Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal: Importing Your Data

How do I add an import app and import my CSV files into the portal?

Updated over a week ago

Adding an Import app and importing your data

The first time you use the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal, you will need to add the applications you need to support your enrollment uploads.

Two Import applications are available:

  • SFTP - Supports the uploading of files using a third-party SFTP client; enrollment files remain staged in a secure landing area until the enrollment is uploaded manually or via regularly scheduled updates.

  • CSV Upload - Supports direct, all-in-one uploading of files to the portal.

Your choice of applications will be determined by the frequency with which you update enrollment information. If your district’s enrollment needs are fairly stable over the course of the school year, CSV Upload may be optimal, as it can be completed in the portal without any third-party clients or external setup. If your enrollment needs are dynamic, SFTP provides a landing zone where you can update your CSV files as your district's enrollment changes, and they will be imported on demand or with the next scheduled update. Please note that you will need to set up a third-party file transfer client to use SFTP imports.

  1. Click the Import Data button or the Application Gallery icon in the left-side navigation.

  2. The Application Gallery opens. Click Import, and you will see only the SFTP and CSV Upload tiles.


  3. Click Activate on the tile for the application you want to use to import your enrollment data.

  4. Configure the application you just added:


SFTP

Delivery Configuration

Delivery Configuration is where you set up the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal to communicate with your third-party SFTP client.

  1. Make sure Amplify Server is selected as your server; the Host and Port are provided. Note the Host and Port, as you will need to enter them into your SFTP client.

  2. Enter the Username and the authentication method that your SFTP client will use to connect with the Amplify Server. Click Edit, enter your username, and select whether the Authentication Type will be Password-based or Key-based.


    1. If you selected Password-based, enter the password that will be used to authenticate your username, following the provided guidelines. If you prefer, you can randomly generate a password by clicking Generate; be sure to note this password, as you will need to provide your username-password pair when setting up your SFTP client.

    2. If you selected Key-based, click Choose File and upload the public key corresponding to the private key you use with your SFTP client.

  3. Click Save to save your username and authentication type, and click Test Connection to ensure you can connect to the Amplify Server. When your setup is correct, a black bar displays with the message “Connection is OK.”

  4. Click the Right Arrow to continue with Schools Mapping.

Schools Mapping

After you specify your Delivery Configuration, you are given the opportunity to upload just the orgs.csv file to configure your schools within the portal. If you want to upload orgs.csv now, you will be asked to provide mappings for your schools to the Amplify schema. If you would prefer to continue with your SFTP app setup and upload orgs.csv with the rest of your data import, click the Right Arrow to continue with Attributes Mapping.

Attributes Mapping

Attributes Mapping gives you the ability to map a OneRoster header from the uploaded CSV files to a value that will be recognized in the Amplify enrollment schemas. If you provide only a primary identifier for your staff and students in users.csv, then the necessary attributes are mapped automatically, and you can continue immediately to Data Requirements.

If your district employs additional IDs, such as state or district IDs, work with your Amplify Technical Onboarding representative to ensure these are mapped properly. You can access the different user types by clicking the tabs in the header at the top of the page. Note students, teachers, and admins have two tabs; you should click the tab with the label users.csv.

After you have verified your mappings for all three user types defined in users.csv, click the Right Arrow at the bottom of the screen to continue to Data Requirements.

Data Requirements

Data Requirements determine which attributes from your CSV files must be present for your enrollment to successfully be imported to the portal. Missing data will create enrollment issues; the portal gives you the option to notify you if information is missing or to exclude the record from being imported.

You have two options for flagging records in your SFTP imports:

  • Report if Missing - When an attribute is missing and Report if Missing is selected, you will get a notification in the Data Quality area of the portal to alert you, but the record with the missing attribute will be imported into the portal.

  • Skip <Enrollment_Type> if Missing - When an attribute is missing and Skip <Enrollment_Type> if Missing is selected, the record containing the missing attribute will be excluded from being imported into the portal.

Click the header for each enrollment type and select the boxes in the columns labeled Report If Missing and Skip <Enrollment_Type> If Missing.

The following Amplify Attributes are reported and skipped by default:

Student

Teacher

Class

Enrollment

Admin

  • Primary School

  • SIS ID

  • Last Name

  • First Name

  • Email Address

  • User Type

  • Grades

  • Gender*

  • Birth Date*

  • Primary School

  • SIS ID

  • Last Name

  • First Name

  • Email Address

  • User Type

  • School Id

  • SIS ID

  • Class Name

  • School Id

  • Class ID

  • Person Id

  • Primary School

  • SIS ID

  • Last Name

  • First Name

  • Email Address

  • User Type

When you import your enrollments, any records missing these attributes will be reported and excluded (attributes marked with an asterisk are flagged but not excluded), and if you set up email notifications on the Administration screen, you will get a daily digest of the excluded records.

