Rostering for a single school via CSVs (manual)

To create teacher and student accounts, you will fill out two spreadsheets (CSVs) of basic data for teachers and students and then upload those spreadsheets to Literably via your rosterer account. View the video guide below to see a demo of this process, and review the step-by-step directions in this article when completing your files.

The how-to article is divided into 4 sections (stop the video at the timestamps to skip to those sections):

• Part A: Before you complete the files (0:23)
• Part B: Completing and uploading the files (1:14)
• Part C: Making rostering changes (11:21)
• Part D: Notes

PART A: Before you complete the files

1. Download the blank files

You'll need two files: teachers.csv and students.csv

(Once these files are completed, they will need to be uploaded as CSV files, with the same titles as above.)

2. Gather data for files

Collect information about which teachers/students will be using Literably and locate the necessary data (such as teacher and student IDs) in your SIS.

3. Preserving "trial" data: If a teacher added students to their dashboard via the blue "Add Students" button during a Literably trial, their trial students' assessment data will NOT be preserved unless you do the following things:

• On your students.CSV, each student's first name, last name, and grade must be listed 100% identically to the first name, last name, and grade of that "trial" student shown on the teacher's dashboard.
• Literably will not overwrite existing passwords associated with trial teachers' accounts.

4. Moving to Clever or ClassLink in the future? If yes, please follow the below steps to ensure your students' assessment data is preserved.

• If you anticipate using Clever in the future for rostering purposes, it is important that:
  • Each student's Student ID (column A of the students.csv) is identical to the student's SIS_ID as listed in Clever.  
  • Each teacher's Teacher ID (column A of the teachers.csv) is identical to the teacher's SIS_ID as listed in Clever.  
• If you anticipate using ClassLink in the future, Literably will use the sourcedid from your district's OneRoster files (located on your district's users.csv) for each student's unique ID and each teacher's unique ID. Thus, it is important that:
  • Each student's Student ID (column A of the students.csv) is identical to the student's sourcedid in your district's OneRoster files.
  • Each teacher's Teacher ID (column A of the teachers.csv) is identical to the teacher's sourcedid in your district's OneRoster files.

5. Rostering for multiple schools: If you are rostering for multiple schools and not using Clever or ClassLink, please use these directions.

Part B: Completing and uploading the files

1. Complete the Teacher File

Please do not remove or change the header row (pictured below). The header row should be row 1 in your teacher file.

In the teacher file, please include everyone who will need access to Literably. This might include:

• Classroom teachers
• Intervention teachers
• Instructional coaches
• Reading specialists
• Special education teachers
• Principals

Fields in teachers.csv

*Teacher ID: teacher ID from your student information system. IMPORTANT: Must be unique across district. If you're re-uploading your teachers.CSV, please ensure you continue to use the same Teacher ID format that you originally used. If needed, each teacher's email address can be used as their Teacher ID.   
*Title: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, Dr.
*First Name
*Last Name
*Email: Must be unique.  Teachers will use this email to log into Literably. Emails are not case-sensitive.
*Password: You can set the same password for all teachers. Teachers will use this password to log into Literably. Passwords are case-sensitive.
School Admin: yes or no. Yes gives this user access to all teacher dashboards in the school, along with other user actions (more details here). Use for principals, interventionists, etc.

* = required field

Sample completed teacher file:

2. Complete the Student File

Please do not remove or change the header row (pictured below). The header row should be row 1 in your student file.

In the student file, please include all students who will be using Literably.

You may find it most efficient to export the required data from your Student Information System (SIS). Then, copy and paste it into the correct columns in the Literably files.

Fields in students.csv

*Student ID: SIS_ID from your student information system. IMPORTANT: Must be unique across the district. If you're re-uploading your students.CSV, please ensure you continue to use the same Student ID format that you originally used.  
*Grade: PK, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

• Please use the grade formats seen above. Do NOT use 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

*First Name
*Last Name 
*Teacher ID: must match a Teacher ID from teachers.csv
Secondary Teacher ID: enrolls the student in a second teacher's class. Must match a Teacher ID from teachers.csv. A student can be assigned to a maximum of 2 teachers using this rostering method.
Username: If you do not set student usernames, students will login by typing their teachers' email and picking their name from a list. If you set student usernames, each username must be unique across the district. Usernames are not case-sensitive. (See the different login methods here.)
Password: If you set student usernames, then student passwords are required. You can set the same password for all students.  There is not a character restriction on passwords, and passwords are case-sensitive.
**Initial Level: student’s initial reading level (can import DRA, F&P, STEP, and PM Benchmarks scores as long as the same system is used for all students). This will populate the "Next Assessment" column of the teacher dashboard. Not necessary if a student has already completed assessments in Literably.
Level Imputed: optional true/false field (defaults to false). If TRUE, will treat the supplied initial level as merely a guess and allow Literably to level a student below that level. Only relevant if Initial Level is supplied.
**ELL: optional true/false field indicating English language learner status. Used in conjunction with home language for accent adjustments. We recommend completing the ELL data columns where applicable. This helps to prevent ELL students from being unfairly penalized for accented pronunciations (more info here).
**Home Language: Use either the language name according to this article, or the CA home language codes here.

