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Importing Student Data

Liz Gehret
  • Updated

Importing student data is a vital step in implementing Handshake. It's the most efficient way to ensure you're populating accurate student information. Imported accounts are automatically confirmed in Handshake and won't require verification from the student.

Data in Handshake helps Career Services users with outreach, filtering, analytics, and populating necessary student job qualifications.

Use this article to upload your initial student data file into Handshake.

Topics:

Getting Started

1. Review the list of available student data fields, listed below - Explore the basic formatting requirements and example content to understand the type of data you'll be bringing in.

2. Outline your workflow requirements and identify any questions - Importer: Student Data Formatting FAQs Work as a team (both Career Services and IT) to identify the key fields to support the Career Services team's workflows. Explore the linked doc to determine how you'll handle edge-cases and formatting for particular populations.

3. Download the Student CSV Example (located at the bottom of this article) - Each field has its own column, and the headers must match exactly. Copy and paste from the example file to ensure your headers are correctly formatted.

4. Access the Importer to upload - Anyone who uploads data into Handshake will need access to the Importer, refer to Importer: Gaining Access. If you don't have access yet, review the brief training and contact Handshake Support so they can add you to the tool!

 

Uploading Your Student File

  1. Once your file is prepared, delete any instructions so that the header fields are in the top row.  
  2. Click File -> Save As -> UTF-8 encoded CSV.
  3. Use the Importer to upload your file:
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Iterating on Your Feedback

The Importer should give you detailed automated feedback on the formatting of your file. It can take a few uploads to perfect the formatting, so if you're encountering warnings or errors, there are a few things to check:

  • File Type: make sure you have a valid file type (we require a UTF-8 encoded .csv file)
  • Headers: confirm all headers and fields match the exact formatting requirements (The Importer will notify you if it finds data that we don't map).
  • Missing Fields: determine if values in your file aren't registering. If they don't register, they'll fail to import.
  • Gut Check: conduct a quick gut check on the data you are importing:
    • How many students are you bringing in? How many are you archiving? Etc.
    • Are you planning to create new accounts or update existing accounts?
    • What new courses, colleges, and/or campuses were found? Should this create new ones or could these be duplicates/typos?

 

Available fields for importing a Students file

Download an example Students CSV file

The fields listed below should be formatted as shown and saved as a CSV. Column headers are case sensitive and should be in all lowercase. If any of your headers differ from the formatting included below, the Importer will not identify it and it will be skipped. We recommend reviewing the example file linked above to ensure correct header formatting.

Required Fields: The column headers marked as required are necessary in the file. The column values marked as 'can't be blank' must contain values. Column values that aren't required can be left blank - this will not erase any existing data in that field.

Options fields: You can leave out any headers or values that are not marked as required - this will not erase any existing data in that field except for system_label_names. If you include the system_label_names column header in the file and leave the column values blank, this will clear all system labels in Handshake for that respective student.  

 

Glossary of Required Fields

Review the list below or Download the Student CSV Example (located at the bottom of this article)

Every student file you upload must have these seven fields: 

email_address: this is the basic identifier for each user in Handshake. This must be unique for each user — meaning that the same email cannot be tied to two student accounts. As a security measure, the institution domain must belong to your institution. If your students do not use institution emails, you can use a generic (.gmail.com, etc) address.

username: this MUST be unique and should never change for each student. This serves as the “anchor” in imports so that other sensitive fields (such as email) can be updated around this value. Most institutions will use a student’s institution ID number. This should NOT match any part of a student’s email_address, or their cardID, as both fields are subject to change (due to last name changes, lost ID cards, etc.).

auth_identifier: required if using SSO. This will be used to check against the returned attribute from SSO systems to authenticate students. Students will not enter this value on login; this is a background identifier attribute. This value CAN match their email_address value, or part of it, if necessary.

first_name: student's first name.

school_year_name: this field is where you can enter the exact institution year that a student is currently in. Here are the different values you can include in this field.

Please note that these fields are case-sensitive - values must exactly match the list below in terms of both capitalisation and spelling.
Foundation year
Bachelor 1st year or equivalent
Bachelor 2nd year or equivalent
Bachelor 3rd year or equivalent
Bachelor 4th year or equivalent
Master 1st year or equivalent
Master 2nd year or equivalent
Doctorate
Postdoctoral Researcher
Masters of Business Administration
Alumni
Certificate Program
Further education
Placement
Gap Year

primary_education:major_names: this is the name of the course(s) that this student has declared, and will populate the "courses" field on a student's profile (note: there's a limit of 255 characters per course). The formatting for these courses must be capital case, with all caps used only for abbreviated program designations (i.e., BS Physics; BA Art History). You can upload more than one course for a student by separating each course with a semicolon (i.e. Biology;Chemistry).

NOTE: This is the only field that can be used to populate courses in Handshake via the Importer. (required as of 6/11/18)

primary_education:education_level_name: this field tells you the overall level of a student. It appears on student profiles to tell people what level of education they're currently pursuing.  Here are the different values you can include in this field. Please note the capitalisation and spelling — they have to match exactly! (required as of 6/11/18)

Certificate
Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Doctorate
Postdoctoral Researcher
Non-Degree Seeking
Secondary Education
Further Education

 *If you are having trouble importing a newly required field, please contact your Handshake Relationship Manager.