Click the Right Arrow to continue to Filter Rules.

Filter Rules

Filter rules prevent you from oversharing enrollment data with Amplify when only a limited subset of that data is required. The most common filter you may want to set up is by grade (so you’re not enrolling high school students when you have only licensed Amplify products for elementary and middle schoolers, for example).

Sample: Adding a filter by grade

  1. Click Add Filter Rule.

  2. Scroll to New Filter Rule, and click Filter by Student.

  3. Click Filter by Grades.

  4. Set Grades as the attribute, select contains text as the condition, and then select the grade values you want to include from the Value list.

  5. Click Done to apply the filter.

Please note that filtering is also available when you export your data from the portal to the Amplify enrollment systems, so you do not need to factor for the more granular enrollment criteria required by those systems during import.

When you finish applying filters, click the Right Arrow to continue to Domains of Uniqueness.

Domains of Uniqueness

Domains of Uniqueness determine which attributes within your enrollment uploads must be unique within the district. This can be used to detect duplicate records or errors where a required attribute has been set for more than one user. Currently, Amplify requires that the email address and SIS ID be unique for students, teachers, and administrators.

If your district requires additional domains of uniqueness, click + and select the Amplify Attribute that you want flagged when duplicates are present. To remove a domain, click the Garbage Can icon under the attributes not specified in the previous paragraph. When finished, click the Right Arrow to continue to Master Fields.

Master Fields

Master Fields are currently not relevant to Amplify Enrollment, so this step can be ignored. Click the Right Arrow to continue to Schedule.

Schedule

Scheduling gives you the opportunity to schedule automatic imports of updated enrollment information that has been uploaded to the SFTP server.

  1. Select Sync Schedule.

  2. Select the frequency with which you would like to schedule data imports from the When list. If you select Weekly, you will also need to select one or more days.

  3. Set the hour and minute when you would like the sync to be executed.

  4. If you would like to specify an end date, click the Calendar icon, choose a year and month, and select the date when you want automated syncs to end.

If you set an end date for your SFTP imports, make sure to set the same expiration date in your export app.

After you set the sync schedule, click Finish Configuration in the upper-right corner of the screen.

You have now finished configuring the SFTP Import app, and it opens to display the app dashboard.

You are now ready to import your data.

Importing your data via the SFTP app

Retrieve the username and authentication method you set in Delivery Configuration, as well as the host and port for the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal’s secure landing zone. In your SFTP client:

  1. Select SFTP as the protocol, enter the Host and Port from the SFTP Delivery Configuration screen, as well as your username and authentication token.

  2. Connect to the secure landing zone for the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal.

  3. Once you have connected to this remote site, you can upload the eight CSV enrollment files, including manifest.csv, from your local computer. The first time you upload your enrollment, you must upload all eight files. For best results, zip your CSV files into a single archive and name it OneRoster.zip, noting the capitalization. When a zip file and individual CSV files are uploaded simultaneously, the Amplify OneRoster portal will process the contents of the zip file.

  4. Confirm that OneRoster.zip or all eight CSV files are hosted on the remote site, then return to the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal.

  5. In the SFTP app, click the green Run Import button. The files staged in the secure landing zone are uploaded to the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal; the progress displays on the SFTP app’s History tab.


  6. The first time you import files from the landing zone, you will be prompted to map any unrecognized schools. See Schools Mapping for more information.

  7. When the import completes, statistics display on the SFTP History tab. In the Summary, you will see the enrollment broken down by data type (Student, Teacher, and Course, for example), and you will see the statistics for each data type. Any errors (e.g., records with missing required fields) will display at the top of the screen, and you can click Show Errors to view the related records.

  8. You’ll also want to note any records that were skipped or excluded because they didn't meet data requirements, as well as any that were flagged as duplicates or invalid. Clicking a blue number in the table displays all the associated records and any related error messages, where applicable.


    Please note that if you have records with errors, you will need to fix those errors in the CSV file containing the record and upload it to your secure landing zone. You can then run an import or wait until the next scheduled import to add the corrected records to the portal. If you're having issues determining where an error exists, it may be helpful to refer to the data dictionaries for your CSV files.

