MicroGrade Online is designed to allow administrators to upload data to the system from text files, including staff members, students and classes. If you can export course data from your school information system (SIS) into Excel, you can easily export that data from Excel into a text file for upload to MicroGrade Online.

How Courses and Sections Work In MicroGrade Online:

Courses in MicroGrade Online can be considered as a school-wide area of study. (As described in a subsequent tutorial, each Course contains one or more classes (Sections). Each Section (class) has an assigned instructor (or more than one instructor for team teaching).) For example, you might have a course called "Mathematics", divided into several sections: Math 101, Algebra I, Algebra II, Calculus, etc. Sections can be considered as individual classes within a course, each with their own teacher, set of students, meeting times, etc. The hierarchy would be something similar to the following example:

Course Title: Mathematics

• Section: Math 101, Period 1, Mr. Jones
• Section: Math 101, Period 1, Mr. Smith
• Section: Algebra I, Period 3, Mrs. Smith
• Section: Algebra I, Period 4, Mrs. Smith
• Section: Algebra II, Period 5, Mr. Robertson
• Section: Calculus, Period 6, Mr. Johnson

To export a text file from Excel:

1. Open an Excel file containing the course data you wish to import.

2. Make sure the file only contains the following information and is displayed in this order: Unique ID, Title, Description, Grade Level (optional), Subject (optional). Note that you will need to be sure each ID is unique and not already used by another course in the system, otherwise the course information you are uploading will replace the course information already in the system.

3. Go to the File menu and click on Save As

4. The Save As dialog will appear. Enter a name for your file, such as "Courses", then click the "Save As Type" drop-down menu at the bottom and select "Text (Tab Delimited)(*.txt)

5. Click the Save button to save your text file.

To upload a text file of courses to MicroGrade Online:

1. Click the System Setup link that appears on the right-hand side of the page under the My School header.

2. The System Setup page will appear. Click on the Upload Data link.

3. The Upload Data page will appear. Click on the Upload Courses link

4. The Upload Courses page will appear. Click the Browse button.

5. The File Upload dialog will appear. Locate the file you wish to upload and click on it to select it, then click the Open button to proceed.

6. Click the Field Separator drop-down and select the field separator that corresponds to your file (Pipe, Tab or Comma). In our example we created a tab-delimited file, so we will select Tab from the drop-down menu.

7. Click the Upload button and an upload progress page will display. The records uploaded will be displayed, along with any errors encountered. When the upload is completed, a button labeled "Click here to continue" will appear. Clicking this button will return you to the MicroGrade Online home page.