 

Glossary of Recommended Fields

These fields are recommended, but not necessary. Collaborate with your team to determine which fields are most relevant to your workflows.

last_name: student's last name.

middle_name: student's middle name.

preferred_name: Student's preferred name. Any value added in this field will show up first on the student's profile. If this field is left blank, we'll display the student's First Name.

*Note: This field needs to be updated in your student system. If not, then any changes made in Handshake manually will be overwritten on the next import. 

additional_email_addresses: this is any additional alias email addresses that your students have been assigned that are in addition to the main email_address. These email addresses must be associated with your institution email domain. You can upload more than one additional email address by separating each email address with a semicolon.

primary_education:primary_major_name: this field will not show up on a student's profile, and is primarily used for FDS.  This is the student's primary course. Only 1 course can be supported in this field. The course name must already be added to the primary_education:major_names field for the primary course to be backfilled into Handshake.

primary_education:primary_college_name: this field will not show up on a student's profile, and is primarily used for FDS. This is the student's primary college. Only 1 college can be supported in this field. The college name must already be added to the primary_education:college_names field for the primary major to be backfilled into Handshake.

primary_education:college_names: this can be multiple colleges that the student belongs to (i.e., 'Trinity College' & 'Cambridge Judge Business School' at the University of Cambridge). You can upload more than one college for a student by separating each college with a semicolon. (i.e. Trinity College;Cambridge Judge Business School). Note: Due to the nature of CSV files, you cannot include multiple college names for one student if one of those college names contains a comma.

primary_education:start_date: this is the date when a student started at your institution. Please note that it has to be included in the format yyyy-mm-dd, unless otherwise specified in the job! This is incredibly useful when it comes to searching students, qualifications for jobs, and knowing when to shift students to be alumni.  There is now an option on the importer to use a mm/dd/yyyy format.  If you choose this option for formatting, please make sure you check the box next to "use mm/dd/yyyy format' when loading your file to the importer. 

primary_education:end_date: this is the date when a student is expected to graduate. Please note that it has to be included in the format yyyy-mm-dd, unless otherwise specified in the job! This is incredibly useful when it comes to searching students, qualifications for jobs, and knowing when to shift students to be alumni.  There is now an option on the importer to use a mm/dd/yyyy format.  If you choose this option for formatting, please make sure you check the box next to "use mm/dd/yyyy format' when loading your file to the importer. 
Note: Student accounts won't automatically update to "Alumni" after the given primary_education:end_date. To update accounts to "Alumni", refer to Importer: Updating Graduating Students to Alumni.

primary_education:currently_attending: this is a field that simply denotes whether the student is currently enrolled or has graduated. It's used for reporting to differentiate between students who are currently active on campus and those who might be on some sort of official absence. By assigning TRUE, this will set the user to attending, while FALSE will set them to not attending. This is a boolean field, so it can only include these values (note the all-uppercase):

TRUE
FALSE

card_id: this string must be contained in a card swipe output. This field is where you can include student ID numbers. If you want to use a card swipe to check students into events, career fairs, or other kiosks, make sure you include this field!

campus_name: this field is only used for institutions that have multiple campuses as part of their Handshake setup (i.e., 'Main'). If you have multiple campuses on your Handshake system, you can use these here.

ethnicity: the ethnicity of the student. This is a custom field that can include any text you wish to upload. This field is only visible to Career Services staff members and the individual student-  used for reporting purposes. Employers will never view this information on their profile. 

gender: this field indicates the gender of the students. The field is custom where you can include any text that you wish to upload.

IMPORTANT: the ethnicity and gender field is for internal reporting purposes only. This information won't be available to employers or used by employers for outreach. The information that's imported by your institution is different from the ethnicity and gender data that students can voluntarily share. 

disabled: this is a field that simply denotes whether or not a student's account is archived/ active. By assigning TRUE, this will archive the user, while FALSE will unarchive the user. This is a boolean field, so it can only include these values (case sensitive):

TRUE
FALSE

system_label_names: this section can be used to import any outside information that you would like to sync from your SIS that might provide more nuanced information about your students in a semi-colon separated list of label names. Some example values that we see imported here are things like Honours Student or Attending Part Time (here's a formatting example: Honours Student;Attending Part Time). Basically, this could be any type of additional information that you might want to use to organise, categorise, or parse out your students.  IMPORTANT: leaving this field blank in your import will clear all system labels in Handshake for that respective student.  System labels are added or removed in every student sync that includes this column, based on exactly what you have in this field.  If you need to remove a system label completely from Handshake so that it can be used as a normal label, please reference How to Change System Labels to Normal Labels.

mobile_number: student's mobile number. We can accept any numerical string in this field without special characters such as () or - (but you can include an optional '+' at the beginning of the string).

assigned_to_email_address: email address of the staff member that the student is assigned to. 

hometown_location_attributes:name: the address or location of a student's hometown.

eu_gdpr_subject: passing TRUE indicates this student is a GDPR Subject (TRUE/FALSE). This field is required if you want to be GDPR compliant. For more information, review our article on GDPR. 

 

Exploring Additional Resources

Check out these links to learn more about the student data import: