This section outlines the steps necessary to integrate and activate the Ed-Fi Composite definitions for use in an Ed-Fi ODS / API. It is assumed that the Ed-Fi ODS / API has been successfully downloaded and is running in a local environment per the instructions in the Getting Started documentation. 

The steps in Visual Studio can be summarized as:

Each step is outlined in detail, below. 

Step 1. Create the Composites Project

Step 1.1. Add a Composite Project Using the Visual Studio Project Template. Visual Studio Project Template can be installed by following the steps in the Project Templates Installation section of this documentation.

• To add a project to your Ed-Fi-Ods Visual Studio Solution, right-click on the "Composites" folder. Select Add > New Project.
• In the "Add New Project" dialog, find and select the "Ed-Fi API Composites Project Template" entry as shown below. Click Next.
  
  
• Enter the project name for the new project and click Create. The suggested naming convention for this type of project is something like EdFi.Ods.Composites.MyComposites.

Step 1.2. Update the Marker Interface file. 

To integrate the Composite with the API, start by ensuring you have a marker interface in the root of your Composites project.

This interface is an idiom used in the Ed-Fi Visual Studio Solution to enable a strongly typed mechanism for obtaining a reference to the .NET assembly. If you used the Visual Studio Project template to create your composite, a file will already exist — but you'll need to rename the interface and the file to match the convention (e.g., Marker_EdFi_Ods_Composites_MyComposites.cs). The marker interface file should have the following code:

namespace EdFi.Ods.Composites.MyComposites
{
    public interface Marker_EdFi_Ods_Composites_MyComposites { }
}

Step 1.3. Update the Composites.xml file to add the appropriate composite definition. 

The Visual Studio Project Template creates an empty sample Composites.xml file, replace its contents with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CompositeMetadata organizationCode="ed-fi">
  <Category displayName="My Sample Composites" name="MyComposite">
    <Routes>
      <Route relativeRouteTemplate="/sections/{Section.Id}/{compositeName}" />
    </Routes>
    <Composites>
      <Composite name="Student">
        <Specification>
          <Parameter name="Section.Id" filterPath="StudentSectionAssociation->Section.Id" />
        </Specification>
        <BaseResource name="Student">
          <Property name="StudentUniqueId" />
          <Property name="FirstName" />
          <Property name="LastSurname" />
          <Property name="BirthDate" />
        </BaseResource>
      </Composite>
    </Composites>
  </Category>
</CompositeMetadata>

Consult API Composite Resources for guidance.

Step 1.4. Save the Project.

Step 2. Integrate Composites into the Solution

To integrate the Composite Resources into the solution, add a reference to new Composites project you constructed in the previous step in the EdFi.Ods.WebApi project (located in the "Entry Points" folder).

Step 3. Verify Changes 

Save all modified files, then run the application and view the Ed-Fi ODS / API using Swagger. The following new API Composite resource should be available:

The organizationCode mentioned in Step 1.3 ("ed-fi" in this example) can be seen in the Composite URLs above (e.g., /ed-fi/composites/MyComposite/Students). To successfully retrieve a composite, this value (defined in the XML definition) must be present as the first segment of a composite URL.