  9. If any records are flagged because they did not meet the data requirements you set when configuring the SFTP app, the number of records with issues will display to the right of the Data Quality tab. You can click Data Quality to research the issues from within the SFTP app, or you can investigate from the Data Quality page in the portal.

  10. Finally, you can click the Overview tab to see the number of school, student, contact, teacher, and class records that have been successfully imported, and you can see how those records have been distributed among your schools.

Please note that each time you click Run Import, or when you have a scheduled import job, the files queued in the landing zone are imported. After the initial import, you can upload one or more CSV files to the landing zone, and any changes will be imported into the portal. If you need to make incremental changes to your CSV files, you must upload the complete file with new records appended. Uploading incomplete CSVs will result in the deletion of any omitted user, course, class, and enrollment records when they are imported into the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal.

After you successfully import your CSV files, you should review your enrollment data and add one or both Export apps to the portal so you can export your rosters from the portal to the Amplify enrollment systems.


CSV Upload

Delivery Configuration

Delivery Configuration gives you the option to determine whether you should receive notifications before your CSV file data is made available in the portal. Note that the default Delivery Configuration will process your imports; you should only make changes if you want to approve each data sync or would like to set thresholds for records that have changed or been deleted.

  1. Select the Data Schema; IMS OneRoster 1.1 should be selected by default. This schema is backwards-compatible with OneRoster 1.0.

  2. Click Advanced Settings.

  3. Do not change the selections for the first three options.

  4. Select Preview of data upload if you would like to manually review and approve or reject each data sync. If you select this, sync hold thresholds are disabled, and the CSV Upload app displays a notification that Preview Mode is enabled.

  5. Move the slider to set a threshold for data changes or data deletion; we recommend a minimum 35% update threshold and a minimum 10% deletion threshold. The lower the percentage, the fewer records need to change or be deleted before you will have to manually approve the change. You can also configure the portal to send an email alert if data uploads trigger one of the sync thresholds using the settings on the Administration page.

  6. Click the Right Arrow to continue with Attributes Mapping.

Attributes Mapping

Attributes Mapping gives you the ability to map a OneRoster header from the uploaded CSV files to a value that will be recognized in the Amplify enrollment schemas. If you only provide a primary identifier for your staff and students in users.csv, then the necessary attributes are mapped automatically, and you can continue immediately to Data Requirements.

If your district employs additional IDs, such as state or district IDs, work with your Amplify Technical Onboarding representative to ensure these are mapped properly. You can access the different user types by clicking the tabs in the header at the top of the page. Note students, teachers, and admins have two tabs; you should click the tab with the label users.csv.

After you have verified your mappings for all three user types defined in users.csv, click the Right Arrow at the bottom of the screen to continue to Data Requirements.

Data Requirements

Data Requirements determine which attributes from your CSV files must be present for your enrollment to successfully be imported to the portal. Missing data will create enrollment issues; the portal gives you the option to notify you if information is missing or to exclude the record from being imported.

You have two options for flagging records in your CSV imports:

  • Report if Missing - When an attribute is missing and Report if Missing is selected, you will get a notification in the Data Quality area of the portal to alert you, but the record with the missing attribute will be imported into the portal.

  • Skip <Enrollment_Type> if Missing - When an attribute is missing and Skip <Enrollment_Type> if Missing is selected, the record containing the missing attribute will be excluded from being imported into the portal.

Click the header for each enrollment type and select the boxes in the columns labeled Report if Missing and Skip <Enrollment_Type> if Missing.

The following Amplify Attributes are reported and skipped by default:

Student

Teacher

Class

Enrollment

Admin

  • Primary School

  • SIS ID

  • Last Name

  • First Name

  • Email Address

  • User Type

  • Grades

  • Gender*

  • Birth Date*

  • Primary School

  • SIS ID

  • Last Name

  • First Name

  • Email Address

  • User Type

  • School Id

  • SIS ID

  • Class Name

  • School Id

  • Class ID

  • Person Id

  • Primary School

  • SIS ID

  • Last Name

  • First Name

  • Email Address

  • User Type

When you import your enrollments, any records missing these attributes will be reported and excluded (attributes marked with an asterisk are flagged but not excluded), and if you set up email notifications on the Administration screen, you will get a daily digest of the excluded records.

Click the Right Arrow to continue to Filter Rules.

Filter Rules

Filter Rules prevent you from oversharing enrollment data with Amplify when only a limited subset of that data is required. The most common filter you may want to set up is by grade (so you’re not enrolling high school students when you have only licensed Amplify products for elementary and middle schoolers, for example).

