If you have student names and a parent email address, one of the most effective ways to get parents to complete their contact information is to use the Students with Parent Invitation imports. 

This import allows you to both build out the list of students in each homeroom, but also make it simple for parents to complete their contact information by having the system send an invitation to the parent via email. The invitation (the same as if you manually invited a parent from a student's profile page), includes instructions on what do to, along with a large button to begin the process. 

The file is similar to the Student/Parent import, except very little parent information is required. See below for details.

Here is the information contained in the Column Description tab:

Field	Description	Required
class_code	A unique identifier for the homeroom/classroom that the student is in. A student may be in only one homeroom/classroom	Yes
year	The school year in the format of YYYY-YYYY, i.e. 2008-2009, 2009-2010	Yes
student_id	A code to uniquely identify the student. Though this is not required, it makes it easier to use import to move students between classes, and to setup the system in subsequent years	Suggested
student_first_name	The first name of the student. It is best to use the students given name, and not a nickname, so that it is easier to match the student on subsequent years. NOTE: You can substitute the first, middle and last name fields with a single student_full_name field if you don't want to have split the name into separate fields.	Yes
student_middle_name	The middle name of the student	No
student_last_name*	The last name of the student. This can include suffixes, such as Jr or III.	Yes
gender	M or F	No
date_of_birth	The date of birth of the student	No
student_nickname	If the student is typically called something different that their first name, enter that here. It will be displayed along with the full name.	No
parent_1_first_name	The first name of the parent associated with the parent email address. This will be used in the invitation, i.e 'Dear Janet'. If you don't know the name of the parent, you can leave this blank and the parent will be addressed in the invitation as 'Dear Parent' NOTE: You can substitute this field with parent_1_full_name field if you have a full name and don't want to have split the name into separate fields.	No, but it is preferred
parent_1_email	The email address for parent 1. This email address will be sent the invitation to add their contact information. This parent will be able to add their own information, as well as other parents/guardians in their family	Yes, if you want an invitation sent. If no email address is provided, no invitation will be sent, but the student will be added and assigned to the homeroom.
parent_2_first_name	You can include a second parent to receive an invitation. We don't generally recommend this, as the two parents may add conflicting information. But in some cases, you may have two email addresses for the same parent and are not sure which is the best to use. In this case, you can repeat the name of the parent here, and place their second email address in the parent_2_email field NOTE: You can substitute this field with parent_2_full_name field if you have a full name and don't want to have split the name into separate fields.	No
parent_2_email	The email address for parent 2 or a second email address for parent 1	No, unless you want to invite a second parent, or use a second email address for parent 1

Categories: imports students parents

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