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Importing Data

Data Formatting

Accudemia offers a flexible and powerful import utility that allows you to have import files with the fields and column order you like. The step-by-step import process will allow you to map your columns thus bypassing the need for separate Import Maps. The import utility, called ADX (Accudemia Data Exchange), can even schedule the import job so it would run automatically in the future.

ADX allows you to import data in several ways. You are free to select the way most convenient to you:

Import from a single file: Most commonly obtained through another systems export that includes all the student, classes, and registration data in it.
Import via separate files: Students data import, classes import, and class registration import.
Do Incremental Import files: These files would only have the latest updates.
Use a Comprehensive Import file: This kind of file stores the entire data set.

The import is usually done via a standard CSV (Comma Separated Values) text file. However, ADX can also be extended by the user to support other formats including direct connection to your student registration system.

To get started, we have prepared some sample import files with possible headers in them. Note that these are only examples and your import files could have different fields and/or field order.

Import Fields Information

For more technical information and to know the limitations of each field in Accudemia, please view the ADX Fields Information page on the Accudemia developers site.

User Imports

These imports are needed to create your different types of Users in their Predefined Roles (Students, Tutors, or Instructors). System Users such as College Administrators and Center Administrators must be created manually in the system and cannot be imported for security reasons. If the ID number matches someone already imported or created in another Security Role then it will simply add the new Role to their Security Roles section. More information about managing Users and their Security Roles can be found here:
User Accounts

Before importing any users you'll want to first login as an Admin to the institution's website http://<mycollege>.accudemia.net account and setup an ID Format that will be used. Here is more information on how to set the ID format:
Setting up the ID format

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Users > Students	Student's User ID	Required	Student Primary Key
Users > Students	Student's First Name	Required
Users > Students	Student's Last Name	Required
Users > Students	Student's Active	Optional
Users > Students	Student's Email	Optional !
Users > Students	Student's Phone Number	Optional
Users > Students	Student's Alternate ID	Optional *
Users > Students	Student's Password	Optional *
! Email is not required but is used heavily if Centers will be offering appointments. This can also be used for general communications.
* Can be used for a Card Number or be used to store their LDAP information.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Users > Tutors	Tutor's User ID	Required	Tutor Primary Key
Users > Tutors	Tutor's First Name	Required
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Last Name	Required
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Active	Optional
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Email	Optional !
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Phone Number	Optional
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Alternate ID	Optional *
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Password	Optional *
! Email is not required but is used heavily if Centers will be offering appointments. This can also be used for general communications.
* Can be used for a Card Number or be used to store their LDAP information.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Users > Instructors	Instructor's User ID	Required	Instructor Primary Key
Users > Instructors	Instructor's First Name	Required
Users > Instructors	Instructor's Last Name	Required
Users > Instructors	Instructor's Active	Optional
Users > Instructors	Instructor's Email	Optional !
Users > Instructors	Instructor's Phone Number	Optional
Users > Instructors	Instructor's Alternate ID	Optional *
Users > Instructors	Instructor's Password	Optional *
! Email is not required but is used heavily if Centers will be sending Reports to Instructors. This can also be used for general communications.
* Can be used for a Card Number or be used to store their LDAP information.

