Sentral
Widespread across New South Wales and in independent schools nationally.
| Category | SIS |
| Authentication | API key plus tenant key |
| Reaches | https://yourschool.sentral.com.au |
| Needs an agent | No |
| Demo mode | Yes |
Capabilities
Section titled “Capabilities”sis.getRoster, sis.lookupStudent, sis.lookupStaff, sis.getTutorGroup
Which lights up people with names, year levels, roll classes and card numbers, and the tutor on file used by the ready-for-collection tutor email.
Getting the credentials
Section titled “Getting the credentials”Both values come from Sentral’s own Setup, API Access screen, and both are per-school.
- In Sentral, go to Setup, API Access.
- Note the tenant key.
- Create or copy an API key with read access to enrolments and staff.
The API lives under /restapi/v1 and authenticates with both keys sent as
headers. You do not need to construct that yourself; the connector does.
Configuring it in Plugboard
Section titled “Configuring it in Plugboard”Admin, Connectors, Sentral, Configure.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”| Field | Default | Value |
|---|---|---|
baseUrl |
empty | Your Sentral address, for example https://yourschool.sentral.com.au |
tenantKey |
empty | The tenant key from Setup, API Access |
includeInactive |
false |
Include students who have left |
demoMode |
false |
Return a fixture roster |
includeInactive is off by default because a leaver should stop appearing. Turn
it on only if you have a specific reason, such as chasing devices that have not
come back.
Credentials
Section titled “Credentials”| Field | Value |
|---|---|
apiKey |
The Sentral API key |
Save and test.
Response shape
Section titled “Response shape”Sentral’s responses are JSON:API flavoured: a data array of objects each carrying an attributes bag. The connector flattens that into the same person shape the other SIS connectors return, so the sync pipeline does not care which SIS a school runs.
You never see this. It explains why the field names in Sentral’s own documentation do not match the ones in Plugboard.
What a person record carries
Section titled “What a person record carries”| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| External id | Sentral’s identifier |
| First and last name | |
| Username | |
| Type | Student or staff |
| Year level | Students |
| Roll class | Mapped to the tutor group concept |
| Card number | When Sentral holds one |
| Active | Respects includeInactive |
Large rosters
Section titled “Large rosters”From 0.20.0, roster pulls continue beyond the former 20,000-record cutoff. Repeated pages, duplicate source IDs, malformed records or exceeding 250,000 records in one roster fail the complete pull instead of returning an apparently successful partial roster. The sync does not apply the pages collected before that failure.
Synthetic tests exercise 100,001 records. Compare the first school sync with an independent Sentral export; these tests do not establish the behaviour of every live Sentral configuration.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
401 or 403 |
Wrong API key, or the tenant key is missing. Both are required |
404 on test |
The base URL is wrong. It should be your Sentral address, not the API path |
| Test passes, no people | The key lacks read access to enrolments |
| Leavers appearing | includeInactive is on |
| Three fictional people appear | demoMode is still on |
| Some staff missing | Sentral’s staff endpoint is separate from enrolments. Confirm the key covers both |
| Roster pull fails after several pages | Check for repeated pages, duplicate IDs, malformed records or the 250,000-record ceiling; the incomplete pull is deliberately refused |