**Gender: M if male; F if female; X if non-binary

**Hispanic Ethnicity: Y if Hispanic; N if Non-Hispanic

**Race: Please list one of the below options

• Asian
• Black or African American
• American Indian or Alaska Native
• Two or More Races
• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
• White

* = required field

** = highly recommended field

Sample completed student file:

3. Upload the Files

A. Log in to Literably, click your username in the top right, and click Rostering.

If you do not see rostering, email [e-mail] for help.

B. Upload both files at the same time. The files must have exactly these filenames:

teachers.csv

students.csv

To select two files at once, press and hold CTRL (PC) or COMMAND (Mac) and click on both of the files. When both files are highlighted, they have both been selected for upload.

C. Within a few minutes, Literably will send you an email with the results. This email will indicate if there were any errors in the files. If errors were detected, please correct the errors and re-upload. Note:

• If you upload teachers.csv and students.csv and there are errors in just one of the files, you must re-upload both teachers.csv and students.csv.
• Your CSVs' "row headers" are not counted as rows in the results emails that Literably sends.  Thus, if we indicate that there was an issue with row 10 in your students.csv, you may need to make a correction to row 11 in your students.csv

D. After you upload your spreadsheets, teachers (and students) will NOT get an automatic email with their Literably information (e.g., passwords). Thus, you may want to email them separately with any information you want them to be aware of.  Please check out our customizable "Launch Letter" to help with this.

Part C: Making Rostering Changes

1. If you need to make any changes to your rosters in the future, you will simply update your spreadsheet files and re-upload to Literably.  As a best practice, we recommend that you save your most up-to-date rostering spreadsheets somewhere where you can easily access them (e.g., save the files in a folder on your desktop).  This will allow you to quickly make rostering updates to Literably (if needed) throughout the school year.

2. Adding or deleting teachers or students: To add a teacher or student, add the entry to a new row in the corresponding CSV file. To delete a teacher or student, remove that row from the CSV file. (If there's been a teacher change, don't forget to assign the appropriate students to the new teacher.)

3. If students have taken assessments, will their assessment data be erased if I make rostering changes? As long as the student IDs used for students (in Column A of students.csv) do not change from one upload to another, students’ historical assessment data should remain unchanged.

4. Teacher and student credentials will be rewritten whenever these roster files are uploaded, even if these accounts already exist.  Please note a few unique exceptions below:

• Teacher passwords: If you re-upload a teachers.csv, we will not rewrite an existing teacher’s password, since sometimes teachers change these deliberately.
• Student passwords: If you re-upload a students.csv with a blank password column (only relevant if your students sign in via usernames and passwords), your students' passwords will not be rewritten.  However, if you re-upload a students.csv with new passwords inputted in the password column, those students' passwords will be rewritten.
• Initial levels:
  • If you re-upload a students.CSV with a blank initial level column, we will NOT rewrite students' initial levels (found under the "Next Assessment" column).
  • If you re-upload a students.CSV with the Initial Level column filled out, we will rewrite students' initial levels (found under the "Next Assessment" column) unless a student has taken at least one assessment. 
• ELL and Home Language
  • If you upload a students.CSV with ELL and Home Language information for students and then on subsequent uploads, you do not include that information, those students' original ELL and Home Language information will not be preserved (i.e., it will be reset to blank).

5. What happens if teachers add students manually with the blue “Add Students” button on their dashboard? Adding students this way is not recommended if your school is rostering via CSVs, as this may create duplicate accounts for students. If you notice duplicate accounts, please reach out to [e-mail].

Part D: Notes

1. Files with duplicate usernames, emails, teacher IDs, or SIS_IDs will be rejected.

• Note about duplicate usernames: If a username is already in use within all of Literably, the user account will not be created.  The rosterer will see an error message in the rostering email. 
  • Example: "Unable to create student with ID s12345 because username Rudy is taken".

2. Rows missing required fields will not be processed.

3. Rows assigning a student’s primary teacher to a user with no school will not be processed.

4. Usernames are NOT case-sensitive.

5. Literably does not support associating teachers with multiple schools. If multiple schools are listed for a teacher, she will be associated with the first school.

6. If Literably can't find a teacher account with the given Teacher ID, but it does find a teacher account with the given email, the existing teacher account will be updated to reflect the information in the roster file.

7. These files should be in standard CSV format (not Excel) with UTF-8 encoding and commas as delimiters. Quoting is required where there are commas in a field’s text, but is otherwise optional. The first row should be a header row consisting of column names, which should match the names of the fields in this document.