage Data utility to go to the instructor's Scheduled Teaching screen.
4. Search for all Scheduled Teaching record that use that course code depending on the method you used to connect your courses:
   1. Automated Matching: Since the required course code format for this method is "CourseCode= CoursePrefix-CourseNumber-SectionNumber." Review columns for Course Prefix, Course Number and Section.
   2. Custom Matching: For this method course codes from CES are added to the EK_COURSE_CODE field within Scheduled Teaching in FS. Look for the course code in this field.
5. Once you found the Scheduled Teaching records that use the same course codes, identify which record the CES report was attached to. You may find that the CES report was attached to a different course with the same course code.

Resolution: We recommend modifying the course codes to be unique. For guidance on this process, see Modifying Course Codes to be Unique.

Re-Syncing a Project

You can initiate a new sync for a CES project at any time. Each new sync re-attaches the previous files that were attached in the earlier sync for the project and attempts to match any records that failed before. You may also remove or rollback any earlier syncs as needed.