Subject Area (Courses) and Class Imports

In this next section we are building the Subject Areas (Courses) along with the Class information for the Students to be enrolled in or registered to, tutors to be assigned in, and/or Instructors (Faculty) to be assigned in Accudemia.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Subject Areas	Subject Area's name	Required	Subject Area Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area Prefix	Required
Subject Areas	Subject Area Code	Required
Classes	Class Registration Number	Required	Class Primary Key
Classes	Class's Short Name	Required	Class Secondary Key
Classes	Class's Postfix	Required	Class Tertiary Key
Classes	Class Other	Optional
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s User ID	Required	Instructor Primary Key
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s First Name	Required
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s Last Name	Required
Terms	Term's Name	Required ?	Term Primary Key
Terms	Term's Start Date	Required ?
Terms	Term's End Date	Required ?
? If you do not specify a Term Name, Start Date, and End Date it will import into the current term (the Term including today's date). The preferred date/time format for Accudemia is “MM/DD/YYYY” when importing Term's Start Date and Term's End Date. If there are no Terms in Accudemia the import will fail.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Users > Tutors	Tutor's User ID	Required	Tutor Primary Key
Users > Tutors	Tutor's First Name	Required
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Last Name	Required
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Email	Optional !
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Phone Number	Optional
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Alternate ID	Optional *
Users > Tutors	Tutor's Password	Optional *
Subject Areas	Subject Area's name	Required	Subject Area Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area Prefix	Required
Subject Areas	Subject Area Code	Required
! Email is not required but is used heavily if Centers will be offering appointments. This can also be used for general communications.
* Can be used for a Card Number or be their LDAP information.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Users > Students	Student's User ID	Required	Student Primary Key
Users > Students	Student's First Name	Required
Users > Students	Student's Last Name	Required
Subject Areas	Subject Area Name	Required	Subject Area Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area Code Prefix	Required
Subject Areas	Subject Area Code	Required
Classes	Class Registration Number	Required	Class Primary Key
Classes	Class Postfix	Required
Classes	Class Short Name	Required

Simplified Class Registration Import

It would appear that the import files we show above have a lot of redundant information in them, but realize that if the data is already imported then subsequent imports you can choose to use only the primary key or secondary key to identify that data.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Classes	Class Registration Number (CRN)	Required	Class Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area's name	Required	Subject Area Primary Key
Users > Students	Student's User ID	Required	Student Primary Key
Terms	Term's Name	Optional ?
Users > Instructors	Instructor's User ID	Required	Instructor Primary Key
? If you do not specify a Term Name and dates it will import into the current term.

Example: If I normally run first a "student" import and then a "class" import like shown in the above imports. At this point I should have already created my Students, Instructors in the Users Table and the Subject Areas (Courses) & Classes in the database. And now since these items already exist I can simply use their primary keys to reference those items in the future imports. My "Student Registration" import only has to include their primary key fields:

Student's User ID
Subject Area Name
Class Registration Number (CRN)
Instructor's User ID
Term Name

Location Imports

Typically these imports are considered optional because of the ease it is to manage/create this information within the Accudemia interface. With that stated you can import them and assign courses to the Centers through imports if you prefer.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Centers & Classrooms	Center's name	Required	Center Primary Key

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Centers & Classrooms	Classroom's name	Required	Classroom Primary Key

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Centers & Classrooms	Center's name	Required	Center Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area's name	Required	Subject Area Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area Prefix	Required
Subject Areas	Subject Area Code	Required
Terms	Term Name	Required ?
? If you do not specify a Term Name and dates it will import into the current term.

Optional Imports

All of these imports are non-essential and would be something you may want to import to track groups and other items in the Accudemia Reports.

This import is only done for Supplemental Instruction Classes that you need to track in Accudemia.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Subject Areas	Subject Area's name	Required	Subject Area Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area Prefix	Required
Subject Areas	Subject Area Code	Required
Classes	Class Registration Number	Required	Class Primary Key
Classes	Class's Short Name	Required	Class Secondary Key
Classes	Class's Postfix	Required	Class Tertiary Key
Classes	Class's Days of Week	Required !
Classes	Class's Start Time	Required *
Classes	Class's End Time	Required *
Classes	Class's cut-off	Optional
Classes	Class's tardy	Optional
Classes	Class's Other	Optional
Classes	Class's comments	Optional
Classes	Class's active	Optional
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s User ID	Required	Instructor Primary Key
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s First Name	Required
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s Last Name	Required
Centers & Classrooms	Classroom's Name	Required	Classroom Primary Key
Terms	Term's Name	Required ?	Term Primary Key
Terms	Term's Start Date	Required ?
Terms	Term's End Date	Required ?
! If you use any format other than either the full name of the day (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) or just use the first three letters of the name (Mon, tue, etc.); other abbreviations are not supported. Multiple dates can be split by a slash (i.e. Mon/Wed/Fri) then you will get an error.
* The preferred time format for Accudemia's Class's Start Time and Class's End Time is “HH:MM” (military time) when importing them. As well if you have not already setup your time-zone then you'll want to do this prior to importing. Here is more information on this topic: Setting up your Time Zone
? If you do not specify a Term Name, Start Date, and End Date it will import into the current term (the Term including today's date). The preferred date/time format for Accudemia is “MM/DD/YYYY” when importing Term's Start Date and Term's End Date. If there are no Terms in Accudemia the import will fail.

This import is only done to update the Group members that you need to track in Accudemia.

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
User Groups	User Group's Name	Required	User Group Primary Key
Users > Students	Student's User ID	Required	Student Primary Key

Typical Single File Import

When working with other SIS (Student Information Systems) to get CSV extracts to import typically you'll get all the information in a single file from those other systems (Datatel, Banner, PeopleSoft, etc.)

Accudemia Table	Accudemia Field	Required for Creation	Key Field
Users > Students	Student's User ID	Required	Student Primary Key
Users > Students	Student's First Name	Required
Users > Students	Student's Last Name	Required
Users > Students	Student's Active	Optional
Users > Students	Student's Email Address	Optional !
Users > Students	Student's Phone Number	Optional
Users > Students	Student's Alternate ID	Optional *
Users > Students	Student's Password	Optional *
Subject Areas	Subject Area's Name	Required	Subject Primary Key
Subject Areas	Subject Area Prefix	Required
Subject Areas	Subject Area Code	Required
Classes	Class Registration Number	Required	Class Primary Key
Classes	Class's Short Name	Required	Class Secondary Key
Classes	Class's Postfix	Required	Class Tertiary Key
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s User ID	Required	Instructor Primary Key
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s First Name	Required
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s Last Name	Required
Users > Instructors	Instructor’s Email Address	Optional !
Terms	Term's Name	Optional ?
Terms	Term's Start Date	Optional ?
Terms	Term's End Date	Optional ?
! Email is not required but is used heavily if Centers will be offering appointments to Students or if Centers will be sending Reports to Instructors. This can also be used for general communications.
* Can be used for a Card Number or be their LDAP information.
? If you do not specify a Term Name and dates it will import into the current term. The preferred date/time format for Accudemia is “MM/DD/YYYY” when importing Term's Start Date and Term's End Date.

Still have questions about the “All-in-one” import?

View the accudemia-all-in-one-registration-import.pdf Guide.

Accudemia Database Tables & Fields Information

For more info about the database structure and the database field requirements visit:

Accudemia Fields Information

Download CSV Import Samples

Download your Accudemia Import Sample files:
CSV Import files.zip

Guides for Imports

These guides try to walk your through creating special imports that may be needed or explain some complex processes.

Importing Demographic Information

Start by creating the Profile Questionnaire that will be the table these custom fields will be imported into Accudemia:

Create Profile Questionnaire Step-by-Step

Profile answers does not have to be mapped if you are importing from a CSV file. The reason why it works this way is because you can have several questions across different pages.

Instead, profile answers require specific headers. The format of the header is @Profile(Page=X, Question=Y) where X represents the number of the page and Y represents the number of the question to set.

For example, if your profile questionnaire has 2 pages with 3 questions each, you should have 6 columns with the following headers:

@Profile(Page=1, Question=1)
@Profile(Page=1, Question=2)
@Profile(Page=1, Question=3)
@Profile(Page=2, Question=1)
@Profile(Page=2, Question=2)
@Profile(Page=2, Question=3)

Also, you can use a shorter version or the header by not specifying the words “Page” and “Question”, for example @Profile(1,2) for the page #1, question #2.

