Adding all members in 1... 2... 3... 

When you're just starting out with sCool, you will have to add a lot of accounts for students and staff members. They each get their own account to log in and use sCool. 

Thankfully, you don't have to add all of these seperately, one by one. That would take an awful long time. 

In sCool you can upload all your pupils and staff members at once, through an excel-file. You do have to pay attention, but it is not hard to complete. Just follow the steps below. 

Step 1: Make a list in Excel

First you have to collect all the data on your pupils and teachers. You can do that in a nifty excel-list, that we've added to this tutorial. You can download it at the bottom of this article.

You will find two tabs in this excel-file. You can select them at the bottom of the screen. In the first tab - named 'Form' - you fill in all the data belonging to your pupils and teachers, such as their names, email, password and groups they belong to. In the second tab, you can find the short explanation of what to fill in in the different fields and the symbols to use. This way, you can easily copy and paste your own data into this file.

Let us show you how this works. 

Names

Fill in the first and last names of the pupils and staff members; into the first two columns (A and B). You can also choose to just use the first letter of the last name, as an initial. 

E-mailadressen

In the third column (C) you can put the email addresses belonging to your pupils and teachers. Make sure these are written correctly, because they will become the login for the users. Members will also receive notifications and messages through this email address.  

Password

Column D is the space to fill in the password. For the first setup, you will choose a standard password, equal for everyone. When the pupils and teachers log in for the first time, they have to create a safe password. Of course, this is of utmost importance.  

Classes and Groups

In the final column (E) you have to input all the spaces (the classrooms) and designated groups this pupil or teacher belongs. This is the step where you have to pay close attention: any small typing mistake can cause the process to fail. In the second Tab in the excel-file -Explanation- you can find some more examples.

First you type the classroom to which the pupil (or staff member belongs), such as Y6A. Check what the class is called on sCool, by looking at the top bar of your browser at the URL of the classroom. 

After that you have to assign the groups this person belongs to. It is a student, so you will have to put in the group 'Pupils'. A teacher will belong in the 'Teacher' group obviously, but you might want to check the way the groups are spelled in your sCool. You use the ~ symbol to assign a group:

Imagine this pupil is also a member of the sCoolPaper Redaction. You will want to add this group to the membership as well. To add several groups (and separate them from each other), you can use a | symbol. This is a vertical line and not a letter l or capital i. 

Teachers are added in the same way as pupils. They are provided with special access to the Teachers Lounge.

Step 2: Save the list as a .csv file

Excel normally saves files in the standard format: .xls. But we need a .csv file for our purposes. That's why you should shoose 'Save as...' in the menu and choose for the option 'Comma Seperated Values'. Give the file a clear name and save it in a place where you can easily find it. In the next step, you will have to edit the file. 

Step 3: Correct the .csv file

Open your .csv file (from step 2) in a program to edit 'flat' text, such as Notepad or TextEdit.

What do you have to do next? It is very simple: you have to replace all semi-colon (;) symbols by a comma (,). You can do that by pressing the CTRL and F buttons on your keyboard (on Windows) or cmd and F (on Apple). This will bring you to the search function. Choose the 'Replace all' function to replace all semi-colons by commas. 

Save the file again, but leave it open. You will need to access the information in it again soon. 

Step 4: Input the .csv data into sCool

In your sCool community, surf to the Manage Members panel. You can do that by clicking on the cogwheel in the top right of any page. In the control panel for administrators you can choose the option 'Manage Members'.  

On the right of the page, click on "Bulk Member Upload". 

After that you will land on a page where you can input your .csv data into the system. In the field 'Title' you can choose a handy title for your upload, or you can just leave the default option. That one is particularly handy, because it shows the date and time, making it easier to check the data afterwards. 

Copy the contents of your .csv file and paste the data into the field 'CSV Data'.  

Done? Click on the 'Upload Members' button at the bottom of the page.  

Step 5: Succes

You will receive immediate feedback on your input. If there was a mistake in the data, the sCool page will let you know, so you can fix it. 

Your upload will be shown in a list, with the status 'pending' next to it. This means the data is still being put into the system. If you refresh, you will see the status change to done. 

Succes!