Import and Export Objects

Owned by Hannah Petty
Last updated: Nov 02, 2015Version comment
6 min read

In this section:

Overview

The export/import feature lets you export the properties for certain objects to a spreadsheet, edit those properties, and import them. This is an efficient way to:

  • Add many objects all at once
  • Change properties of many objects all at once
  • Extract the properties of many objects to a spreadsheet for further manipulation

You might use this feature when:

  • Your institution has built a new, fully equipped lecture hall. You need to add many new rooms. This is an add many operation.
  • You have added organizations to allow delegated administration. Many objects (courses, sections, rooms, users) that had been owned by the parent organization (the university) should now be owned by a particular child organization, such as the law school. This is an edit many operation.
  • You want to post the EchoCenter URL of many sections to your learning management system (LMS), but use an LMS that is not integrated with the EchoSystem Server (ESS). You can extract the URLs to a spreadsheet then copy-paste them to your LMS. This is an extract operation.

You can do these operations efficiently by using the import and export features with a spreadsheet program such as Excel.

EchoSystem allows for import and export of the following objects:

You must be logged in as a System Administrator or the Administrator of the parent organization to use this feature. When you export or import objects, all objects of that type (all courses, all sections, all rooms) are exported. Export cannot be limited by the organization. That is why only System Administrators or parent organization Administrators (but not child organization Administrators) can use this feature.

The basic steps are the same for all operations.

  1. Export existing objects. Do this even if you are doing an add many operation because it gives you a properly formatted spreadsheet.
  2. Edit the spreadsheet.
  3. Import the spreadsheet.

General Procedure - Export Objects

This procedure shows how to export users. Adapt this process to export other objects: courses, sections, schedules, rooms, or Personal Capture licenses.

  1. Navigate to Configuration > Users.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
  3. Click Export.
  4. The user records are exported to CSV file. You can open this file in a spreadsheet program such as Excel.

General Procedure - Edit the Spreadsheet

  1. Follow these best practices to reduce the possibility of errors:
    • Adjust the cell margins so you can easily see the content of each cell.
    • Sort the spreadsheet so the relevant cells display at the top of the page.
    • For add many operations: clear the existing data cells, but preserve row 1, the heading cells.
  2. Enter and edit data.
    • If you change an object's organization, see Inheritance When You Change an Object's Organization.
    • In the example shown below, David Goodwin, who had been Academic Staff for the university, becomes Academic Staff for the engineering school and a Scheduler for CLP. Gilda Good, who had been a Scheduler for the university, becomes a Scheduler for the engineering school.

      Screencapture of portion of edited spreadsheet as described.

  3. Save the edited spreadsheet as a CSV file.

General Procedure - Import Objects

This procedure shows how to import users. Adapt this process to import courses, sections, or rooms.

This procedure assumes you have already exported objects and edited the spreadsheet. You must have a properly configured spreadsheet to import.

  1. Navigate to Configuration > Users.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
  3. Click Import. The Import Users screen appears.
  4. Review the help text. Make sure your import file is properly configured.
  5. Click Browse.
  6. Select the import file.
  7. Click Import. The file is imported and processed. Results of the import appear in the field at the bottom of the screen.
  8. Review the results.
  9. Notice in the example below that two users were not updated because the import file was not properly configured.
    screenshot of Import Users page with results after import as described.
  10. Scroll to the bottom of the results field to review the summary. In the figure below, notice that the two users edited in the procedure above, David Goodwin, and Gilda Good, were updated.
    screenshot of updated users as described.
  11. Decide if you need to edit the import file and re-import. You may want to copy the results to an editor (Notepad, TextEdit) or make notes about edits required.
  12. Click Done.
  13. If you like, check one or two user profiles to see the effect of the imports. The below example shows the user profiles for David Goodwin and Gilda Good.
    screenshot of updated user profiles from import.

Example - Move Courses to a New Organization

In this example, you move a course to another organization. Sections, schedules, and Echoes associated with the course move to the other organization.

This example follows the general procedures outlined above.

  1. Export the courses.
    1. Navigate to Schedule > Courses.
    2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
    3. Click Export Courses.
    4. The course records are exported to a spreadsheet named course-<num>.csv, as shown in the example below. If you have a spreadsheet program installed, it opens automatically.
      screenshot of exported spreadsheet as described.
  2. Edit the spreadsheet. See General Procedure-Edit the Spreadsheet for details and best practices.
    • You can change the course name, Identifier, and Organization.
    • In the example shown below, Blended Learning is moved from Echo360, the parent organization, to the School of Arts and Sciences. The Identifier changes from ECH101 to EDU201.
      screenshot of spreadsheet section showing changes as described.
  3. Import the edited spreadsheet, adapting the general procedure on importing.

Example - Add New Rooms

When you move a room to another organization:

  • Devices associated with the room move to the other organization
  • If a schedule is associated with the room, the schedule is no longer accessible to the originating organization after the change. The import fails for that room. To avoid this failure, remove the room from the schedule before moving the room.

This example shows how to add new rooms. For each room, you specify:

  • Campus
  • Building
  • Room
  • Organization

This example follows the general procedures outlined above.

  1. Export the rooms.
    1. Navigate to Configuration > Rooms.
    2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
    3. Click Export.
    4. The room records are exported to a spreadsheet named room-<num>.csv. If you have a spreadsheet program installed, it opens automatically.
  2. Edit the spreadsheet. See General Procedure-Edit the Spreadsheet for details and best practices. The example below shows an edited spreadsheet ready to be imported.
    screenshot of spreadsheet ready for import.
  3. Import the edited spreadsheet, adapting the general procedure on importing.  

Example - Edit Existing Users

This example shows how to edit existing users. When you export and import users you can edit:

  • Last name.
  • First name.
  • E-mail address.
  • User name.
  • Password. Passwords are only required for new administrative users, users who require an updated password, or for organizations not using LDAP. In most cases, you can leave the field blank.
  • Organization.
  • Role. If a user is assigned two roles, you can change either or both roles. If a user is not assigned a role, you can add up to two roles. 

Student Users must NOT have Organization or Role assigned

If you are importing Student users via the spreadsheet import, be sure there is no Organization or Role associated with any of the students. The ESS automatically identifies any user with no role or organization as a Student user.

You can add or change organization roles via import/export, but not section roles. You can, for example, add an individual to the organization in the Academic Staff role, but you cannot make her an Instructor for a particular section. To make someone an Instructor, you edit the People and Section Roles setting for the section.

To export and import users, follow the general procedures above.

  1. Export users.
  2. Edit the spreadsheet. See General Procedure-Edit the Spreadsheet for details and best practices.
  3. Import users.

Example - Post EchoCenter Page URLs to an LMS

You do not need to export section properties in order to move a section to a new organization. The section moves with the course when you move the course.

You might, however, want to use export and import to post EchoCenter URLs to your LMS.

This can be tedious if you have many URLs to post. You may prefer the method described here: exporting the URLs to a spreadsheet and then copy-pasting to the LMS course page from the spreadsheet.

  1. Export the sections.
    1. Navigate to Schedule > Courses.
    2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
    3. Click Export Sections.
    4. All sections for all courses are exported to a spreadsheet named section-<num>.csv. If you have a spreadsheet program installed, it opens automatically.
  2. Copy-paste the URLs from the spreadsheet to the LMS.