If you are editing your CSV file with Microsoft Excel, you might receive an error saying “That function is not valid.”. To solve that problem, you need to add a white space before the '@'.

In multiple choice questions, you have to specify the text of the option you want. For example, if the question has the possible answers “Yes”, “No”, “Maybe”, then you can enter the text “Maybe” in your CSV file.

Student Groups from Demographics / Profile

While uploading this information to store on the Students themselves you can also create Student Groups to help the System Admins have highly usable groups based on these demographics to pull reports on in Accudemia. Follow these steps to do this:

Create the import job in ADX.
Map the @Profile(1,1) column (as an example) to “User Groups Name” and be sure to also map the Student ID column to “Students User ID” in ADX.
On the Import Behavior step of the import job wizard be sure to always check the “Remove Users not on this import” option so that the group is updated every-time it is imported. The only time this option will not be necessary if you only import partial files of students.

You can only map one column to the “User's Group Name” in each import so you'll have to create a separate import job for each demographic column you need to create groups from.

Be careful when uploading information using simple answers like “yes”, “no” or using similar codes in multiple columns because these will become the Student Group names.

As an example of this error uploading Student Groups:

If I upload a file with their “In-state Status” of “Yes” and “No” in one column and then upload another file with their “Veteran Status” of “Yes” or “No” it will overwrite the previous “Yes” group created.

As a possible solution when I have a demographic like “Veteran Status” and it has “Yes” or “No” I would simply need to replace all the “yes” answers to “Veteran” and the “No” to “Non-Veteran” so these import into easily identifiable groups in Accudemia.

Tips for Importing Class Schedules

In order to import class schedule, you can start from your class import file which has Subject Area info and classes data. Then add the following columns:

Schedule Days: The day of the week when the class is given, either using a 3 letter abbreviation or using the full day name. For example, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun or Monday, Tuesday, etc. You can multiple days by separating them by a forward slash (/). For example, Mon/Wed/Fri.
Start: The start time of the class, in format “h:mm tt”. Valid examples are: 10:00am, 3:15pm.
End: The end time of the class, in format “h:mm tt”. Valid examples are: 10:00am, 3:15pm.
Classroom: Where the class will be given, it's the name of an existent classroom, such as “A100”, “SCH 5”, etc.

Here's a simple example:

When running the Create Job Wizard in ADX and you want the classrooms to be created automatically when you import, ensure that on General tab of the Importing Behavior step the “Do not Create New Centers/Classrooms automatically” checkbox is unchecked.

How to Import Student Photos

Do you see the guy in the screenshot above? He's the one who brings this new update to the Accudemia users. Since yesterday it's possible to import profile pictures using ADX (the import tool). Let's see how you can do this.

First of all, you need to download and install ADX in your computer. If you already had it installed, then make sure to update to the latest version (click on Help → Check for Updates). Then login with your credentials and create a new import job. You will need to have all the photos and create a new CSV file to tell Accudemia what photo assign to each user.

For example, if you have a folder in your computer with all the photos name like “student_[ID].jpg”, where [ID] is the student number, create a CSV like this:

Then, open ADX and create a new job. You need to select the CSV file and the folder where all your photos are located, as shown here:

Then you need to map the student fields, at least the student number and the photo name, as shown here:

The last step would be to click Next until your job is saved and then run it by clicking on “Run Import Now”.

That's it, now simply login to Accudemia and your photos will be there!

Import Behaviors

This information chosen will determine how the data on the imports will be handled.

General

This area determines how Users and Centers/Classrooms are updated on the import.

Users Information

Skip existent users (will not be updated). - This option allows you to import only new students from the updated file you are uploading and it will not even attempt to update students that exist in the Accudemia database.
Generate a password for new users. - This option allows you to create a password for your new users. (Unfortunately no one will know this password so this option is now obsolete.)
Inactivate students not being imported. - This option helps keep only active students in your Accudemia database based off the ones being imported regularly. This option only helps or is useful when importing the entire student roster.

