How to Create a file to upload all teacher rosters into CERT at once.
With the batch group creation feature, CERT administrators have the ability to create teacher groups (classes) within CERT with one uploaded file. This file is created by using a student data management system and specific filters. Once the file is created and uploaded, teachers will be able to log in and see each of their classes listed as options in the Reports.
Importing Students From Infinite Campus
**Please note: This will create a filter for ALL students. To create a filter for specific grades, additional steps will be required or revisions to the created spreadsheet must be made.**
- Find Ad Hoc Reporting in the left sidebar under the Index tab.
- Select Ad Hoc Reporting then Filter Designer.
- Under Filter Type select Query Wizard. Under Data Type select Student. Then click the button Create.
- Name the filter in the top under the red heading Query Name
- Locate Select categories & fields on this page. Ideal information is:
Demographic Data
**student.stateID Demographics > stateID
*pcontact.email Census > Student Contacts > email (if emails are being used as unique student login)
*courseSection.courseName . Learner > Schedule > Course/Section > courseName (CHECK NOTES BELOW)
*student.grade Demographics > grade (CHECK NOTES BELOW)
*Teacher Email (CHECK NOTES BELOW)
*Instructor Last Name (CHECK NOTES BELOW) - Please note that " ** " indicates mandatory field.
**IMPORTANT: This batch group creation procedure will only capture students that are already registered in CERT. This process will not add new students to CERT. If your Infinite Campus’ query contains any students that aren’t registered on CERT, they will be ignored.**
The criteria to match registered students are:
- Students’ State IDs must match if the school uses the State ID as login;
- Students’ emails must match if the school uses the student email as login;
- Students’ emails must match if the school uses the usernames as login and have the student’s email registered;
- Students’ State IDs must match if the school uses the usernames as login and have the student’s State IDs registered;
Additional filters for grade and so on can be applied in order to further refine students groups in CERT, but these filters will only be used as such at Infinite Campus, and won’t be needed at CERT.
*courseSection.courseName: This field can be replaced by any other Infinite Campus field (or added manually to the exported document later) that has a value that can be used as the Group Name where students should be imported. Optionally, during the CERT batch process, the Group Name can be specified manually to be used as the default group for all students that have this field empty. If the name chosen is the same as an existing group in CERT, the student will be added to that group. If the group doesn’t exist, it will be created automatically.
*student.period: This field is only used to distinguish similar groups (courses) by class Period. It is optional, but if it is set during the mapping in CERT, it will be used to distinguish the groups, for example: if you have student A set to group Algebra, student.period 6 and student B, group Algebra, student.period 7, these students will be assigned to different groups. This is true when assigning students to already existing groups or even creating new groups during the batch process - if a student needs to be added to a group where the student grade (Period) is not set, be sure to not map the student.grade field as Period, or have the student.grade field blank.
*Teacher Email: A group can have several different teachers assigned to it. If the teacher’s email doesn’t match any existing admins from your school, it will be created with the role of teacher automatically and assigned to a group, but for the auto-creation to work, a name for the admin must be defined (see below).
*Instructor Last Name: This field contains the name of the teacher in the format LastName, FirstName, if exported correctly from Infinite Campus. This field is needed when creating new teachers as admins for the groups automatically and is used as the Teacher Name. If missing, the admin will not be created. If the field is added manually, it must match this format, otherwise, it will generate incorrect first and last names in the admin’s information, and will it will need to be corrected manually later, after the batch process.
*Extra Identifier: It's important to remember that the Group Names must be unique, so you can be sure that the students are added to the intended group. So, to make it easier to define the groups uniquely, CERT allows for an Extra Identifier field that can be used to add ANY extra information to further define the Group. Let's suppose your school has two different "Algebra I" groups - you can use the Extra Identifier field and add the teacher's name to the name of the Group to differentiate them, for example. IMPORTANT: CERT does NOT use the Teacher Email or the Teacher Name fields to define the Group uniquely - that's because CERT allows Groups to have more than one teacher assigned to them. If you need to IDENTIFY a Group by its teacher's name (a Group of students from a specific class, for example), be sure to use the Extra Identifier field. Another example of Extra Identifier that could help to eliminate students with the same class name and period from being added to one large group would be Course Section Number added to your Course Section Name (these two columns can be combined to make one final column after you've exported your file from IC).
7. Once you have all these filters set, click the Next > button in the bottom right-hand corner.
8. You will now be at a page titled "Format the output file/report" Just click Next >
9. You will now be at a page titled "Group the data into sections that can have aggregates/sub-totals." Click Save and continue.
10. Congratulations! You have now created the proper filter.
Exporting the Document
- After you’ve created the filter you are now ready to export the document. Find Data Export in the left sidebar under the Index tab
- Select the name of the filter you created. Once you have clicked on the name and highlighted it, select Delimited values (CSV) under the heading to the right Pick an Export Format
- After you selected this, make sure the Delimiter field has Comma in the drop-down box, and the box is checked for "include column display header". Finally, make sure the dropdown box for "Double quote data" is "Only when it contains the delimiter."
- Click the Export button. A pop-up window will appear and it will save to your computer.
- Optionally, the file can now be located on your computer. Change/add manually the fields for Group Name, Extra Identifier, Teacher Email, and Teacher Name, as mentioned above in Step 5 of Creating the Filter instructions.
- Go to Batch Group Creation and upload the file. Ensure that all fields are properly mapped once the upload begins (you will be prompted).
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