Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par genie zydiak,
Nombre de réponses : 36

I've perused several forums, but have yet to hit upon an answer for my elementary (sorry) question:  I would like to import a roster of students into my Moodle class.  The roster can be .csv or .txt format.

I'm unable to find:     1) a screen in Moodle that allows me that option  (maybe we need another module?)       or 2) directions for importing students (order of fields to populate, etc).

I'm sure many of you have succesfully done this.  Thanks in advance for sharing with me.

Moyenne des évaluations  -
En réponse à genie zydiak

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Derry Lyons,

Just a regular list? Try the "upload users" feature in the admin section. Which, of course, assumes you *are* the admin. (Hadn't thought about having course instructors add...hmmm...)

Let me know if I'm not grasping your question... thanks! sourire Derry

En réponse à Derry Lyons

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par John Hennessy,
Derry has answered this but it may be worth noting that the text file must have a first line e.g.

username, password, firstname, lastname, email, course1, course2

followed by one line of this information for each user (this example assumes you are enrolling in two courses - their short names specified in the lines of student information).

e.g. for user Gerry Hill

gerryhill, mnbvjui, Gerry, Hill, ghill@anotherplace.com, mycourse1, mycourse2

V1.6 allows more options to be specified.

More information is available in the Help file linked to the upload users page an admin sees when they go from the site Admin block to ...users ...upload users

Hope this is of some use.

Moyenne des évaluations Useful (1)
En réponse à John Hennessy

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Ace Marcellus,
I have set up the file to import with the fieldname suggested above and everytime I try to import I get a "username" is not a valid fieldname error box, the link for more information doesn't lead to anything.  Any suggestions??
En réponse à John Hennessy

Trả lời: Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Nghia Nguyen Van,

Hello John Hennessy

I don't know how to add student into class but student's password not modify

Can you help me???

En réponse à Nghia Nguyen Van

Re: Trả lời: Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Emma Richardson,
Avatar Documentation writers Avatar Particularly helpful Moodlers Avatar Plugin developers

This is a ten year old post.  You should start a new thread detailing exactly what you are having trouble with...have you checked the documentation?

En réponse à Derry Lyons

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Hector Solano,

Hello Derry,

Im wondering if this is still possible with the latests versions. 


I couldnt find the place to do it!

En réponse à genie zydiak

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Dr S Bhatia,

If you are sure you want to import multiple user accounts from a text file, then you need to format your text file as follows:

  • Each line of the file contains one record
  • Each record is a series of data separated by commas
  • The first record of the file is special, and contains a list of fieldnames. This defines the format of the rest of the file.

    Required fieldnames: these fields must be included in the first record, and defined for each user

    username, password, firstname, lastname, email

    Default fieldnames: these are optional - if they are not included then the values are taken from the primary admin

    institution, department, city, country, lang, auth, timezone

    Optional fieldnames: all of these are completely optional. The course names are the "shortnames" of the courses - if present then the user will be enrolled as students in those courses. Group names must be associated to the corresponding courses, i.e. group1 to course1, etc.

    idnumber, icq, phone1, phone2, address, url, description, mailformat, maildisplay, htmleditor, autosubscribe, course1, course2, course3, course4, course5, group1, group2, group3, group4, group5, type1, type2, type3, type4, type5

  • Commas within the data should be encoded as &#44 - the script will automatically decode these back to commas.
  • For Boolean fields, use 0 for false and 1 for true.
  • Types are used to tell Moodle whether the user is a student or a teacher if a corresponding course exists (e.g. type2 corresponds to course2). 1 = Student, 2 = Editing Teacher, and 3 = Non-editing Teacher. If type is left blank, or if no course is specified, the user is default to student.
  • For courses, use the short name for the course
  • Note: If a user is already registered in the Moodle user database, this script will return the userid number (database index) for that user, and will enrol the user as a student in any of the specified courses WITHOUT updating the other specified data.

Here is an example of a valid import file:

username, password, firstname, lastname, email, lang, idnumber, maildisplay, course1, group1, type1
jonest, verysecret, Tom, Jones, jonest@someplace.edu, en, 3663737, 1, Intro101, Section 1, 1
reznort, somesecret, Trent, Reznor, reznort@someplace.edu, en_us, 6736733, 0, Advanced202, Section 3, 3

Moyenne des évaluations Useful (7)
En réponse à Dr S Bhatia

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par genie zydiak,

Thank you all so much.  This information is invaluable.  My web host is moving my account to a PHP4 server to accommodate Moodle 1.6.

