Prepare to Install K-12 Architecture Kit

Learning Objectives

In this project, you will:

Discover why you should install K-12 Architecture Kit into a Trailhead Playground.
Install K-12 Architecture Kit into a Playground using the K-12 Architecture Kit installer.

If you want to install K-12 Architecture Kit into a sandbox or developer environment, review the resources listed at the end of this unit.

This module provides information about the managed package version of Education Cloud. As of March 2023, new or migrated customers use Education Cloud integrated platform solutions instead of managed packages. For information about the integrated platform solution, go to our Education Cloud Documentation.

What is K-12 Architecture Kit?

K–12 Architecture Kit is a single architecture that empowers schools and districts to collaborate, engage with families and operationalize improvement efforts. All of this is made possible by 360-degree views of students' needs and outcomes. A key aspect of how K–12 Architecture Kit helps educators and school personnel accomplish all of this is its open-source framework (this means that its source code, a list of easy-to-read programming instructions, is publicly accessible) built on top of Education Data Architecture (EDA).

Wait, What is EDA?

Education Data Architecture (EDA) is the foundation of Salesforce for Education. Developed in collaboration with our education partners and customer community, EDA is a flexible data architecture designed to configure Salesforce for education.

So, what exactly do we mean by “data architecture?” Basically, we’re talking about a series of industry standard objects built on the Salesforce Platform that model student relationships as well as affiliations to courses, extracurricular activities, and more. With EDA, institutions can leverage a common language and configuration across the entire learner lifecycle without having to spend resources customizing Salesforce for education. It also includes early warning management for attendance, term grades and more.

If you’ve had a chance to explore the Education Data Architecture Basics module in Trailhead, you might remember we compare EDA to a dreamy kitchen pantry featured on one of those home organization shows you streamed. Picture it: it’s stocked with exactly the items you need and they’re all organized and easy to see. With EDA, education admins can reach into their perfect pantries and find just what they’re looking for without losing valuable time rummaging around.

That EDA pantry is looking immaculate! What if you want the same swoon-worthy setup but your household skews a bit younger? Installing K-12 Architecture Kit is like having the professional organizer come into your kitchen to restock and rearrange the pantry to cater to your specific needs. With a younger crowd, it sounds like you may be better served by a pantry filled with all the most delicious and healthy kid-friendly snacks. That’s K-12 Architecture Kit! Everything is still labeled and organized to perfection. But now it’s specially tailored to the demographic you serve.

K-12 Architecture Kit re-stocks and reorganizes your EDA pantry to serve your K-12 institution's unique needs.

Why Do I Need to Install K-12 Architecture Kit Into a Trailhead Playground?

Just like many other apps available on the Salesforce AppExchange, K-12 Architecture Kit is a managed package. A managed package is a neatly wrapped bundle of customized Salesforce components like objects, page layouts, and report types, as well as affiliations to courses, extracurricular activities, and lots more. To get all these customizations into your Salesforce org (an "org" is shorthand for your instance of Salesforce), the package must be installed on top of the Enterprise Edition of Salesforce.

In this case, in order to explore K-12 Architecture Kit through Trailhead hands-on challenges and projects, you need to install K-12 Architecture Kit into a Trailhead Playground.

Remind Me, What is a Trailhead Playground?

Much like a playground filled with curly slides and swing sets, a Trailhead Playground is an environment where you can explore and play. ‘Playing’ in Salesforce means making customizations without fear of negative consequences in your “production org,” which is the place where your institution has active users accessing live data.

When you first log in to Trailhead, one Playground is created for you, but you can have up to 10 active Trailhead Playgrounds at any given time. A Trailhead Playground can only be opened from Trailhead, and as long as you keep using it, access to your Playground never expires. To learn more about Playgrounds, see the Trailhead Playground Management module listed in the Resources section below.

Create a Trailhead Playground

Before you can install K-12 Architecture Kit into a Trailhead Playground, you first need to create the Playground itself.

Log in to Trailhead (if you haven’t already) and scroll to the bottom of this page (yep, this page, the one you're on right now).
Click the dropdown menu next to the Launch button, or the name of your most recently visited Trailhead Playground, and select + Create Playground.
Give your Playground a specific name so you can find it easily in the future. For this project, name this new Playground Install K-12 Architecture Kit.
Click Create. This process takes a few minutes.

If you created your new Playground with the fun auto-generated name Trailhead created for you and you need to rename your Playground, you can do that by following these steps.

Click your photo (or the user icon if you don’t have a picture) in the top corner of the page to open your personal settings menu. Click Hands-On Orgs.
Click the Rename button for the Trailhead Playground you want to rename.
In the Rename org pop-up, type the new name for the Playground. Again, for this project we name this Playground Install K-12 Architecture Kit.
Click Save.

Now you’re ready to launch your new Playground.

Find Your Username and Reset Your Password

While it’s very thoughtful of Trailhead to automatically create your Playground and generate a username and password for you, it means you need to follow a few more steps to find this information. You’ll need your assigned username to initiate the next step of this project, and it’s best practice to reset the password before installing K-12 Architecture Kit into a Trailhead Playground.

To retrieve your Playground username and reset your password:

Log in to Trailhead (if you haven’t already). Click your photo and select Hands-On Orgs.
From the Salesforce Hands-On Orgs page, click the Launch button for the Install K-12 Architecture Kit Trailhead Playground to open this Playground in a new browser tab. Ta-da! You’re now logged in to your shiny new Install K-12 Architecture Kit Playground.
In this new browser tab, click the Setup gear and select Setup.
Type users in the Quick Find box. Click Users from the menu.
Find your name on the list of users and check the box next to your name. Make note of the username; this is the username for your Install K-12 Architecture Kit Trailhead Playground.
Click Reset Password(s) and OK. This will send a password reset email to the email address associated with your username.
Open your email, find the password reset message, and click the link in the email. Be sure to check your spam folder if you don't see this message in your inbox.
Set your new password.
Click Change Password.

You may have noticed the “Get Your Login Credentials” tab on your Playground’s welcome page. That’s one way to get this information, but in this project we walk you through the steps an admin takes to update a password in a production org. You’ll be happy later that you know how to do this, we promise.

Now you have your username and password for your Install K-12 Architecture Kit Trailhead Playground. Be sure to keep this information somewhere safe and close by for the next step.

Click the green Verify step button below to go to the next step in the project.