How do Sparx access school data?
We use a third party called Wonde to access your data
The vast majority of MISs are supported by our partner Wonde which acts as a gateway for us to access data directly and securely from your MIS. Wonde automatically syncs your school data with Sparx nightly and can be manually synced if you need a change to be immediate. You instruct Wonde to process your data directly and as such have a Data Handling Agreement directly with them, you can see their terms here.They also have a DPIA support document to help you with your due diligence. Wonde have over 600 apps they work with connecting them to over 30,000 schools globally.You can see more about their security here, including their ISO 27001 accreditation: the international standard on how to manage information security.
If you can't connect your MIS to Sparx you can use a CSV upload
This is a less secure way of sharing data than linking directly to your MIS and you will need to manually update your school data and manage students in the Sparx Product (for example, creating new students and off-rolling students) where necessary. This is important to keep the system running smoothly and maintain the accuracy principle of GDPR.
You always have full control of what MIS data you share with Sparx
When you set up Wonde you authorise exactly the fields of data you want to share with Sparx. Some are essential and some are optional depending on the range of features you want (see What data does Sparx need?). Wonde then has an Application Programming Interface or AIP that Sparx connects to. This is gated to only make available the specific fields your school has authorised. If we requested an optional field you had not authorised or a completely separate field in your MIS nothing to do with Sparx platform, we would just get an error with no data available.
You can change your preferences at any time. Schools that use Wonde get access to a Wonde portal so that they can easily see and control data that is shared with different applications that use the Wonde syncing tool.
You can use an existing Wonde connection with Sparx
As part of the set-up process for a previous app (as the Data Controller) you instruct Wonde to process your data and as such have a Data Handling Agreement directly with them. When you sign up for Sparx Maths, Wonde will send your Network Manager a new Wonde request where they can authorise each data field for Sparx individually.