Must include an “Active” column with “yes”, “true”, or “1” on the imports for this “Inactivate Students” feature to run properly.

Centers and Classrooms

Do not create new centers/classrooms automatically. - Selected by default. Uncheck this option if you do want to create new centers and classrooms from the import. Typically if you have a lot of centers or classrooms you need created this will become helpful.

Enrollment/Registration/Assignments

This section determines how you handle Student Enrollment, Instructor Registration, and Tutor Assignments when imported.

Student Enrollment:

Overwrite students enrollment. - This setting makes the system update the enrollment for the users being imported. If not checked it will append/add to the classes that the students are enrolled in so this option is strongly recommended during the import of enrollment.
- Drop all enrollment for students not being imported. - This setting takes the first option of “Overwrite students enrollment” a step further by also dropping student enrollment from any student in the Accudemia database that is not on this current import.

Just for clarification:

If both are NOT checked: the enrollment you import is appended to the one you have in Accudemia. It means that no drops are done at all.
If only “Overwrite students enrollment” is checked: The enrollment for the students being imported will be overwritten. That means that if you import students A and B with their enrollment, Accudemia will drop the existent enrollment for those 2 students and set the one you are importing. Other students not being imported (e.g., students C and D) won’t be touched.
If both options are checked: Before importing anything, all the existent enrollment for the current semester, for all the students will be dropped. Once dropped, the new data will be inserted. That means that if you import enrollment for students A and B only, other students such as C and D will end up with no classes associated.

Instructor Registration:

Overwrite instructors registration. - This setting makes the system update the enrollment for the users being imported. If not checked it will append/add to the classes that the instructors are registered for so this option is strongly recommended during the import of enrollment.
- Drop all assignments for instructors not being imported. - This setting takes the first option of “Overwrite instructors registration” a step further by also dropping instructor registration from any instructor in the Accudemia database that is not on this current import.

Just for clarification:

If both are NOT checked: the registration you import is appended to the one you have in Accudemia. It means that no drops are done at all.
If only “Overwrite instructors registration” is checked: The registration for the instructors being imported will be overwritten. That means that if you import instructors A and B with their registration, Accudemia will drop the existent registration for those 2 instructors and set the one you are importing. Other instructors not being imported (e.g., instructors C and D) won’t be touched.
If both options are checked: Before importing anything, all the existent registration for the current semester, for all the instructors will be dropped. Once dropped, the new data will be inserted. That means that if you import registration for instructors A and B only, other instructors such as C and D will end up with no classes associated.

Tutor Assignments:

Append to current assignments - This allows you to import a file with new tutor assignments to add to existing tutor assignments in Accudemia.
Overwrite current assignments - This allows you to overwrite with an updated import file with all the tutor assignments in it.
Overwrite current assignments and assign all imported tutors to all subject areas (Imported assignments will be ignored) - This will give all tutors in the import file all classes (typically used only if you are uploading a list of tutors and you don't want to have to manage the tutor assignments in Accudemia.

User Groups

This section determines how user groups are updated on import.

Remove non-imported users from groups. - This option allows the group to be updated by removing all members of the group and then adding only the ones on the import file. With this option unchecked it will simply append/add members to the group but not remove them.

If you are not importing any one of the above-mentioned items in this Importing Behaviors section then the section's behaviors will be ignored when you import your CSV file and the settings can be omitted. As an example when I import a “Student Information” CSV file I only need to make sure to set the settings in the sections that are pertaining to Users and Students. If I choose to include their enrollment on that file later, then I'd need to make sure to check the Enrollment/Registration/Assignments settings in that tab/section of the Import Behaviors.

ADX mappings graphic relationship with Accudemia pages/fields

This is a graphical representation of the relationship between each column in ADX and each field in Accudemia.

Student/Tutors/Instructors Mappings For these 3 roles, the mappings are the same except that they have different roles.

Subject Area Mappings

Center Mappings

Classroom Mappings

Class Mappings