Re: importing .txt/csv files:   I couldn't figure out additional valid field names for my import file, so your listing of field names is terrific. 

From what you all have said, it appears if I have admin rights to the Moodle folder, I'll be able to upload the students from my .txt/csv file into Moodle (I won't need an extra enrollment module).  Hope I understood you correctly.

I'll post again after I they upgrade my Moodle.

Thank you again.

En réponse à Dr S Bhatia

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Jérôme Charaoui,
Thank you, very useful information indeed.

However I'm wondering if it's possible to specify an empty email address in the CSV file, so that the user is prompted to enter it upon logging in for the first time.
En réponse à Jérôme Charaoui

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Iñaki Arenaza,
Avatar Core developers Avatar Documentation writers Avatar Particularly helpful Moodlers Avatar Peer reviewers Avatar Plugin developers

As far as I know, email is a required field and you need to supply a valid value to it (i.e., something that resembles an email address).

Saludos. Iñaki.

Moyenne des évaluations Useful (1)
En réponse à Iñaki Arenaza

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Tom Cox,
Hi,
I think Iñaki is right. If i remember right, you get an error if you try it with no email provided(I have only filled w/garbage like user1@na.na).

I'm thinking(if memory serves) that you can do it from an external DB with only user/pass and Moodle will prompt for missing info(state, country, email, eye color, whatever the "required" is) at login. I would have to test to be sure.

Tom
En réponse à Jérôme Charaoui

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Brian Pool,
If you modify the uploadusers.php file in the admin folder you can take out the e-mail requirement. Why you ask would anyone do that. Well, I don't know there e-mail addresses!

I use a weekly export from our DA site to create a file of all students, in all classes, with all their personal data. I do a weekly upload so the Moodle always has the current addresses, contacts, course lists... for the teachers (locked from student view.)

I made uploadusers user the idnumber instead of the shortname, so that it would link right into the export from SIS. I also have it adding the course sections (groups) for the teachers and populating them automatically. They can still make their own groups, but the course sections are already there for them.

If you don't know how... to remove e-mail go to


$required = array("username" => 1,
"password" => !$createpassword,
"firstname" => 1,
"lastname" => 1,
"email" => 1);

and change to

$required = array("username" => 1,
"password" => !$createpassword,
"firstname" => 1,
"lastname" => 1);
// "email" => 1);

Just commenter out the requirement...

I can send you my whole file if you want. I also took out 5 courses in the upload and made it one as my export does 1 line per student per course.

Brian

FYI, by doing this you will not overwrite existing users e-mail addresses that they have setup. Otherwise you will overwrite them!

En réponse à Brian Pool

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par vinayak joshi,
Hi Brian

I want to do something opposite but am completely stuck. I am using Moodle 1.9 and want to send a welcome email to all users that I upload through a csv file. How do I do that? Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks
Vinayak
En réponse à vinayak joshi

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Harsha Prabhu,
Hi Vinayak

I have same requirement,how to send email to each uploaded users.Your post is more than one year old so u might have solved this issue please help me if u can
En réponse à Brian Pool

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Mel Ausman,
Brian,
I have looked into the files you mentioned and I cannot find the information you have above. I have the exact file name but not the code within the file? I am using moodle 1.9. ??
I have a list of students from our school server with ids,names and grade (6, 7th, 8th) without any email addresses. How would I get this in.
Mel
En réponse à Dr S Bhatia

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Davonna Willits,
What if you just want to update with new passwords? I don't want to change the current users but want to change their passwords and I sure don't want to duplicate 3,000 students.

Thanks in advance!
En réponse à Davonna Willits

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Peter Sereinigg,
Hi
You may use the User upload option in the admin area.
Read the moodle documentation, its easy to use.

First export all users and reimport them with a new password, should not dublicate your users,
BUT
test this before on a test system sourire
regards Peter Sereinigg
En réponse à Peter Sereinigg

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Lynne McCulloch,

I have imported a .csv file containing 238 new users, including a column for 'password', in which I entered a default password for all of these users.

