Adding Students to Forefront (Data File Upload)

All districts will need to perform this step for an initial configuration and then at least once annually since the students will need to be placed into their new grades. Most schools will choose to create accounts for students using the Excel spreadsheets. You may access the file template from within the Admin tools or here.

See the article on Adding New Students Manually to use the manual tools when you only have a few new students to add or to change a student’s information (e.g. a student changes schools, etc.)

Student Upload Template

The template includes the following fields:

• Firstname: Enter first names as they will appear to the end user.
• Lastname: Enter last names as they should appear to the end user.
• Student ID: The student ID serves as a unique identifier for each student in Unity. This number is usually produced by the Student Information System.
• State ID (optional): This id is sometimes used to refer to other systems for the import of state assessment results.
• Alternate ID (optional): Some districts have another id that is used to refer to other systems. Use this column for that number if you believe it could be helpful at some point.
• Gender* (optional): Please enter the full, capitalized words Male and Female.
• Ethnicity* (optional): Enter White, Asian, Black, Multiple, Latino, Native, or Pacific.
• Language Proficiency* (optional): Enter NEP, LEP, FEP or English. These codes stand for Non-English Proficient, Limited English Proficient, Fully English Proficient or English. If other categorizations are required, please contact us.
• Grade: Formatting is important here (like everywhere). Enter Kindergarten, First grade, Second grade, etc. This should be the grade level that the student is in, not necessarily the course. For example, there could be a student who is a second grader who will be taking 3rd grade math. Second grade should be entered for this student.
• NCES ID: This associates the student with a school a school that you created in School Information. To prevent Excel from converting this cell to exponential form, format cells as “text” and type the full number into the first cell before copying to other cells.

*Note: Demographic information is optional, however, some reporting functionality will be lost without this information. These can be updated at a later time if there is an interest in getting started quickly. 

How to Prepare the Student Upload Template

1. Download the spreadsheet to your hard drive on your computer or to your drive.
2. Enter all the required information as described above. Please check your formatting: the site is case sensitive and extra spaces also cause problems.
3. Save the spreadsheet as a csv (comma delimited) file on your computer. Your computer will probably give you some warning about losing some formatting. That is ok.
4. Return to the Admin tab on Forefront and upload the spreadsheet there.

You will get an error report. If no errors are listed, that means there were no errors found and you are good to go!