Documentation & Help | Data requirements for CSV imports

Help

Data requirements for CSV imports

Before importing data via CSV, it is important to understand what fields are required. Registrations and Enrolments require only the minimum details needed to execute those actions.

While you can store additional profile fields in your Xen.Ed LMS, which users can fill at registration time or after activating their accounts, this article assumes a standard setup.

For Registration

The data required to import users and register an account is as follow:

Username (column name="Username").
This must be unique across the whole user base and cannot be changed later.
Email address (column name="Email").
This must be unique across the whole user base. Learners can update this value on the Account Settings page.
Full name (column name="Fullname").
Learners can update this value on the Account Settings page.

For Enrolment in Cohorts

The data required to enrol a users in a course via cohorts is as follows:

You can use either:
- User name (column name="Username").
- Email (column name="Email").
Cohort (column name="Cohort").
The specified cohort must already exist in the LMS and the column content must match the actual cohort name, which you will find in your Instructor panel.

Preparing your files

The requirements for the CSV import files are summarised in the following table. This will ensure that your files are uploaded and imported correctly.

Requirement	Notes
Valid .csv file	The file must be a properly formatted comma-separated values file: The file extension is .csv. Every row must have the same number of commas, whether or not there are values in each cell.
File size	The file size of .csv files for upload is limited to a maximum of 2MB.
UTF-8 encoded	You must save the file with UTF-8 encoding so that Unicode characters display correctly.
Header row	You must include a header row, with column names that exactly match those specified in “Columns” below.
One or two columns identifying learners	You must include at least one column identifying learners: either “email” or “username”, or both. To preassign learners who do not yet have Xen.Ed accounts, you must provide their email addresses in an “email” column. If both the username and an email address are provided for a learner, the email address has precedence. In other words, if an email address is present, an incorrect or unrecognised username is ignored.
One column identifying the cohort	You must include one column named “cohort” to identify the cohort to which you are assigning each learner. The specified cohorts must already exist in Studio.
	Columns with headings other than “email”, “username” and “cohort” are ignored

Relationships diagram

Importing more data

Of course, you can import more data than the minimum required. This depends heavily on the profile fields available in your own tenancy.

The below table lists the default fields for a standard install of Xen.Ed, but this may differ from your own specifications. Please contact us should you have a doubt.

username
The public username entered by the learner. Usernames are required and cannot be changed.
name
The full name entered by the learner. A name is required. Learners can update this value on the Account Settings page.
email
The email address entered by the learner. An email address is required. Learners can update this value on the Account Settings page.
year_of_birth
This value is optional and can be updated on the Account Settings page.
gender
This value is optional and can be updated on the Account Settings page.
level_of_education
This value is optional and can be updated on the Account Settings page.
enrollment_mode
Indicates the enrollment track that the learner is enrolled in, such as “audit” or “honor"
cohort
This column is included only if the course has cohorts enabled. For courses that include learner cohorts, shows the name of the cohort group that is assigned to the learner. If a learner is not assigned to a cohort, the value is [unassigned].
team
This column is included only if the course has teams enabled. For courses that include teams, shows the name of the team that the learner belongs to. If a learner has not joined a team, the value is [unavailable].
country
Learners are required to specify Country during registration, and can update this value on the Account Settings page.

Was this article helpful?

How can we help you?

Preparing your files

Relationships diagram

Importing more data