I tested this and found that I could not log in as any one of these new users, as Moodle threw up an error message, sayig 'Invalid login, please try again'.

I tried re-uploading, setting it to update the password in the re-uploaded .csv file, but still received the same message.

Any ideas, please.

Lynne

En réponse à Lynne McCulloch

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par james mergenthaler,

I would browse the users table, so i could see the newly inserted records and what the passwords are.

login as admin - Users|Accounts|Browse List of Users.

There is a setting after moodle pre filters the importing recs and displays the qued up recs, where you can let moodle create the passwords when importing, assuming you are not migrating the old passwords.

En réponse à james mergenthaler

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Doug Dillner, Ph.D.,

I am sorry, I must have misled you with my original question -- what I meant to ask is how do I install the module? Simply placing the files in the /mod directory and going to Notification seems to do nothing in the way of installing it.

En réponse à Lynne McCulloch

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par John Andrewartha,

You can try ommiting the pasword field altogether.  Moodle will generate a random one.

Instruct your users to use the "recover forgotten password."

John

En réponse à Lynne McCulloch

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Guillermo Madero,

You might check that your .csv file is an UTF-8 file. That you can usually do by opening the csv in a text editor and saving it as utf-8 encoding.

Cheers!

En réponse à Dr S Bhatia

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par james mergenthaler,
This post is amazing. Thank you so much for the detailed example. It will inspire me to do the same when the time comes.approve
En réponse à Dr S Bhatia

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Dennis Skelton,

Hi,  I am trying to upload students accounts into my course using the csv format.  Everything works except the group function.  I have my csv file with  the heading "group1" and for each students specify "Skelton1" as the group I want them placed into.  They are not placed into this group.  What am I doing wrong?

En réponse à genie zydiak

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Dan Price,
Does importing users from a CSV file create the courses, or would I need to create them first?
En réponse à genie zydiak

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Brenda Last,

I have my excel file set up properly with headings and such.  The problem I am encountering is when I try to  upload my file.   I navigate to the file and choose to upload.  Moodle then asks if I want to open or save the file.   I have chosen both but it doesn't upload the file.   It just saves it or opens it in dreamweaver.    It isn't uploading.    What am I doing wrong?  Thanks ~ Brenda

En réponse à Brenda Last

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Mary Cooch,
Avatar Documentation writers Avatar Moodle HQ Avatar Particularly helpful Moodlers Avatar Testers Avatar Translators

Which version of Moodle are you using? Are you doing this in site admin Upload users?

En réponse à Mary Cooch

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Brenda Last,

we are using Moodle 2.0 RC1 (Build: 20101020).  yes, I am trying to upload with an admin login.  i have tried an excel file and a .txt file, it does the same thing with both.  This is the dialogue box that appears when i tell it to upload.

En réponse à Brenda Last

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Mary Cooch,
Avatar Documentation writers Avatar Moodle HQ Avatar Particularly helpful Moodlers Avatar Testers Avatar Translators

Hi there. I suspected as much -this was a bug with earlier versions of RC1 - I suggest you upgrade to the latest version , when it will work.

En réponse à Mary Cooch

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Brenda Last,

thanks for the information!

En réponse à Brenda Last

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Michael Tester,

Hi ,

I'm searching for some kind of script that I can call from command line or cron , that lets me upload users and all their fields (also custom fields) or update them from a csv file .

the reason why is that i should be able to make it a task , not running it from inside moodle by logging in .

Thanks Michael

En réponse à genie zydiak

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par dom nerus,

At my college we found solution which does the job of inputting students into groups without need of creating complicated CSV or other issues.

It is quite simple:

Example you have 10 courses with same resources but students come to college/school in morning and evening.

1. Create groups manually in only one of those courses

2. Backup that course with only "Include enrolled users" option selected

3. Restore Backup file from point 2 into other 9 courses.

4. Done (at least works at our college).

En réponse à genie zydiak

Re: Using a CSV file to Import Students into Moodle

par Chriss Medina,
Hi there, I have a doubt, I want to upload several users with csv method and with generic username, pass, email, etc. So, is there a way that at first login moodle take them to edit profile page?

Thx,

Chriss