Preparing and Uploading Your Roster File

What is a Roster File?

Your roster file is an Excel or CSV spreadsheet that tells the platform who will be taking your surveys. For example, student surveys require a roster file that lists each student who will be taking the survey. A roster file helps ensure that all respondents receive a survey for their correct school, district, or teacher; whichever is the subject of the survey.

Our survey taking process is confidential; while we do use respondent information to create surveys and link responses to different demographic groups in reports, we do not show individual responses. One exception is for Student SEL Competency surveys, for which we do provide student-level reports.

Note: Districts and Schools whose Student Information System (SIS) is integrated with Panorama can use our Successports functionality. Successports allow you to load student roster data from Student Success when setting up your survey. Learn more about this functionality in Panorama Academy.

Download a Roster File Template

To ensure that your roster file is automatically understood by our system, we recommend that you download the appropriate roster file template and use it to format your data. If you are not the one who will upload the final file, please download the correct template and send it to your district or school's data team, who can provide you with the correct data to upload. You'll also find these files in the platform (Figure 1.).

(Figure 1.)

Download the roster template for the survey you plan to administer.

Data Quality Checklist

While preparing your roster file, we encourage you to use our Roster File Data Quality Checklist, which provides step by step instructions for cleaning up your roster file and making sure the data is uploaded correctly. 

Upload Your Roster File

You can use our Rosters Tool to securely upload student, staff, and family roster files and perform preliminary data integrity checks to ensure a smooth survey administration. In addition to performing an initial review of your data file, this tool minimizes the transfer of sensitive information via email.
You can navigate to the 'roster upload page' when you are setting up a new survey or by clicking the 'Rosters' tab at the top of your page (Figure 2.).

(Figure 2.)

Once you have selected your roster upload location, select Upload file (Figure 3.).

(Figure 3.)

After selecting Upload File, a window will appear listing the required columns needed in the file and an area to click and upload your CSV file. The required columns are determined based on the roster file template selected. Drag and drop the file or click choose a file to upload (Figure 4.).

(Figure 4.)

Once the CSV file is uploaded, select the correct row that indicates the file’s correct header row. Then, click Next. (Figure 5.)

(Figure 5.)

Once you’ve confirmed your headers, you’re ready to map! Column mapping is required to describe what data is represented in each column. For example, student grade levels should appear in the 'student grade level' column when mapped correctly, student names, in the 'student name' column. Use the drop-downs to categorize each of the column titles from your file when you are mapping (Figure 6.).

(Figure 6.)

On this page, you will see the uploaded columns, sample data, and the corresponding template columns. Required columns must be mapped to continue to the next step. All other columns can be left unmapped or removed by clicking on the trash bin icon. To continue, ensure all required columns are mapped.

• If uploaded columns have been labeled as Unmapped, manually map the columns by selecting the dropdown in the corresponding template column (Figure 7).

(Figure 7.)

• If a column name is missing, add a new column name by clicking + add name. Type in the new Column name and select the Data type (Figure 8.).  

(Figure 8.)

Note: Uploading an additional new roster for surveys that are open, will not automatically create new surveys for students. To add students to a new survey, please review the Panorama Academy article.

Reviewing and finalizing data

Once the data file has been mapped, you can check for any errors or inconsistencies in the data. If any errors are detected, the tool will clearly indicate them, allowing you to review and correct them before proceeding (Figure 9.).

(Figure 9.)

To identify and review errors, you can either edit the cell directly, select the Rows with issues tab or review the All Issues sidebar. You can also use Find and replace in the top right of the screen to quickly find and correct errors (Figure 10.).

(Figure 10.)

If there are any problem rows, they will be marked with a highlighted cell. You can either directly edit the cell or use the More actions option to make bulk changes to the file. These changes may include remapping a column, filling empty cells, or deleting rows with errors (Figure 11). 

(Figure 11.)

To make direct edits, click on Edit cell and enter the necessary information for the column (Figure 12.).

(Figure 12.)

Additionally, you can choose to export the CSV file, edit it, and then re-upload it with the corrected data (Figure 13.).

(Figure 13.)

After the mapping is completed and all errors are corrected, click Import (Figure 14.).

(Figure 14.)

Once the data has been imported successfully, the window will automatically close and return to the Data Summary page (Figure 15.).

(Figure 15.)

Read through this to make sure that the numbers of schools, students, employees, and family members matches what you expect as this summary is identifying what appears in your roster file. This is an important moment to pause and make sure no one is missing from the file. It is also possible that you might see errors or warnings to resolve before approving your survey.

Additional Resources

Use Teacher, Staff and Student Google Passwords to Access Surveys (Google SSO)

• If your district assigns Google email accounts:
  • Teachers, staff members, and students can access and respond to Panorama surveys using their Google passwords (Google SSO).
• Using Google SSO:
  • Teachers, staff, and students do not need to enter an access code to access surveys.
    They can simply click the provided link and enter their Google password to access a survey.
    To enable Google SSO for surveys:
  • Ensure student emails are imported as the access code in the Student Roster.
• When teachers, staff, and students click the survey link:
  • The Google Sign-In page will appear. After logging in, they can access the available surveys. See some visuals of how this will look for students here.

If they click Exit or the survey times out, they can enter an access code or their Google password to access the surveys again.

Roster File Guides

Review the roster file guides  below to learn what information required by our platform in order to successfully upload a roster file. Each guide also provides additional information and insights that may be helpful for reviewing reports. Understanding what is required within each column of your data file helps to identify specifically what is needed.

• Data File Guide for Student Surveys or SEL Measures
• Data File Guide for Teacher/Staff Surveys or SEL Measures
• Data File Guide for Family Surveys

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