Sample: Adding a filter by grade

  1. Click Add Filter Rule.

  2. Scroll to New Filter Rule, and click Filter by Student.

  3. Click Filter by Grades.

  4. Set Grades as the attribute, select contains text as the condition, and then select the grade values you want to include from the Value list.

  5. Click Done to apply the filter.

Please note that filtering is also available when you export your data from the portal to the Amplify enrollment systems, so you do not need to factor for the more granular enrollment criteria required by those systems during import.

When you finish applying filters, click the Right Arrow to continue to Domains of Uniqueness.

Domains of Uniqueness

Domains of Uniqueness determine which attributes within your enrollment uploads must be unique within the district. This can be used to detect duplicate records or errors where a required attribute has been set for more than one user. Currently, Amplify requires that the email address and SIS ID be unique for students, teachers, and administrators.

If your district requires additional domains of uniqueness, click + and select the Amplify Attribute that you want flagged when duplicates are present. To remove a domain, click the Garbage Can icon under the attributes not specified in the previous paragraph. When finished, click the Right Arrow to continue to Master Fields.

Master Fields

Master Fields are currently not relevant to Amplify Enrollment, so this step can be ignored.

Click Finish Configuration in the upper-right corner to complete CSV Upload setup.

You have now finished configuring the CSV Upload Import app, and it opens to display the app dashboard. Continue by importing your enrollment data.

Importing your data via the CSV Upload app

You are now ready to upload the seven CSV files you configured on your local computer. For best results, zip your CSV files into a single archive and name it OneRoster.zip, noting the capitalization. When a zip file and individual CSV files are uploaded simultaneously, the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload portal will process the contents of the zip file.

  1. From the Home page, click the CSV Upload tile.

  2. Click the green Upload files button, and select OneRoster.zip or all seven CSV files; alternately, you may drag the file(s) from your local directory into the CSV Upload app. Please note that you must upload all seven files; if you attempt to upload fewer, the names of any missing CSV files will display in red.

  3. As your files upload, the progress displays on the CSV Upload app’s History tab.

  4. The first time you upload files, you will be prompted to map any unrecognized schools. See Schools Mapping for more information.

  5. When the import completes, statistics display on the CSV Upload History tab. In the Summary, you will see the enrollment broken down by data type (Student, Teacher, and Course, for example), and you will see the statistics for each data type. Any errors (e.g., records with missing required fields) will display at the top of the screen, and you can click Show Errors to view the related records.

  6. You’ll also want to note any records that were skipped or excluded because they didn't meet data requirements, as well as any that were flagged as duplicates or invalid. Clicking a blue number in the table displays all the associated records, and any related error messages where applicable.

    Please note that if you have records with errors, you will need to fix those errors in the CSV file containing the record and then re-import all your CSV files to add the corrected records to the portal. If you're having issues determining where an error exists, it may be helpful to refer to the data dictionaries for your CSV files.

  7. If any records are flagged because they did not meet the data requirements you set when configuring the CSV Upload app, the number of records with issues will display to the right of the Data Quality tab. You can click Data Quality to research the issues from within the CSV Upload app, or you can investigate from the Data Quality page in the portal.

  8. Finally, you can click the Overview tab to see the number of school, student, contact, teacher, and class records that have been successfully imported, and you can see how those records have been distributed among your schools.

Please note that each time you upload your CSV files, you must include all seven. If you need to make incremental changes to your CSV files, you must upload the complete file with new records appended. Uploading incomplete CSVs will result in the deletion of any omitted user, course, class, and enrollment records when they are imported into the Amplify OneRoster CSV Upload Portal.

After you successfully import your CSV files, you should review your enrollment data and add one or both Export apps to the portal so you can export your rosters from the portal to the Amplify enrollment systems.


Schools Mapping

When the orgs.csv file is imported for the first time, either through the SFTP or CSV Upload app, the Portal will prompt you to determine how unrecognized schools should be handled in the Schools Mapping window.

  • Click Auto Mapping to automatically map all schools in orgs.csv to the Amplify schema.

  • Switch on All Missing Schools as New if you only want to map unrecognized schools as new schools in the Amplify schema. This is activated automatically when Auto Mapping is selected.

  • Switch on Create New Amplify School if you want to add individual schools to the Amplify schema. This is activated automatically when Auto Mapping is selected.

To complete Schools Mapping, click Save & Run.

Please note that if you have imported new schools in which you plan to enroll staff and students using the Amplify mCLASS Export app, you should contact your Amplify Technical Onboarding representative to discuss adding the new schools to your mCLASS account before running your first export.

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